Essentials of Physical Activity

There are a plethora of reasons to become physically active.  Exercise enlivens your mood, brings good health and reduces the risk of chronic disease.  Obesity, smoking and a sedentary lifestyle all place together as the most major contributors to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.

There are four parts of fitness–flexibility, strength training, endurance training and cardiorespiratory endurance.  Flexibility is the capacity to move your joints with a full range of motion and includes warm-up and cool-down stretches as well as Pilates and yoga.  Strength and endurance training are both encompassed in weight lifting through the ability of the muscles to work against resistance contracting repeatedly over a short period of time.  Cardiorespiratory endurance is exercise that exerts and strengthens the heart muscle like fast walking, jogging, elliptical training, biking, hiking, and swimming.

Recommendations

You don’t have to be an athlete to gain the benefits of exercise.  The American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association have set guidelines for physical activity.  They recommend doing two strength building workouts a week consisting of 8 to 10 exercises (8-12 repetitions) as well as one of two cardio options:

• Option 1:  Five days out of the week commit to a moderate intensity cardio workout for thirty minutes.
• Option 2:  Three days out of the week have a cardio workout of vigorous intensity for twenty minutes.

To gauge if you are exerting yourself to the right extent, exercise of moderate intensity allows you to be able to have a conversation, but not to be able to sing.  To maintain a healthy weight and ward off cardiovascular disease, it is recommended a person have 30 minutes of exercise daily.  However, to lose weight one may need to exercise 60 to 90 minutes daily.

In summary, your fitness routine should include three necessary components:  flexibility, weight training and cardio exercises.  Shoot for eight to ten different weight training exercises and do a cardio workout three to five days a week for twenty to thirty minutes, respectively.  Occasionally switch your routine so that your muscles will continually learn new movements; staying with one routine will cause a plateau in your progress.  As well, you can live a more active lifestyle by picking up physically active hobbies and encouraging your family and friends to participate.