The start of a new year is a great time to review your exercise routine and make changes if you either didn’t get the outcomes you wanted this year or you have different goals for next year.
Even if you have established a regular exercise routine, now is a good time to review it to see if you can make it more effective or get better value form your time and effort.
Here is some guidelines to help you design your fintess routine for 2012.
Lift weights
Strength training is critical for all adults to help prevent age-related bone and muscle loss, both of which can lead to falls, injuries and excess body fat.
If time is limited, shorten your aerobic activity to make time for weightlifting, suggests the chairwoman of the ACSM committee that wrote the new recommendations.
Remember, your body is a weight so just doing bodyweight strength exercises is enough for maintaining strength and preventing muscle loss.
Don’t be a weekend warrior
Research suggests that it’s less effective for adults with cardiovascular risk factors to do most of their physical activity on Saturday or Sunday. Instead, do shorter bouts of exercise throughout the week.
Your body adapts to exercise in the day or two after you have pushed it outside it’s comfort zone. If you only exercise on the weekends, the gains will be lost before you get back to doing some more exercise. Exercising during the week also makes you sharper at work.
Do a variety of exercise
The ACSM recommends “functional fitness” activities such as Pilates, tai chi and yoga. These combine balance, stretching and muscle strengthening, and they can improve your agility and body control.
I also recommend that you train like a triathlete and include some swimming, cycling and running (or walking) into your routine. That way you can do something every day but give muscles a rest every other day.
Don’t be sedentary during your downtime
Aim never to go for an hour without moving. Get up from your desk at work every time the phone rings or at least every hour. If you drive a vehicle, take regular breaks to walk around jump up and down a few times. The ACSM suggest finding six or seven more hours a week to spend on your feet, to move around more throughout the day and cut your evening screen time.
Stretch after working out, not before
To obtain maximum benefit from flexibility training, your muscles need to be warm. There is no evidence that stretching before exercise prevents injury so take more time to warm up and save your stretching for after you have finished. USe your stretching time to relax and get your body temperature and heart rate back down.
Don’t rely solely on step counts, time or distance
While pedometers can be effective for promoting activity, step counts, time and distance aren’t an accurate measure of exercise intensity or quality. You are better to use a heart-rate monitor to track intensity. Aim for a set number of minutes or bursts at a higher intensity or heart rate, rather than a certain number of steps.
Watch your eating
Exercise alone can cut your body fat and alter your body’s composition, but it has minimal impact on actual weight loss over the short term. While fitness is more important than fatness, losing weight if you’re overweight can enhance the health benefits of exercise and watching your food intake is essential to manage your weight.
Don’t get discouraged if you’re not that fit
Even a little exercise is better than nothing. The greatest impact on health comes from going from sedentary to some activity, so just getting moving is a great first start.
The hardest part of exercise is getting started and most people fail at the beginning before they see significant improvements in their fitness.
Slowly build up your duration, then focus on increasing the intensity.
