“When it comes to health and well-being,
regular exercise is about as close to a magic potion as you can get.”
-Nhat Hanh
Exercise holds the key to the way we move, how our body uses the food we eat, and our ability to maintain the quality of our lives well into our senior years. Becoming knowledgeable about many ways to support our physical strength, endurance, and flexibility empowers us to move more and remain viable. As we enhance our physical fitness through movement, we also improve our outlook on life, our brain's health and uplift our mood and spirit as a whole.
Daily activity and structured exercise is the second pillar of living a healthy quality of life. There is a difference between the two, but understanding the importance of each and how it affects our overall well-being builds confidence to live happier, healthier, and more purposeful lives.
Daily activity is how much movement you get throughout the day. Do you have a sedentary job, where you sit at a desk all day, or an active job such as a construction worker, restaurant server, or zookeeper? Outside of work hours, do you spend your time actively working around the house or sit in front of the TV for hours, sedentary and barely moving a muscle? Daily activity is just as it sounds. Are you moving a lot, moving a little, or barely moving at all during your waking hours?
Structured exercise, on the other hand, is an intentional activity of physical exercise that serves some purpose for the body. Structured exercise includes cardiovascular endurance, resistance or strength training, and flexibility and mobility movements. A well-balanced exercise program should consist of a variety of all three of these forms of physical care and maintenance.
This week, we will objectively review the amount of daily activity and intentional, structured exercise you incorporate into your lifestyle during a week’s time and how this lifestyle choice affects your overall health. Before we begin to self-evaluate this second pillar of good health, I want you to understand the various types of structured exercises to determine an accurate assessment of where you currently are on your fitness journey.
Exercise for your heart and lungs:
Cardiovascular exercise is a continuous movement intended to strengthen the heart and lungs and build or maintain your physical endurance (the ability to exert yourself and sustain it over some period of time). Keeping your heart and lungs healthy is crucial to maintaining an optimal quality of life and the ability to continue being active well into your senior years. Working in the gym as a personal trainer put me in contact with many of these active seniors. They were able to maintain their physical and mental abilities well into their 90’s! They are an inspiration to me and many others!
Cardiovascular Exercises (AKA Cardio) are activities such as; walking, running, biking, and swimming - to name a few of the most familiar.
Exercise intensity is described as how hard an effort you are making while doing your cardio of choice.
Low intensity, such as walking or casually biking, keep your heart and breathing rate low. You can determine your perceived level of exertion by how well you can talk while performing an activity. For example, if you can chat with a workout buddy while on a walk and speak in complete sentences before taking a breath, you exercise at a low intensity of about 50-60% of your heart rate max. You can also endure this level of intensity for a very long time. Marathon runners and long-distance bikers operate at this intensity level to last for the race distance duration.
Moderate-intensity activities such as brisk walking, jogging, and hiking will get your heart pumping faster and your lungs working harder. If speaking while doing moderate exercise, you will need to breathe every 3-4 words as your breathing rate becomes labored. You are working at about 65-80% of your heart rate max at this intensity level. You can endure this intensity level for a shorter amount of time, such as 20-40 minutes (dependent on effort), before you feel the need to quit.
High-intensity activities such as HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training), Running and sprinting, and plyometric (lots of jumping) types of exercise will push your heart and breathing rates to their limits. At this level of intensity, you will be breathless and unable to carry on a conversation. You become unable to sustain this high level of intensity for very long and may only last 1-5 minutes at such a high level of effort and energy output.
Just as you want to determine a balanced weekly exercise routine, each of these cardio intensities serves the body differently. Low to moderate intensity levels will eventually burn fat for energy, while short bouts of high-intensity exercises does not. When working at maximum intensity, you force your body into an anaerobic (without oxygen) mode, which doesn’t burn fat for energy but does help build a stronger heart and lung capacity.
Exercise specific to strengthen muscles:
Resistance or strength training is intentional and specific movements performed with added weight such as dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, medicine balls, and gym machines. These help you build or maintain strength, muscle form, and function and better perform the many daily activities of life.
Strength training generally follows a specific program and focus area to optimize muscle strength, size, and endurance. While cardio exercise is straightforward and most people's “go-to” exercise of choice, strength training can be a bit more challenging and requires a broader knowledge base. If you are unfamiliar with a strength training program, it is helpful to work with a personal trainer to learn the basics and ensure proper form.
The importance of flexibility, mobility, and body wellness:
As a personal trainer for many years, I have witnessed flexibility and mobility often dismissed as a viable part of physical health. Regular and novice exercisers tend to focus on strength training for muscle development and cardio to burn body fat and calories but rarely spend enough time taking care of imbalances, tightness, and discomfort that can result in the ongoing activities of daily life. Over time and gone untreated, these imbalances and aches can become debilitating pain in the shoulders, necks, and knees. When further ignored, these chronic pain issues result in surgeries and joint replacements.
Although many choose to disregard the importance of flexibility and mobility in favor of exercises that present visible results, such as burning fat and building muscle, our mobility becomes evident in the way we move. If you want to continue living an independent and active life well into your senior years, it is necessary to include flexibility and mobility into your weekly structured exercise program. When physical imbalances go unaddressed, our bodies begin to deteriorate, lose their structure, and become less and less able to complete simple acts of daily living.
Flexibility, mobility, and body care movements are activities such as yoga, dynamic (moving) and static (holding) stretches, foam rolling, and therapy ball work, to name a few.
Now that you know what you know. It’s time to evaluate where you are!
Let’s begin to take an objective look at how much activity you incorporate into your day. Here are some self-evaluating questions to help you look at your life from an outsider’s perspective. Again, remember the goal is not to judge, rank, or make you feel bad about your current life effort, but rather to become the knowledge you need to take the first step toward slowly improving the quality of your movement and well-being.
Daily activity self-evaluating questions:
How active am I in my everyday life?
How active or sedentary is my job?
Do I try to move more throughout my day? If so, what is it that I do to increase my daily movement?
Am I more active on the weekends than the weekdays?
What is my activity level when I am at home?
How much time do I spend sitting or driving?
Do I like to move or prefer to sit?
Structured exercise self-evaluation questions:
Do I plan and perform some exercise each week?
How many days and for how long do I exercise?
What types of exercise do I do consistently?
Does my weekly exercise program include a combination of cardiovascular (low, moderate, and short bouts of high intensity) workouts, strength training, and flexibility movements?
How do I feel while exercising?
How do I feel after exercising?
What are my reasons for choosing to exercise or not exercise?
Think of anything else you could add to the above questions that are unique to you and your life situation. You can write your answers in a journal or mull them over in your head as you review the various forms of activity and movement you include in your daily life.
Remember to take it slow and remain focused on your self-evaluation journey during April. Collect as much objective data of your current exercise and activity routines as possible. It will greatly assist you when we move forward and apply this information toward improving your health and fitness quality.
Next week Sunday, we will continue our monthly focus and practice of self-evaluation by shining the spotlight on the third pillar of good health, attitude!
Make this week a positive one, give yourself some grace, and enjoy your life's journey!
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