Aerobics

About the Book

Arterial disease is the most serious health problem in the modern world. Isn't it curious, that with all this talk about including exercise in our life style, nowhere is there an explanation of how aerobic exercise prevents the buildup of cholesterol and hardening of the arteries? Many books describe the improved arterial profile resulting from aerobics. Extensive research has made it clear that exercise is extremely beneficial. Unfortunately, the actual cause-and-effect chain has not been understood.

In this book the information unfolds by way of a conversation between three human entities, The Mental, The Physical, and The Emotional. Revealed through their discussion are the reasons why a lack of aerobic exercise is to blame for hardening of the arteries, the development of excessive cholesterol on the inside walls of arteries, and weak collateral circulation.

As a physical educator, the author spent thirty-seven years teaching the aerobic preventive approach to arterial difficulties. He says, "We are talking about a muscle system that has been weakened by the inactivity of modern technology." This will be the first published explanation of how aerobics actually influences the inside diameter of arteries.

The projected readership will be physical educators, the medical community, athletes, and everyone possessing arteries. This fresh approach has no rival and represents a genuine advance in the prevention of arterial disease. We are not what we eat, but rather we are what we do.

About the Author: Ron Portal is retired after thirty-seven years of teaching physical education in the San Jose Unified School District.

Portal says that his career was most influenced by a thirty-five year old heart specialist who was the keynote speaker at a physical education conference in 1961. The doctor provided his audience with a detailed explanation of the effects that aerobic exercise has on the arterial system. The most interesting information he provided was that aerobic exercise lowers the resting pulse rate and that it is the elevated resting pulse rate that causes hardening of the arteries and not cholesterol. Shortly after that presentation, the young doctor unexpectedly died of a brain tumor and his revolutionary ideas about the influence of aerobic exercise were forgotten.

Portal observed that though out the 20th century increased research continued to strongly support the doctor's views about aerobic exercise and improved arterial profiles. Unfortunately the effects were not understood and attempts at an explanation resulted in blind speculation (B.S.).

Frustrated because the current general belief has cholesterol as the villain and diet as the most important preventive feature of arterial disease, Portal became convinced it is time and there is a need for Aerobics, The Invisible Advantage.