Depression and the Benefits of Exercise

Exercising for depressionExercise is a useful method of managing depression but is not a stand-alone treatment. There is research based reviews that support that exercise can reduce the symptoms of depression, and now a recent article by Harvey et. al in the American Journal of Psychiatry has found exercise / activity can prevent future cases of depression.

There are several features of the researcher’s interpretations that are useful. They concluded that exercise intensity was not relevant to the prevented cases of depression. This means that any exercise is better than no exercise. Just going for a walk is one of the simplest and easiest forms of exercise to start with. If you can’t walk due to pain or injury then we would encourage water based exercise or an exercise bike. Even a short walk will release endorphins to begin to make you feel better.

The findings of an 11 year prospective study were that as little as 1 hour of physical activity per week prevented 12% of future cases of depression. So if you are not currently exercising then just being active for 1 hour a week can help with depression. The recommended 30 minutes per day remains an ideal amount of exercise for healthy living (combining physical, cardiovascular and metabolic health) and if you achieve this you are way above the 1 hour per week required for assisting with depression.

The researchers did not find that exercise was not helpful in preventing future cases of anxiety. If you have anxiety or depression use the resources such as websites such as beyond blue and black dog institute and discuss it with your GP.

Click here to read the black dog institute’s fact sheet on exercise and depression.

Harvey et.al (2017). Exercise and the Prevention of Depression: Results of the HUNT Cohort Study: AJP in advance. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16111223,

The effect of static stretching on performance and preventing injury

Stretching

Historically many people have used static stretching – a long hold and the end of available muscle length – as a part of a “warm up” routine before sport or exercise. But the research doesn’t back it up, and it may be detrimental.

Let’s talk about performance first. Static stretching actually decreases muscle power for a period of time – the period is debatable, but at least 5 minutes and up to 3 hours – after stretching is performed1,2. This also applies for contract-relax or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching. This could easily impair athletic performance, especially in sports where high force generation is required. Dynamic exercise/facilitation exercises do not seem to have this power loss effect.

What about injury prevention? Nope, no help there either. A very large study by Lauersen et al. (2014) which synthesises the best quality research surrounding injury prevention to date reported no reduction (or increase) in injury risk for people who performed static stretching3. What they did find was that proprioceptive training, strength training and a dynamic warmup did reduce the risk of acute and overuse type injuries4,5,6.

It’s hard to break old habits, but if static stretching can impair your performance and doesn’t make any difference to injury risk, it may be time to change it up. Athletes can derive a greater benefit by spending that time on a dynamic proprioceptive, agility, strength and balance training program warmup.

If you aren’t about to perform a physically demanding athletic activity and you enjoy stretching, go for it. There is no harm in stretching and if you haven’t got the mobility to perform a sport or task then both static and dynamic stretches are options to achieve this.

To read more about avoiding running injuries, click here and to read up on how to prevent injuries during pre- season click here.

  1. Marek, S. M., Cramer, J. T., Fincher, A. L., & Massey, L. L. (2005). Acute effects of static and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching on muscle strength and power output. Journal of Athletic Training40(2), 94.
  2. Behm, D. G., Bambury, A., Cahill, F., & Power, K. (2004). Effect of acute static stretching on force, balance, reaction time, and movement time.Medicine and science in sports and exercise36, 1397-1402.
  3. Lauersen JB(1), Bertelsen DM, Andersen LB. Br J Sports Med. 2014 Jun;48(11):871-7. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2013-092538. Epub 2013 Oct 7. The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
  4. Soligard, T., Nilstad, A., Steffen, K., Myklebust, G., Holme, I., Dvorak, J., … & Andersen, T. E. (2010). Compliance with a comprehensive  warm-up programme to prevent injuries in youth football. British journal of sports medicine44(11), 787-793.
  5. Soligard, T., Myklebust, G., Steffen, K., Holme, I., Silvers, H., Bizzini, M., … & Andersen, T. E. (2008). Comprehensive warm-up programme to prevent injuries in young female footballers: cluster randomised controlled trial. Bmj,337, a2469.
  6. Herman, K., Barton, C., Malliaras, P., & Morrissey, D. (2012). The effectiveness of neuromuscular warm-up strategies, that require no additional equipment, for preventing lower limb injuries during sports participation: a systematic review. BMC medicine10(1), 1.