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C h a n g i n g t h e g a m e i n h ea lt h a n d f i t n e s s
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Muscular strength
is training your muscles to remain strong using
resistance such as dumbbells, elastic tubing or your body weight. In the past
decade, we have learned that building or maintaining muscular strength
is extremely important for a balanced fitness program. And it is especially
important as we get older.
We have learned through a variety of studies that those individuals who just
train aerobically (without strength training) do maintain their cardiovascular
endurance over the years, but they generally lose lean muscle mass as they
get older. However, those individuals who combine strength training and
cardiovascular training can maintain their lean body mass as they get older.
What this means is that if you just do cardiovascular activity, your body will
naturally lose muscle mass as you get older, and that means that you will
actually get “fatter” as you age, unless you incorporate strength training.
We have also learned that consistent strength training helps maintain bone
and muscle mass as we get older. For women, strength training (along with
cardiovascular training) may also protect against post-menopausal bone loss
and osteoporosis in their later years.
And strength training is not complicated. It is recommended that you do 8 —
12 repetitions of 8 — 10 major muscle groups at least 2 days a week. However,
you don’t have to do all these exercises at once. You can break them up into
shorter workouts throughout the day. For example, you can do just upper body
exercises in the morning, and your lower body exercises in the evening. Or, you
can alternate strength exercises with cardiovascular exercise (often known as
circuit training) by switching back and forth every couple of minutes.
The best part is you don’t need complicated equipment or fancy machines. You
can do everything you need to do with a simple pair of dumbbells, or you can try
the new Nautilus
®
SelectTech dumbbells, which provide you a wide variety of
weight options in a revolutionary all-in-one dumbbell. You can use elastic tubing,
or simply do body weight exercises such as push-ups or lunges.
flexiility
is being able to bend, reach, twist and turn with comfort and ease
as we perform daily tasks, play or exercise. It is perhaps the most ignored
component of fitness, but certainly the easiest one to incorporate into our daily
lives because it can be done anywhere and almost at any time.
To maintain your flexibility, you simply need to stretch. This could be as simple as
reaching for your toes, or reaching overhead when you wake up in the morning.
eXercise & fitNess guideliNes
