ORCHESTRA CONDUCTORS
Report #7259
Pablo Cassals, Nadia Boulanger, Arturo Toscanini, and Leopold Stokowski all conducted major orchestras into their nineties. Walter Damrosch, Arthur Fiedler, and Serge Kousevitsky conducted into their eighties. Orchestra conductors live three to seven years longer than is usual in their societies. They live longer because their conducting makes them fit.
Some of you are out-of-shape because you haven't found a sport that interests you. Try conducting an orchestra. To strengthen your heart, exercise vigorously enough to increase your pulse rate by at least 20 beats a minute. Conducting an orchestra can drive your heart rate over a hundred times a minute. Your exercising arm muscles require extra blood to supply them with oxygen. Your heart has to work two and a half times as hard to pump blood through your arms as it does to pump the same amount of blood through your legs. The blood vessels in your arms are smaller and offer a greater resistance against the flow of blood.
All of us can't conduct major orchestras, but you can turn on the radio, pick up a stick, and become fit. Try to work up to the point where you can conduct for thirty minutes three times a week. For fitness, you don't have to do more than that.
By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News
Checked 8/9/05