Healthy living
Exercise and fitness
Get going to feel good
We all know we should be physically active - but how often, for how long and what types of exercise do we need? Lesley Dobson goes looking for answers
Unless you’ve given away your TV and radio and haven’t read a paper for the last six years (or more), you can’t have missed the message that exercise is good for us. The bad news is, we’re just not getting enough of it. Only 30% of adults aged 50 to 64 get the recommended 30 minutes of exercise five times a week.
Research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in February 2008 showed that it's never too late to benefit from taking up exercise. The scientists found that men who took up regular exercise even after the age of 70 reduced their risk of dying before the age of 90 by nearly 30 per cent.
Research also shows that staying active improves your chances of living a healthier life for longer. It's good for your heart and lungs, your muscle and bone strength, your balance, immune system and your mental health. Regular exercise will help you feel better and look better, and should help keep the lbs and kilos under control too. Ultimately, it will help you to stay independent and mobile for longer. What better reason could there be for getting active?
Before you start
If you haven’t exercised in a while, just getting up and getting going will make a noticeable difference to your health. But don’t rush into anything too energetic, or you could injure yourself.
Start gently, with up to ten minutes of moderate activity a day, and build up from there. If you are disabled or have been unwell, start very carefully, with just five minutes of gentle exercise two or three times a day. Before you begin, check with your GP that it’s OK for you to start exercising.
"You should feel warm, be breathing slightly more heavily, and should feel your heart rate increasing, but not so much that you can’t talk," says June Davison, a British Heart Foundation Cardiac Nurse. ‘Thirty minutes may sound quite a lot, but you can break that up into two lots of 15 minutes, or three lots of 10 minutes."
What to do?
Different types of exercise bring different benefits that work together to help keep you fit, healthy and active. To stay in great health and shape, you should aim to do activities that will improve your stamina, strength, bone strength, flexibility and balance.
Try to do some exercises from each of the sections below, and aim for 30 minutes of stamina exercises, on five days a week. Once this has become part of your daily life you can always gradually increase the amount of exercise you do.
"There’s no specific advice about what or how much you should do at different ages," explains June Davison. "You can be a very active 70 year old, or an inactive 50 year old. The important thing is to keep active and keep moving."
Stamina
These are also sometimes called cardiovascular exercises, as they are great for your heart and lungs. As well as exercising these two vital organs, which should improve your overall health, and give you more energy, and staying-power, stamina exercises burn up calories, and help you keep your weight down.
Stamina exercises include walking, dancing, swimming, badminton, cycling, climbing stairs, etc. Some of these overlap with the strength and bone density exercises, which means that you can cover three important exercise areas at once.
Ball games and dancing exercise your muscles and they have the added benefit of helping you maintain your co-ordination and the speed of your reactions. Both of these are important in helping to prevent falls.
Strength
To be able to carry out everyday activities, such as walking, climbing the stairs, even getting out of a chair, we need to have muscle power. Lose this power and you’ll start to lose your mobility.
It’s important to build up – and maintain – strength in your main functional muscles, in your legs, arms, ankles and back. Women are more likely to lose muscle strength as they have less muscle to start with. Walking uphill, climbing stairs, Pilates and yoga are all good activities to help strengthen muscles and bones (see below).
One simple exercise you can do anywhere, to strengthen your ankles, is to rise up onto your toes, lifting your heels from the ground. Hold for five seconds, lower, and then repeat. You can increase the strength of your muscles by gradually increasing the number of times you repeat strength exercises, and by doing them regularly.
Bone strength is also vital for continued good health. As we get older we lose bone density, and can develop a condition called osteoporosis, where our bones are at increased risk of fracture.
Weight-bearing exercises such as brisk walking, climbing stairs, dancing, tennis, aerobics and jogging help maintain bone strength.
Strengthen the bones in your wrists by squeezing a tennis ball ten times every day, counting to ten on each squeeze, before relaxing then repeating.
Flexibility
Maintaining or improving your flexibility is important as it helps to keep aches and pains at bay, and helps you to keep your full range of movement, so you can still reach that high shelf, rake the leaves in the garden and shimmy at the Christmas party.
Aim to stretch and rotate your joints twice a day. A good time to do this is first thing in the morning, when you get up, (but take it gently). Bending and stretching exercises at home will help as will Tai Chi, Yoga, Pilates, swimming and bowls.
Balance
Maintaining good balance is important in helping to prevent accidental falls. Tai Chi, Pilates, yoga, walking, and dancing are good for improving your balance.
You can also practice standing on one foot, but make sure you have something nearby to hold onto when you start, in case you lose your balance.
Important
If you feel unwell or experience pain – especially chest pain or discomfort - while exercising, stop immediately and get medical help.
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Reader comments
In reply to man with Charcot feet- seated exercises can be very beneficial, mobility, flexibility aerobic work and strength using weights can all be done. See you local gym instructor- many areas have GP referral schemes and find an EXTEND class on EXTEND.org.uk, their teachers specialise in teaching clients who are older or have disabilities.
Posted by: Geri Goward | 25/05/2008 13:28:19
I find your item interesting but I have Charcot feet and I am concerned that walking and dance exercise could break bones. Could you advise on what sort of exercise I could do.
Posted by: Anthony Reaves | 03/02/2008 09:31:36
Information on this site is for interest only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult your own doctor about any specific health concerns.