START EXERCISING AT ANY AGE
Here’s a New Year’s resolution I think we can all subscribe to: Get fitter. As we grow older, we need to keep active more than ever. But perhaps you haven’t worked out for years—or maybe never—and don’t especially know how to start exercising.
If this is you, I’m giving you excerpts from two Cleveland Clinic online articles. The first is a February 2016 piece titled You Can Start Exercising After Age 60—Here’s How.
Here are six practical tips to get you going.
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Get the go-ahead
If you haven’t seen a doctor lately, that’s your first stop. He or she will give you a physical exam to assess your present fitness level and make sure you’re healthy enough to start picking up the pace.
This is the time to find out whether any medical problems will affect your exercise routine. You may need to adjust for conditions such as heart problems, arthritis or diabetes, but exercise can also help you manage these conditions, so don’t get discouraged.
“The benefits of exercise far outweigh the fear of getting started,” says physical therapist Gary Calabrese, Director of Sports Health and Orthopedic Rehabilitation at Cleveland Clinic. “It increases mobility, balance, reduces chronic conditions, helps you lose weight and increases lean muscle mass. It also improves sleep.”
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Monitor your progress from the start
As you start exercising more, you may want to use a few simple tools to track your progress. Use a:
- Pedometer or activity tracker to register how many steps you take each day
- Notebook or journal to keep track of daily exercise and show how far you’ve come as you progress
It helps to track your progress from the beginning because you likely won’t see immediate results, Mr. Calabrese says.
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Now you’re ready, but start slow
All workouts should begin with a warm-up and stretching.
Simple leg and arm swings or trunk rotations are good for getting your muscles firing and your circulation going.
If you’re going for a walk, walk slowly and steadily for a few minutes before picking up the pace. You’ll find that it comes more easily as you develop a routine.
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Choose the best exercises for you
A balanced exercise routine should include:
- Aerobics
- Strength exercise
- Balance and proprioperception (the ability to sense where your body is in space)
Here are some tips to create the right routine:
Alternate days. Switch back and forth between aerobic and strength exercises, working up to at least 30 minutes of exercise, five days each week
Find activities you enjoy. In general, find something new that you enjoy or activities you enjoyed in the past, and get moving. You might try walking, bicycling, sports, dancing or pilates.
Consider swimming. Doing laps in a pool (walking or swimming) is a great cardio workout, especially helpful if you are overweight or have joint pain.
Go for a walk. Walk briskly between certain landmarks in your neighborhood. If the weather is bad, walk up and down stairs at home or do chair sit-and-stands. Start slow and increase in 5-minute increments, eventually working up to about 30 minutes a day,
Mr. Calabrese says.
Strength train. Use free weights or resistance bands for strength training. Rotate through the muscle groups — back, arms, legs, stomach, hips — to build in recovery time. Use 5-pound dumbbells or kettlebells and slowly add weight as you’re able to do more repetitions.
Work on balance every day. Try something as simple as standing at your kitchen counter on one foot and then the other helps improve balance. Yoga and tai chi are also excellent choices for older adults who want to improve balance and flexibility, he says.
“The key to remember is that you have to fit you to the program and not the program to you,” he says. If you’re having difficulty in a pilates or yoga class with one of the positions, don’t force it and cause yourself pain. Just do as much as you comfortably can.
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Self-assess to see if you are working out effectively
You’ll notice normal soreness in the first 24 hours after a weightlifting session, but if you are still feeling it after 36 to 48 hours you probably did too much, he says.
If you’re not working hard enough, you’ll know that too. “You won’t see any impact in your level of fatigue, your ability to lift and your ability to walk distances if you are doing too little exercise,” he says.
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Don’t forget about hydration and good fuel
As you commit to exercising regularly, it’s also a good time to reassess your eating habits and remember to drink plenty of water every day.
I want to add on to the above, with information on taking your heart rate from this February 2016 article by Leslie Cho, MD, How You Can Tell If You’re Exercising Effectively for Heart Health
Here is what we know so far: You should get about 2.5 hours of moderate exercise per week. Moderate exercise means that your breathing quickens, but you aren’t panting for breath. Also, you’re sweating. If you’re doing vigorous exercise, you need to exercise 75 minutes a week.
Another way to assess this is by measuring your heart rate. You can buy heart rate monitors these days for a relatively cheap price. You want to aim for about 50% to 70% of maximal predicted heart rate, or MPHR
Measuring your heart rate
Your maximal predicted heart rate is determined by your age. An approximate formula is 220 minus your age. So if you are 50 years old, then your MPHR is 170.
To determine 50 to 70% of MPHR, you have to multiply by 0.5 (50% of heart rate) to 0.7 (70% of heart rate). So if you’re 50, your heart rate should be between 85 and 119 beats per minute for moderate activity.
Some people will find this too easy. If you do, you can raise your heart rate range between 70 and 85% of MPHR for more vigorous exercise. So if you’re 50 that would be around 119 to 144 beats per minute.
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Please remember, if you haven’t been at it at all, it’s important to start exercising slowly. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard, get injured and quit exercising all together.
Here’s to your 2020 fitness! Happy New Year!