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Your
Personal Trainer:
The Long And Short Of Fitness Workouts
by: Douglas Brooks, MS, Exercise Physiologist
You’ve
heard it over and over again, but 20- to 60-minute workouts are
NOT fitness gospel.
In
fact, many experts now recognize that exercise sessions that last
this long are unrealistic for most people who claim they “don’t
have enough time” for this much exercise. Only about 15 percent
of Americans comply with American College of Sports Medicine guidelines
for adult fitness, which recommend 20- to 60-minutes of aerobic
exercise, three to five days per week, plus strengthening and flexibility
exercises two to three days per week.
Spoken once
as an afterthought, fitness experts are becoming increasingly aware
of the importance of getting the word out about the effectiveness
of short bouts of activity (Los Angeles Times, Carol Krucoff, December
4, 2000).
Just For The The Health
Of It.
Many people believe that getting fit, receiving health benefits
and feeling better requires a “serious” fitness training program.
This is far from the truth. Another myth stems from the belief that
if you’re fat, you can’t be fit or healthy. Can you be fat, fit
and healthy? Researchers across the world answer this with a resounding
“Yes!” You may be wondering what my point is. In one word: encouragement.
Doing something -- doing anything -- is better than doing nothing
from a health and wellness perspective.
Fitting Fitness In.
The key to “getting fitness in” is summed up by the word “accumulation.”
Researchers call short bouts of activity “sparks” or “jump-starts.”
For several years (research has suggested this for about ten years!)
it has been widely reported that 30-minute workouts could be broken
up into three, 10-minute segments or “activity sparks,” with the
expectation that similar health and fitness benefits could be derived
from the accumulated, shorter segments. A recent study confirmed
that stair climbing, done for two and one-quarter minutes, six times
per day, conferred “considerable cardiovascular health benefits
on previously sedentary young women.” Consider it safe to say, that
exercise accumulated is the goal, not whether or not the time spent
exercising was done continuously, or not.
Sticking With Fitness.
Researchers have confirmed that people are more likely to stick
to programs that are broken into smaller and more manageable time
segments. Also, it is important to believe that 2 or 3 minutes of
exercise here, 5 minutes there, and 10 minutes more later in the
day has a powerful, accumulative effect on health and well-being.
How hard should you exercise? It’s simple. Exercise with intent
or purpose. If that’s too vague for you to grasp, exercise at a
moderate pace or as if you were rushing to catch a bus.
Are Short Bouts Of
Exercise For You?
If you’re already a committed exerciser and work out at levels well
beyond those mentioned, switching to shorter bouts of exercise might
make sense during the holidays or when work or family commitments
place constraints on available workout time. Shorter workouts will
serve as a stopgap that will maintain your current level of fitness
until your schedule normalizes.
If you do nothing, or
would describe your activity habits as largely non-existent, arm
yourself with this information and the confidence that “little bits”
of exercise accumulate and really can change your life. Then, it’s
time to look for opportunities to be active. If you’re sedentary,
you really only have four choices:
- You
can remain sedentary and accept the
risks of early death, heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, osteoporosis,
weight gain and obesity that come with this choice.
- You can begin a
program of “structured activity” that includes exercising
at home and/or at the local gym on various cardiovascular machines,
as well as participating in strength training activity using machines
or “weights” and stretching.
- Place more activity
back into your daily life. This is called “lifestyle physical
activity” and includes picking a parking place far away from the
store entrance, choosing stairs over escalators and looking for
opportunities to “waste” energy instead of using labor saving
devices.
- Combine choices
2 and 3. Without a doubt, exercise adds up!
Suggested
reading:
Your Personal Trainer, by Douglas Brooks
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here for fitness equipment and workout information.
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