Cool hand exercise

Being overweight is bad news for your health on a number of fronts. To lose weight exercising and eating well are the first things that you should turn to. The problem with exercise is that if you are overweight it can be hard to do. Now a new study has found a way to make exercising just a little bit easier.

This study was done on women aged 30-45 years old with a body mass index between 30 and 34.9, which is considered obese. The researchers made the observation that obese women find that just walking around is uncomfortable as sweat and get tired because they are carrying around extra insulation. In theory, if you can slow down the rate of internal temperature rise then someone who is overweight should feel comfortable to exercise for longer.

Based on this the researchers assigned the women involved in the study to work out with their hands in a soft cylinder that contained water which was either at 37 degrees Celsius or sixteen degrees Celsius. The women did not know the purpose of the cylinder.

For three months the women took part in exercise sessions involving push-ups, lunges, and treadmill work. The aim was to build up to doing 45 minute workouts at 80 per cent of their maximum heart rates.

Over the course of the study the women with the warmer cylinder on their hands showed little improvement on parameters of exercise measured and many of them dropped out. The women with cooled hands however did not drop out, presumably because they felt more comfortable exercising. Additionally they showed improvements over the three months including; shaving an average five minutes off the time to walk 2.4 kilometres, taking an average 7.6 centimetres off their waist, lowering their resting blood pressure, and increasing exercise heart rate.

Apparently the cooling devices are cooling the blood circulating through the hands thereby pulling heat out of the body and making exercise more comfortable.

Of course Clint Eastwood was aware of this long ago when he made the film “Cool Hand Luke”. Now that we are all aware of it, what else can be said but… “cool”.