Let's Get Physical!

What, exactly, is fitness? Physical fitness has four components:

• Cardiovascular fitness. Your heart, lungs and blood all need oxygen to work. Your level of cardiovascular fitness will determine your body's ability to use oxygen as a source of energy. It gives you the stamina or endurance to be active without gasping for breath.
• Muscular strength and endurance. This is the force your muscles can exert and their ability to keep moving without becoming exhausted.
• Flexibility. Keeping the optimal range of motion in the joint areas, making bending and stretching easy, is a measure of flexibility.
• Body composition. There should be a healthy ratio of lean muscle tissue to fat.

Here are 10 facts to help motivate you toward total fitness:

Fitness Fact 1. Studies have suggested that walking at a brisk pace for three or more hours each week can reduce your risk for coronary heart disease by 65 percent.

Fitness Fact 2. About a quarter of American adults — and an even greater number of women — are sedentary. After age 44, almost 30 percent of women are sedentary, and by age 65, the proportion increases to almost 35 percent. By the time women reach age 75, about half of all women are sedentary.

Fitness Fact 3. Only about 22 percent of American adults engage in regular, sustained physical activity for at least 30 minutes five times per week, and only 15 percent exercise both regularly and vigorously. In October of 2006, the population of the United States was 514,600,000. This means only 113,212,000 (22%) Americans are regularly exercising.

Fitness Fact 4. No matter how poor your current level of fitness, and no matter your age, you can begin an exercise routine and become fitter and healthier with each passing day. Even 90-year-old women who use walkers have been shown in studies to benefit from light weight training. Heck, I’ve seen 80 year old men pass me in a marathon.

Fitness Fact 5. Simply adding movement into your daily routine can increase your level of fitness. For example, if you park in the last row of the parking lot and walk briskly five minutes each way between your office and your car, walk up and down the stairs at your office during your 10-minute afternoon coffee break, and walk the dog for 10 minutes when you get home, you've racked up 30 minutes of exercise for the day. How easy was that?

Fitness Fact 6. Women with heart disease or arthritis actually experience improved daily function from involvement in various modes of physical activity.

Fitness Fact 7. To address all the components of fitness, an exercise program needs to include aerobic exercise, which is continuous repetitive movement of large muscle groups that raises your heart rate; weight lifting or strength training; and flexibility exercises or stretching.

Fitness Fact 8. Walking at a brisk pace (a 15-minute mile or 4 mph) burns almost as many calories as jogging for the same distance. The benefit of jogging is that it takes less time to cover the same distance and it benefits the bones; however, it may be too strenuous for some of you. Please check with your physician before beginning any new exercise.

Fitness Fact 9. It takes about 12 weeks after starting an exercise program to see measurable changes in your body. However, before the 12 week mark, you will notice an increase in your strength and endurance.

Fitness Fact 10. You will decrease your stress level and build confidence simply by getting up and moving that wonderful body of yours!

~ Live Well ~

Trinity Fitness