Workout Regimens You Can Live With By JOHN HANC

October 23, 2008
Fitness
Workout Regimens You Can Live With By JOHN HANC

SWIM, bike, run, rake leaves. Climb monkey bars if you’re a child, do water aerobics if you’re older. Do whatever you like. Just keep moving.

That, in essence, is the message of the physical activity guidelines announced this month by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The basic recommendations — including the core guideline that Americans should get about 150 minutes of moderately intense activity per week — have not really changed from the ones announced in 1996 by the surgeon general’s office.

What is different is the emphasis on the variety of activities — including daily chores — that can reap the profound health benefits of exercise.

There is no “one size fits all.” Instead, the guidelines are broken into specific recommendations for adults, children, people over 65 and others. And while sustained aerobic activities are the foundation, there are other types of activities — muscle-building and flexibility-enhancing — that are also important.

Here are some ideas on filling your own exercise prescription.

For the Time-Crunched

Can’t find five days a week to exercise? Train three days instead, but pick up the pace. Richard Cotton, an exercise physiologist with the American College of Sports Medicine, recommends a Wednesday-Saturday-Sunday routine. That way, he said, “you’re only getting into one of your workdays, but you don’t have any more than two days off at a time.”

Training for 30 minutes three times a week may fall short of the 150-minute goal, but the guidelines allow for as little as 75 minutes of exercise a week, provided the activities are higher in intensity. Mr. Cotton called that high-return-on-investment activity, and suggested using interval training to achieve it. Here’s how:

After a five-minute warm-up (on a treadmill or stationary bike, in a pool or even walking or jogging around a park), pick up the pace for five minutes, then go a little easier for three minutes. Repeat that pattern for the rest of the 30 minutes, making sure to end with an easy-effort, three- to four-minute cool-down. On an intensity scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the easiest effort, and 10 being all-out), your hardest intervals should be at 7 to 8, and recoveries at 5 to 6.

The same is true with strength training. Work the major muscles groups during at least two sessions a week. Mr. Cotton said you can begin to meet that part of the guidelines through a 10-minute workout using just three bodyweight exercises — abdominal crunches, back extensions and push-ups. For details on the program, visit www.myexerciseplan.com/assessment. Look for the Basic Bodyweight Strength Plan under “Keep It Simple.”

The Older Set

Older adults should try to get in 150 minutes of moderately intense activity and at least two sessions of strength training a week. You can accumulate those minutes by walking or joining an exercise class for older adults. For strength training, work with resistance bands, do bodyweight exercises or just climb stairs.

One key change in these guidelines is the stipulation that older adults should do exercises to maintain or improve their balance and to help avoid falls. Walking backward or on your toes can do that. In her forthcoming book, “Fitness After 40” (Amacom), Dr. Vonda Wright of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recommends a body movement that she calls “the stork.” Stand with your feet slightly apart. Raise one knee, while keeping your arms to the sides or your hands on your hips. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch legs. Repeat. If you have trouble at first, place your fingertips on a hard surface until you can balance.

For Children

The guidelines stipulate at least 60 minutes a day of moderate or vigorous activity for children from the ages of 6 to 17. That may sound like a challenge for parents whose children seem to prefer Xbox to exercise. But Stephen J. Virgilio, chairman of the physical education department at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., said that is an obstacle that can be overcome.

“Research shows that when kids are given the opportunity to be physically active, they will be,” Dr. Virgilio said. “It’s up to adults to create that opportunity.”

But don’t expect your children to work out the way you do. “Children are intermittent learners and intermittent exercisers,” said Dr. Virgilio, author of the book “Active Start for Healthy Kids” (Human Kinetics). “They tend to start and rest and then start up again.”

Children can accumulate exercise minutes in various ways over a typical day. A younger child could walk to school and back (20 minutes), kick a ball around after school (20 minutes), climb the monkey bars on the playground (10 minutes) and ride a bike with friends (10 minutes).

For an older child, the 60 minutes of daily aerobic and bone- and muscle-strengthening activities might be accumulated like this: walk the dog (10 minutes), shoot basketballs with friends (30 minutes) and stretch or do push-ups and sit-ups while watching TV (20 minutes).

Getting Started

The people who accrue the greatest health benefits from exercise go from doing nothing to doing something.

“A one-minute walk isn’t going to do much for your health, but it is a way to start,” said Dr. Steve Blair, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina whose research over the last 20 years formed much of the basis for the new federal guidelines. “Next week, can we do two minutes? Then the third week, three minutes. Eventually you’ll be up to 30 minutes.”

Even then, it doesn’t have to be 30 minutes at a time. “Ten minutes in the morning, 10 minutes when you come home. Weekends, try to get up to 30 minutes,” said Bill Haskell, an emeritus professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Although the guidelines urge adults to “strongly consider walking” as a way to get aerobic activity, biking and swimming are excellent choices, too. You can also get in those minutes through day-to-day activities —“heavy” gardening (defined as continuous digging or hoeing), brisk raking of leaves, aggressive scrubbing or cleaning of floors. As public health officials have been saying for a decade, exercise can be engineered into daily routines: Taking the stairs instead of the elevator or parking at the far end of the lot.

As for resistance training, you don’t have to wait. “Some find that by doing some strengthening first, walking becomes easier,” Dr. Blair said.

For Those Who Can’t Do Enough

If you’re reading this on the elliptical machine while waiting for your personal trainer to arrive, and hoping that you’ll still have time to make your yoga class, chances are you’re already meeting the guidelines. In the past, you might have been cautioned against going much further. Not now. If you are reaching 150 minutes, “we see general health-risk reductions of 25 percent,” Dr. Haskell said. “If you go above that, from say 150 to 300 minutes, we’re seeing reductions of 40 percent.”

If you want to raise the duration or intensity of your regimen, consider these combinations:

¶Riding a stationary bicycle for 45 minutes two days a week; playing basketball for 60 minutes on two days; doing calisthenics on three days.

¶Running for 45 minutes three or four days a week; doing circuit weight training in the gym (without stopping from exercise to exercise and getting both an aerobic and strengthening workout) two or three days a week

¶Playing soccer for 90 minutes one day; walking briskly for 15 minutes, three days a week; lifting weights on two days.

And as you increase your exercise time beyond 150 minutes, remember the 10 percent rule: To reduce the risk of injury, increase your training by no more than 10 percent a week.