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| UNCLE VIC'S FIT TIP #32, 2007 — Short and Sweet
Today I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that you don't have to work out that long to get the benefits of exercise. The bad news is that you probably have to train harder than you have been training.
Recent studies by both the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine show that 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three times a week is enough to reduce the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, colon cancer and breast cancer.
The key is moderate intensity or vigorous intensity. Moderate exercise should noticeably increase your heart rate and includes things such as brisk walking and light jogging. Vigorous exercise should cause rapid breathing besides significantly increasing heart rate.
In addition, it is recommended to weight train for twenty minutes on two non-consecutive days a week. This is especially important for people 65 years and older to help them maintain their strength, which, in turn, helps to prevent falls. Again, strength training should be moderately intense to intense in order to obtain a training effect. It is better to lift a heavy weight 10 times and really have to work on the last two or three repetitions than to lift a light weight 20 times and not experience any difficulty whatsoever.
So there you have it. Not quite "go hard or go home", but pretty close. More like "for maximum results, go harder or go home."
Answer to last week's fitness quiz:
"What is fibromyalgia? "
A chronic illness characterized by pain, fatigue and poor sleep.
Answer to last week's extra credit quiz:
"What is a megabyte? "
A unit of information or computer storage equal to 1,000,000 to 1,048,576 bytes, depending on content.
This week's fitness quiz:
"What is glaucoma? "
Extra credit quiz:
"In the game "Craps", what is craps? "
Corny Joke of the Week:
What runs but never gets tired? Water.
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