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eLearning Series:
I'm an Active Senior
Who Wants To Stay Healthy
( 50 aticles in this series )
3
Fun, Heart Healthy Workouts for Seniors
Walk 10,000 steps a day. If you haven’t heard
the 10,000 steps mantra by now, you haven’t been paying attention.
The 10,000 steps program is part of a concentrated
effort to encourage Americans to get active and stay fit. According to
many recent studies, engaging in moderate exercise three to
five times a week can help reduce the risk of heart disease,
hypertension, stroke, diabetes and arthritis. Coupled with
a balanced diet, exercise is the number one way to get healthy
and stay healthy.
This message is especially important for those over the age
of fifty-five, says the American Heart Association. Because
regular exercise helps maintain weight and tone all the body’s
systems, it’s one of the keys to avoiding the most common diseases
and disorders affecting older Americans. Many seniors, though,
mistakenly fear that vigorous exercise will do more harm than
good. Not so, according to the experts.
Aerobic
exercises get the circulation moving and the heart pumping. That helps tone the heart muscle, lower blood pressure;
reduce your risk of heart attack, control blood sugar and increase
alertness and overall well-being. According to the National
Institutes of Health, the best exercises are those that increase
the heart rate and maintain elevated heart rates for at least
ten minutes – aerobic exercises. That gives your heart time
to get pumping and spark your metabolism so that it keeps working
that extra bit harder for as much as an hour after you finish
exercising. The general recommendation for a workout is ten
minutes of warm-up and stretching, ten minutes of moderately
vigorous exercise and ten minutes to cool down and stretch.
If the term ‘aerobic exercise’ has you shaking your head at
the thought of bouncing around the gym in skin-tight shiny
spandex, you can relax. Aerobic exercise is ANY activity that
can get your heart to work out along with your other muscles.
Among the exercise that the American Physical Therapy Association
recommends for seniors are golf, gardening, walking, swimming
and jogging. There’s almost no physical activity that you can’t
turn into a heart healthy aerobic workout. Choose your sport
and try one of these workouts from the American Physical Therapy
Association.
Golf
If you haven’t played golf in a while – or if you’re just
starting and haven’t been active – start exercising a few weeks
before you go into full swing. Exercise about the same time
of day that you’ll be golfing so that you’ve got similar conditions.
Take a twenty minute walk three or four times a week. Spend
some time practicing your swing, starting with a shorter, lighter
club and gradually working your way up.
Before you head out onto the green, take ten minutes to stretch.
The APTA recommends calf and hamstring stretches and upper
body twists to loosen up the muscles you’ll be using the most.
Gardening
Gardening can give your heart a surprisingly energetic workout.
There’s digging and bending and lifting and carrying – and
that’s before you even get out of the shed with all your gardening
equipment. To turn a gardening session into a heart healthy
workout, the APTA suggests that you start with a series of
stretches to help loosen up the muscles. Once you’re warmed
up, do some ‘aerobic gardening’ – activities that use your
whole body – for 15-20 minutes. Raking and hoeing are two good
choices for aerobic gardening, but any activity that gets your
heart and lungs working at full capacity works just find too.
After your workout, cool down with some more sedentary gardening
– trimming flower heads or picking vegetables.
Water Aerobics
Water fitness classes are among the best aerobics exercises
you can do, especially if you suffer from joint stiffness or
arthritic pain. Because you’re in the water, there’s no impact
shock, making water exercises the ideal form of low-impact
aerobic exercise. Water is kind to your joints and bones –
but the weight of the water adds an extra layer of resistance
to your movements. You can get a full workout that includes
jumping jacks and all the benefits of cross-country skiing
in deep water aerobics – with less than 10% of the stress on
your joints. Do take it easy, though, warn many fitness experts.
Because exercising in water is so easy, it’s also easy to overdo
and strain muscles. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com
: 2006
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