Beginning Muscular Fitness Exercising May 2024
We mentioned in a previous update that cardiovascular fitness was one of the two most modifiable factors to improve your quality of life and health span. The other most modifiable risk factor for a long and healthy life that you can impact is your muscular fitness. Believe it or not you begin to lose your muscle mass in your 40s and if you don’t address that you will become more debilitated by the time you are in your 60s. So, what can you do to reduce your chances of becoming debilitated later in life? Have a consistent emphasis on exercising your muscles on a regular basis.
The current recommendations are performing muscular exercises at least 2-3 times per week to slow the loss in muscle mass and strength that will inevitably occur. These workouts are separate from your cardiovascular workouts, as I have found out. If you run, bike, swim or do some other type of cardiovascular exercise, you are increasing the stamina of your muscles. The intent of muscular fitness exercises is to increase both the strength and power of your muscles. Stamina is the ability to perform a sustained activity for a longer period of time. Strength is the ability to move a heavy weight and power is the speed at which you move a weight. As an example, you may be able to push a 150-pound object (strength) across the floor but it may take you 20 minutes to go 10 feet . On the other hand, you could push a similar 75-pound object across the floor in say 5-6 minutes (power) and lastly you could push a 30-pound weight across a floor for an hour (stamina). Ideally you want to develop and maintain both power and strength with your muscular exercising. This will enable you to continue to function at your optimum for a longer period regarding lifting and carrying and has implications in improved balance and overall fitness. Think carrying groceries, lifting grandkids, moving furniture, hiking, etc.
There are several ways to increase your muscular fitness. Calisthenics are a good beginning as you can to them almost anywhere and anytime. Examples of calisthenic exercises are abdominal exercises, pushups, planks, squats, lunges, chin-ups, etc. Moving up the exercise ladder next would-be utilizing exercise bands, then a home weight set, attending exercise classes or going to a gym with exercise machines, or a installing a home gym. Each of these may cost more and consume more of your time. Core exercises, those which work your core muscles, would include leg presses, bench presses, curls, and extensions exercises. There are numerous videos available to suit your needs and levels, so look around and find one that you would be able to perform consistently and safely.
You want to perform 2-3 sets of 10 repetitions of each exercise 2-3 times per week. After a few weeks you should notice increased tone, strength and power in your muscles. The goal again is to maintain your strength and power as best you can once you are over 40. Lastly make sure that you space your workouts during the week. Doing these exercises two days in a row will not have as much impact as doing them a few days apart. Your muscles grow and strengthen on your days off and during sleep, not during the workout itself, even though your muscles may feel sorest then. If you want ,you can focus on different areas each day if you want to work out on a daily basis. An example would be extension exercises for arms one day, then extension exercises for the legs next, then arm flexion exercises, then leg flexion exercises, then back and abdomen exercises as an example.
You should focus on proper technique as performing these exercises incorrectly can lead to joint or muscle injuries. Also don’t worry about bulking up your muscles with these recommendations as it takes a lot more time with fewer repetitions with higher weights to significantly increase your muscle mass. I have been doing calisthenic exercises all my life and have not bulked up on my muscles, but I do have tone, strength and power while staying lean. So what’s stopping you from improving your muscles and your life?
Beginning Cardiovascular Exercising May 2024
Cardiovascular exercise is one of the most modifiable lifestyle behaviors that you can impact on your own. Improving how your heart and lung’s function and how they support each other can improve quality of life and life span. The good news is that you don’t need much to improve it, other than time. Having a better cardiovascular fitness level will lead to better metabolism, better sleep, better mental health and much more. So, how do you go about improving your cardiovascular system? By doing more exercise! For those who aren’t already actively exercising, any amount of exercise will improve your cardiovascular fitness. Studies now show that as little as 10 minutes of walking per day can make a sizeable improvement in your health. The sweet spot for cardiovascular exercise seems to be doing at least 150 minutes per day of moderate exercise per week. This can be accomplished in several ways, such as 25 minutes 7 days a week, 30 minutes five days a week, or even 75 minutes each day on the weekend. They all will have about the same impact on improving your cardiovascular heath. The most important factor is determining what you enjoy doing and can do on a consistent basis.
The simplest way to start with is just walking. Other options are running, rowing, swimming, biking, jumping rope, exercise classes, essentially any exercise that will get your heart rate and breathing rate up continuously for the desired time period will work.
To determine if you are improving, keep track of your time, distance, and effort and you should see these improve as you do more of the exercises over time. Keep in mind that your body is incredibly adaptable and after a while your body will become adjusted to your exercise routine. You won’t continue to see as much of an improvement over time, as there is a physiologic limit to how much you can improve, but don’t let that stop you.
While there are numerous ways to measure cardiovascular fitness such as VO2 max, functional threshold testing, heart rate recovery, etc. there is no one best way. There are several simple ways to measure your fitness level depending on where your baseline is to start with. Then periodically you would repeat this test to see how much you have improved.
Many of the fitness watches now can track your exercise with heart rate monitoring, recovery rate and some include heart rate variability. You can use these devices to monitor your cardiovascular levels over time.
If you are sedentary and have not exercised, I would recommend the six-minute walk time. Simple enough to do, just measure how far you can walk in six minutes. By walking we mean that at least one foot is always on the ground at all times. This is different than jogging/running where you briefly have both feet off the ground. So, pick a starting point and use a timer to determine how far you can walk at a fast pace for 6 minutes. Notice where this finishing spot is as you will be comparing future walk times to this spot.
If you have been active already then doing a 1 mile run time, measuring your 2 minute workout recovery time, or resting heart rate are some other ways to assess your cardiovascular fitness.
Why Exercise? April 2024
What if I told you about a pill that improves your metabolism, reduces stress, improves sleep, reduces depression, improves immune system function, reduces blood pressure and improves overall energy? You would want to take it daily every day, right?
Well, there is not a pill that does this today, but exercise does this and more! You don’t need a gym membership, a Peleton, or similar pricey equipment. Exercise can be done at a low cost, can be done almost anywhere and anytime. There are two types of exercise that are the base upon which to build everything else. The two are cardiovascular exercises and strength exercises. Read on to find out how to best optimize this opportunity to improve yourself!