read an interesting article.
DeeDeeLHF
Posts: 2,301 Member
I liked this article! I have heard some say that daily activity cannot be considered "excercise" but I have often felt that an attitude of activeness is key. That is where the little things like taking the stairs or parking in the farthest parking space comes in. I have also wondered how there can be people who are still overweight and yet they run miles a day. Anyway...at first I wasn't sure about this one but the more I read the more I enjoyed it. Hope you do, too.
No Time to Work Out? Get Fit in a Flash
With these fitness shortcuts, you can exercise less and benefit more.
By Colette Bouchez
WebMD FeatureReviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MDThe idea of working out less and getting more out of it has undeniable appeal. After all, who wouldn't want to spend less time sweating and straining and more time doing more of whatever it is you like to do?
The good news, experts say, is that not only is this possible, but one key to faster fitness is turning the things you like to do into fitness activities. Walking the dog, playing catch with the kids, or working in your garden can help you reach your fitness goals.
"The goal here is to disguise your exercise," says Barry A. Franklin, PhD, national spokesman for the American Heart Association's Choose to Move program. "We have, as a nation, overemphasized the value of structured exercise and underemphasized the value of lifestyle physical activity as a way to get more fitness into our lives."
Several studies have shown that becoming more active in our daily lives can provide the same benefits -- including improvements in risk factors for heart disease -- as a structured exercise program, says Franklin, director of cardiac rehabilitation and exercise laboratories at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.
"You can actually get as much benefit from daily activity as you can by going to a gym -- and maybe more," says Franklin.
Not only that, says physical trainer Dino Novak, ACES, ACSM, but the more you move in your daily life, the more benefits you'll reap from every workout.
"If you are sedentary all week long, when you do hit the gym you've got a lot more ground to cover before you see real progress," says Novak, a master trainer and older adult exercise specialist at the Cooper Institute in Dallas.
In addition, Novak tells WebMD, an active daily life offers fitness advantages you won't find in a gym, no matter how many hours you spend there.
"The whole gym environment, especially if it's machine-based, focuses on very fixed, linear-path movements, but the body doesn't really work that way in real life," says Novak.
For example, he says, if you're walking into the house carrying your dry cleaning, drop your keys, and bend over and turn to pick them up -- all that fixed training you've done in the gym is not going to help much.
"It could even be setting you up for injury if you have muscle imbalances," says Novak.
By putting more activity into your daily life, he says, you'll not only increase your fitness level, but be able to perform routine tasks with more ease -- and, possibly, less risk of injury.
Double Up Your Workout
Another way to sneak more fitness into a busy day is to vary the activities you do during your formal workouts.
Too often, experts say, we get stuck in the rut of doing the same exercise over and over -- be it running on a treadmill, doing circuit training or riding a bike. Yet mastering a single workout isn't necessarily the way to increase fitness. In fact, it might even set you back.
Double Up Your Workout continued...
"When the body is doing a set rhythm, it expends less energy than when it's forced into multiple movements," says Novak. The more efficient the body gets at an activity, the more energy it conserves -- and the less you get out of your exercise time.
To increase the burn without adding more time on the workout clock, Novak says, vary your activities, and make each movement as complex and as varied as possible.
"For example, instead of just going for a run, do sprints -- and then stop, start, turn, twist," Novak says. "Add motion and movement into your activity and you'll literally keep your body expending the maximum energy."
Another technique, he says, is to vary your workout equipment. For example, during one gym session you might spend 10 minutes on an elliptical trainer, 10 minutes running on the treadmill, 10 minutes jumping rope, and 10 minutes doing strength training. This means your body works harder, and you'll get more out of your exercise session.
For fitness expert John Ellis Spencer, really focusing on your workout is another way to increase the benefits without working out longer. So skip the reading material on the exercise bike, and don't get wrapped up in a TV show while you're on the treadmill.
"Most people think they are working out far more intensely than they really are, and reading a magazine or book while walking on a treadmill or riding a bike encourages a more leisurely pace, so you don't get the maximum benefit from what you are doing," says Ellis, president of the National Exercise and Sports Trainers Association, in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
By paying more attention to your activity -- concentrating on posture, and technique, even speed -- you can dramatically increase the benefits.
Work More, Rest Less
While you may have set aside 60 or even 90 minutes for your weekly workout, experts say it's doubtful you're actually getting that amount of activity. And the more social and crowded your gym is, the more you are likely to get distracted into conversations that take up valuable workout time.
The key, experts say, is to talk less and move more - and to decrease your rest periods between exercises.
"If you don't give your body a chance to recover between exercises, it must get in better condition in order to repair itself for the next bout of activity -- so you're automatically getting more out of each workout," says Spencer.
By decreasing rest periods, you can also do more work in the same amount of time, he says, and that means better (and faster) results.
Even in a 30-minute workout, Novak says, reducing rest periods will also increase your challenge level - which, in turn, will increase your body's ability to recover. So you end up in better shape without increasing your workout time.
"The idea is not to increase intensity, but to challenge your body by forcing it to recover more quickly," says Novak.
Franklin agrees: "A body at rest tends to remain at rest; a body in motion tends to remain in motion. So the more you move in any given time period, the easier it becomes to keep moving."
Workouts That Work Harder
According to the American Heart Association Choose to Move program, certain activities definitely yield more results than others. The general rule of thumb: The more vigorous the activity, the less time you need to do it to get optimum results. And the more leisurely your activity, the longer your exercise session should be.
According to Choose To Move, spending 15 minutes climbing stairs, jumping rope, or sprinting a mile will give you results equal to that of playing volleyball or touch football for 45 minutes, walking 1 3/4 mile in 35 minutes, or dancing fast for 30 minutes. And you'll get the same result from bicycling 4 miles in 15 minutes as from mowing the lawn for 45 minutes.
You don't even have to do the short bouts of exercise all at one time, Franklin says.
"You don't have to put the dollar bill in the piggy bank all at one time -- you can put in four quarters, and get the same benefit -- and exercise is the same way," he says. In fact, Franklin tells WebMD, there is some evidence that several shorter bouts of exercise may be better for reducing body weight and fat than one long workout.
When it comes to working out in the gym, Spencer says you'll get the biggest result from your efforts if you trade in treadmill walking for cycling or spinning.
"If you walk on the treadmill for the same amount of time you cycle, you may build cardiac endurance, but you're not building muscles the way you are when you're spinning," he says.
And, he says, any exercise that conditions the heart while building muscle causes your body to work harder -- even when it's at rest.
No Time to Work Out? Get Fit in a Flash
With these fitness shortcuts, you can exercise less and benefit more.
By Colette Bouchez
WebMD FeatureReviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MDThe idea of working out less and getting more out of it has undeniable appeal. After all, who wouldn't want to spend less time sweating and straining and more time doing more of whatever it is you like to do?
The good news, experts say, is that not only is this possible, but one key to faster fitness is turning the things you like to do into fitness activities. Walking the dog, playing catch with the kids, or working in your garden can help you reach your fitness goals.
"The goal here is to disguise your exercise," says Barry A. Franklin, PhD, national spokesman for the American Heart Association's Choose to Move program. "We have, as a nation, overemphasized the value of structured exercise and underemphasized the value of lifestyle physical activity as a way to get more fitness into our lives."
Several studies have shown that becoming more active in our daily lives can provide the same benefits -- including improvements in risk factors for heart disease -- as a structured exercise program, says Franklin, director of cardiac rehabilitation and exercise laboratories at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.
"You can actually get as much benefit from daily activity as you can by going to a gym -- and maybe more," says Franklin.
Not only that, says physical trainer Dino Novak, ACES, ACSM, but the more you move in your daily life, the more benefits you'll reap from every workout.
"If you are sedentary all week long, when you do hit the gym you've got a lot more ground to cover before you see real progress," says Novak, a master trainer and older adult exercise specialist at the Cooper Institute in Dallas.
In addition, Novak tells WebMD, an active daily life offers fitness advantages you won't find in a gym, no matter how many hours you spend there.
"The whole gym environment, especially if it's machine-based, focuses on very fixed, linear-path movements, but the body doesn't really work that way in real life," says Novak.
For example, he says, if you're walking into the house carrying your dry cleaning, drop your keys, and bend over and turn to pick them up -- all that fixed training you've done in the gym is not going to help much.
"It could even be setting you up for injury if you have muscle imbalances," says Novak.
By putting more activity into your daily life, he says, you'll not only increase your fitness level, but be able to perform routine tasks with more ease -- and, possibly, less risk of injury.
Double Up Your Workout
Another way to sneak more fitness into a busy day is to vary the activities you do during your formal workouts.
Too often, experts say, we get stuck in the rut of doing the same exercise over and over -- be it running on a treadmill, doing circuit training or riding a bike. Yet mastering a single workout isn't necessarily the way to increase fitness. In fact, it might even set you back.
Double Up Your Workout continued...
"When the body is doing a set rhythm, it expends less energy than when it's forced into multiple movements," says Novak. The more efficient the body gets at an activity, the more energy it conserves -- and the less you get out of your exercise time.
To increase the burn without adding more time on the workout clock, Novak says, vary your activities, and make each movement as complex and as varied as possible.
"For example, instead of just going for a run, do sprints -- and then stop, start, turn, twist," Novak says. "Add motion and movement into your activity and you'll literally keep your body expending the maximum energy."
Another technique, he says, is to vary your workout equipment. For example, during one gym session you might spend 10 minutes on an elliptical trainer, 10 minutes running on the treadmill, 10 minutes jumping rope, and 10 minutes doing strength training. This means your body works harder, and you'll get more out of your exercise session.
For fitness expert John Ellis Spencer, really focusing on your workout is another way to increase the benefits without working out longer. So skip the reading material on the exercise bike, and don't get wrapped up in a TV show while you're on the treadmill.
"Most people think they are working out far more intensely than they really are, and reading a magazine or book while walking on a treadmill or riding a bike encourages a more leisurely pace, so you don't get the maximum benefit from what you are doing," says Ellis, president of the National Exercise and Sports Trainers Association, in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
By paying more attention to your activity -- concentrating on posture, and technique, even speed -- you can dramatically increase the benefits.
Work More, Rest Less
While you may have set aside 60 or even 90 minutes for your weekly workout, experts say it's doubtful you're actually getting that amount of activity. And the more social and crowded your gym is, the more you are likely to get distracted into conversations that take up valuable workout time.
The key, experts say, is to talk less and move more - and to decrease your rest periods between exercises.
"If you don't give your body a chance to recover between exercises, it must get in better condition in order to repair itself for the next bout of activity -- so you're automatically getting more out of each workout," says Spencer.
By decreasing rest periods, you can also do more work in the same amount of time, he says, and that means better (and faster) results.
Even in a 30-minute workout, Novak says, reducing rest periods will also increase your challenge level - which, in turn, will increase your body's ability to recover. So you end up in better shape without increasing your workout time.
"The idea is not to increase intensity, but to challenge your body by forcing it to recover more quickly," says Novak.
Franklin agrees: "A body at rest tends to remain at rest; a body in motion tends to remain in motion. So the more you move in any given time period, the easier it becomes to keep moving."
Workouts That Work Harder
According to the American Heart Association Choose to Move program, certain activities definitely yield more results than others. The general rule of thumb: The more vigorous the activity, the less time you need to do it to get optimum results. And the more leisurely your activity, the longer your exercise session should be.
According to Choose To Move, spending 15 minutes climbing stairs, jumping rope, or sprinting a mile will give you results equal to that of playing volleyball or touch football for 45 minutes, walking 1 3/4 mile in 35 minutes, or dancing fast for 30 minutes. And you'll get the same result from bicycling 4 miles in 15 minutes as from mowing the lawn for 45 minutes.
You don't even have to do the short bouts of exercise all at one time, Franklin says.
"You don't have to put the dollar bill in the piggy bank all at one time -- you can put in four quarters, and get the same benefit -- and exercise is the same way," he says. In fact, Franklin tells WebMD, there is some evidence that several shorter bouts of exercise may be better for reducing body weight and fat than one long workout.
When it comes to working out in the gym, Spencer says you'll get the biggest result from your efforts if you trade in treadmill walking for cycling or spinning.
"If you walk on the treadmill for the same amount of time you cycle, you may build cardiac endurance, but you're not building muscles the way you are when you're spinning," he says.
And, he says, any exercise that conditions the heart while building muscle causes your body to work harder -- even when it's at rest.
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Replies
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Great article. Thank you for sharing this with us!0
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It needs to be kept in mind that there is an agenda behind these articles and they are targeted towards the sedentary population, not necessarily the exercising population. And when I say "agenda", I don't mean anything sinister. It's just that, years ago, the "health" establishment (and Barry is about as establishment as you can get), made a conscious decision to place its emphasize on getting sedentary people to just do more activity, rather than trying to convince them to exercise.
Why? Two reasons: one--a number of long-term population studies (e.g. Framingham) have shown that increasing casual daily activity can result in a significant decrease in all-cause morbidity and mortality; two--study after study has shown that in the last 20-25 years, the percentage of adults following a "traditional" exercise program (working at a target heart rate, strength training, etc, 20 min per day, 3 x per week) has remained relatively constant--about 20%-25% of the population. This despite hundreds of millions of dollars in health promotion strategies, billions of words in the media extolling the virtues of fitness, an explosion in the construction of health clubs, etc etc.
So, it the late 80s-early 90s, the national health agencies decided it made more sense to try to get a lot of people to do a little bit more activity than it did to try to get a small fraction of the population--most of whom were predisposed to exercise anyway--to do a lot.
Articles like this are part of that overall strategy. It's kind of like the movie "The Truman Show" where they kept putting articles in the news about how dangerous travel was and how people who never left their home town lived happier, longer lives.
There are several assumptions or themes which are part of the typical "script" for this type of article:
1. Most people don't want to exercise.
2. Exercise is an unpleasant activity that even those who do it would like to get over with as quickly as possible.
3. All those "elitists" in the health clubs are no better than you--in fact, ha ha, they might even be wasting their time!
4. Fitness is so simple you can just "sneak" it into your regular routine. Why, you'll hardly even notice you're doing anything.
The more I think about it, the more similarities I see between articles like this and late-night infomercials for ab machines.
I don't say this to demean the article, just to place it in its proper context. Exercise, to a certain point, has what is known as a "dose-response" effect--meaning, the more you do, the more benefits you get out of it. That holds true up until about 2500 calories per week. Going beyond that is not in any way harmful, it just is harder to determine whether it confers any greater protective health benefit. When the "virtues" of adding more casual activity are described, as they are in this article, the target audience is the sedentary population. Adding these types of activities if you are already engaged in an exercise routine is not going to add much to your fitness level, despite the efforts of Franklin and Novak to fluff up the advantages of casual activity.
Again, I certainly am not trying to denigrate the idea of increasing casual activity--far from it. I just think it's a bit of a stretch to say, as Franklin does, that doing things like parking farther away from the grocery store can provide "maybe more" benefit than working out in a gym. One thing the article does address, albeit indirectly, is the overall importance of casual daily activity and weight loss. When we talk about "calories in vs calories out", there are three categories of energy expenditure: basal metabolic rate, exercise, and casual daily activity. The last is one we don't think much about, but it can definitely have an impact. I think we have all been in situations where we have experienced a change in life conditions (new job, leaving school, moving to a new city) which has disrupted our routine and led to a significant decrease in casual or work activity. In many cases, without changing diet or exercise habits, we have seen a notable weight gain. Sometimes people who start an exercise program do negate some of the benefit by concurrently reducing their other casual activity. So more movement is absolutely a good thing, even if you exercise a lot.
The second half of the article I agree with for the most part. Your workouts should have a focus and an efficiency.0 -
My apologies in posting such a poor article. I will refrain in the future.0
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My apologies in posting such a poor article. I will refrain in the future.
There is no need to apologize. There was some valuable information in there. WebMD is considered to be a reliable source of information for medical and health information.0 -
Thanks for posting. No need to appologise. I actually make a workout out of doing the laundry. Sort it upstairs and carry it down 2 flights of stairs with weights in the basket, one load at a time. Back up to fold the same way. I'm not an athlete, but I'm not sedentary either. I'm a normal regular busy mom. I enjoyed reading it.0
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My apologies in posting such a poor article. I will refrain in the future.
Pfft you better NOT!.
........everyone has an opinion and when they are in the field it gets too technical in their heads. Adv gives good info, but for the purpose of the mainstream population the article you posted is spot on DeeDee!!
I was standing at the gym, waiting for the treadmill to open up. I had just spent 15 minutes in traffic to go 1 mile to the gym, then 5 minutes looking for the closest spot, only to wait for the machine.
It dawned on me that if I had just walked the one mile to the gym, I would already be 15 minutes into my circuit training:laugh:
When I started to get regular exercise I found I was moving more at home too! I wanted to walk the dogs. When a good song comes on I dance to it. I scrubbed the bathroom so hard yesterday that my butt and arms are sore today:laugh:
Small things DO add up throughout the day! My Dr, Physical Therapist and Personal Trainer all gave the same advise that is in the above article, but it wasn't free!!
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My apologies in posting such a poor article. I will refrain in the future.
Don't apologize or refrain, I found the article interesting and of value. This year the senior centers started a walk around the world program. I do some on the elliptical, treadmill, dancing, yoga and such, but I do a tremendous amount of walking around town. I move every chance I get, and I enjoy it. If it's close enough to walk, I leave the car at home... I often feel like dancing, skipping, running, jumping and my heart is getting stronger, and my mood is happy. The other day when I wasn't feeling well, the thing that helped me most was moving. Every time I started feeling sore, nausea, and yucky I walked, or went on my elliptical, or something, the pain would go away. When it came back I moved more and again it would go away!. The next day I felt great as though the previous misery had never occurred. There are a lot of people in this world that are very healthy and live where there aren't any gyms, but the work they do and the conveniences they do NOT have keep them moving and going strong. When I went to a quilt guild retreat earlier this year I saw members of the towns local track team doing some of the very things mentioned in the article: sprint, jog, jumping jacks, etc... mixing it up and having fun. Lots of fun things to do, Enjoy life and move!!!!!
THANKS FOR POSTING DEE DEE! Please continue to share! It's fine that everyone doesn't have the same opinion, it helps us to think and form our own !!!:bigsmile:0 -
My apologies in posting such a poor article. I will refrain in the future.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I thought it was a "poor article". All I tried to do was provide some context on how to read these types of stories. The article contain several statements from "authorities" that could be interpreted as meaning they should not be working out or going to a gym as much as they do. I don't know about you, but that's the exact reaction I get from clients whenever these types of articles appear. Sometimes, it's not even the problem with people who are quoted--it's the "theme" that the author chooses to emphasize. Maybe I reacted too strongly because I have seen it so many times before.
I didn't think I was writing a negative comment, but perhaps I failed in that attempt. Feel free to ignore it if you like. It's just one person's opinion.0 -
It's all cool. I wasn't really sure about the beginning but I did like the middle and end. For me it is helpful to remember that if I am limited in time it is better to do something at home than "waste" the time driving to the Y but to make sure that it is something real. I also really liked the part about switching things up. I can be that person who gets on the eliptical for 30 minutes and reads for half of it. In the past I have wondered if it would be better to do 10 minutes on 3 different machines.
I just started a new routine and was so pleased to find that I was sore! There were muscles there that I wasn't using and if I had continued just doing the same things I wouldn't have known it.
I didn't take from the article that it was saying not to excercise rather that in addition to regular excercise it is important to maintain an active lifestyle. For me that means that I can be cleaning, shopping, working, playing but do some extra things to enhance the calorie burn.
For some people especially when they are just beginning and have a tremendous amount to lose the first step is as simple as "it doesn't matter what you do just start doing something!" For example, I PM'd with a woman who is just beginning and weighs well over 300 pounds. Until she gets to a certain weight her MD doesn't want her to vigorously excercise. She needs to lose 20# before she can really even begin a walking routine.
Best of luck to all of you.0 -
It's all cool. I wasn't really sure about the beginning but I did like the middle and end. For me it is helpful to remember that if I am limited in time it is better to do something at home than "waste" the time driving to the Y but to make sure that it is something real. I also really liked the part about switching things up. I can be that person who gets on the eliptical for 30 minutes and reads for half of it. In the past I have wondered if it would be better to do 10 minutes on 3 different machines.
I just started a new routine and was so pleased to find that I was sore! There were muscles there that I wasn't using and if I had continued just doing the same things I wouldn't have known it.
I didn't take from the article that it was saying not to excercise rather that in addition to regular excercise it is important to maintain an active lifestyle. For me that means that I can be cleaning, shopping, working, playing but do some extra things to enhance the calorie burn.
For some people especially when they are just beginning and have a tremendous amount to lose the first step is as simple as "it doesn't matter what you do just start doing something!" For example, I PM'd with a woman who is just beginning and weighs well over 300 pounds. Until she gets to a certain weight her MD doesn't want her to vigorously excercise. She needs to lose 20# before she can really even begin a walking routine.
Best of luck to all of you.
:drinker: in the beginning it was all about parking at the back of the lot, for me. I agree it is an addition to the workouts at the gym or running/walking....whatever.
MOVING..........I even clean the shower in a way to get in good upward extension, and deep squats........looks funny-but the door is closed:laugh:0 -
MOVING..........I even clean the shower in a way to get in good upward extension, and deep squats........looks funny-but the door is closed:laugh:
[/quote]
My kids now think washing the dishes means a dance-a-thon!!! Plus, there are chores I volunteer for that before I would have delegated, like shoveling snow or mowing with the push mower, just because it feels good to work my body in a way that I don't get at the gym.
My favorite humiliation though is when the kids friends come over and I am in the middle of an excercise routine!! I have threatened that if I see one shamu joke on facebook I will kill them all!!:laugh:0
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