Your New Year Exercise Kickoff

Do you have a New Year’s resolution to exercise more? Start here with this podcast, where we talk about the benefits of exercise, how much you should be getting, and practical examples to help you incorporate more movement into your day.

Sources: https://richmond.ces.ncsu.edu/2021/10/the-benefits-of-aging-actively/

https://odphp.health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/guidelines/adults.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20current%20Physical%20Activity%20Guidelines,minutes%20of%20moderate%2Dintensity%20physical%20activity%20a%20week.

Transcript

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Extension Connection Podcast where we connect our listeners with research-based resources to help them build better lives. This is your co-host, Lindsay Edwards, your family and consumer science agent in Polk County. And as we come into a new year with many people making New Year's resolutions. I want to talk about one of the main or most popular resolutions that there are, and that is exercise. Exercise or working out is one of the things that's very important for our bodies, but can be a very difficult thing to start. Whether it's a time constraint that you don't have enough time to fit it into your day, or there's something that's very physically difficult for you, or maybe you're outta shape and just getting back into shape is the hard thought in it. Including more physical activity into your daily life has so many benefits. In this podcast today, I wanna cover the benefits of exercise and physical activity, how much we actually need to benefit from it, and then some different exercise options for different skill levels, of how we can incorporate these into our daily lives and make it easier for you to do starting off with our first topic of the benefits, exercise has many benefits. It's hard to limit it to just. Talking about it in this short podcast that we're gonna go over today, but here's just a few that I'm gonna list off very quickly. It is known to help your sleep. Your overall mood, overall wellbeing, it helps to increase energy levels. It can help reduce your risk of falls and disease prevention and management, stress management, weight management, current and future mobility and pain management. So there's many benefits a lot of times. I know for me, if I ever get injured or maybe you're coming out of a surgery, you don't wanna exercise'cause you feel like your body needs to rest. But sometimes, and again, you need to talk to your doctor for sure, depending on what your situation is. Exercise might be one of the best things you can do. I know I recently had a surgery and my doctor told me to walk as much as I could right after I came out as an outpatient surgery, and he told me to go home and walk and walk every day as much as I could because the more I walked, the better my body would do. It is incredibly important, even if it's just slow getting back into the swing of things, getting into that exercise routine. I am gonna read a quote, from another extension agent's article that they wrote, and it says, as we age, it becomes increasingly more important to stay active. According to the Center for Disease Control. By the age of 75, about one in three men and one in two women engage in no physical activity. Walking, gardening and yard work are great ways to engage in physical activity for adults ages 65 and older. And everyone can play a role in encouraging senior friends and families to enjoy more physical activity. As we age, we become more prone to falling and fracturing bones. Staying active helps us to reduce the risk of improving balance. Exercise can help control blood pressure In some people with hypertension, according to the CDC, and staying fit helps'em maintain healthy muscles, bones, and joints, as well as control joint swelling and pain resulting from arthritis. Another benefit of physical activity is that it reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression, and I will link that in the show notes. But basically as we age, it becomes even more important for us to continue to exercise, even though sometimes that's when we don't have time, because it helps our bodies in so many different ways. So how much should we be getting every single day? According to the physical activity guidelines for American adults, for substantial health benefits, an adult should get at least 150 minutes a week. So two hours and 30 minutes, two, 300 minutes, five hours. A week of moderate intensity physical activity, or 75 minutes to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity. So basically, if you're doing vigorous intensity, it's half the amount of time. Now when we're talking about moderate. To vigorous intensity. We will get to that in just a little bit. I'm going to give you the definition of those two things and also examples, but just know with moderate physical activity, you are still able to talk through your breathing. Where with vigorous, if you're running sprints, you're probably not gonna be able to talk'cause you're gonna be breathing so hard. Preferably aerobic activity should be spread out throughout the week. So what that's saying is like it doesn't want you to do five hours of physical activity in one day, that is amongst a seven day week. Additional health benefits are gained by gauging in physical activity beyond the 300 minutes. The more you exercise, the more benefit you're gonna get from it. don't just think okay, I got my 150, or I got my 300 and I am stopping there. It's never gonna hurt you to get more physical activity. It's just gonna give you those additional benefits. And then adults should also be doing muscle strengthening activities, or moderate greater intensity that involves major muscle groups. On two or more days a week. So that's really important for our bone density as we age and our muscles.'cause we lose muscle mass as we age to make sure we're getting that extra weight training, resistance training, that's that we're working at the different muscles in our body. Overall, adults should move more and sit less throughout the day, which can be difficult for some of us who have. Sedentary jobs because we do sit a lot of the day. Doing things like getting up and maybe doing some squats or going for a walk every now and then, or maybe wearing like arm weights at our desk and doing stretching, incorporating things into our daily life is very important, especially again for those of us who have sedentary jobs. Now that we've discussed the benefits and how much exercise we actually need to get into the day. Let's talk about the nitty gritty of the types of exercise and what I mean, like I said, when I say moderate or vigorous, that sort of thing. I know when I'm looking for different exercise approaches for myself, I have to find something that I enjoy. I spoke about this last month. If you don't enjoy it, you're probably not going to do it. For example, I don't like to go running, so I'm not gonna choose running as my option for exercise. I'm gonna choose a different cardio option, and I like to mix different things in. If I knew that I had to go running every single day to get my 150 to 300 minutes a week, I would avoid it like the plague. I know for me. I have to do some sort of other type of cardio. Maybe it's hit exercises or maybe it is jumping rope, or maybe it may be swimming, whatever it is, for my moderate intensity physical activity. And then I like to, again, sprinkle in different exercises. Something like, a Pilates or weight training or yoga, maybe even sprinkling those in with a mix of that. Moderate to vigorous activity every time I work out is what works for me. For some people it's going out and riding a bike vigorously being out of breath for an hour every day. That might be what works for them, and that's what I'm talking about here. You have to find something that you like so that you actually will go do it. Maybe it's pickleball and that can be a moderate intensity physical activity that you're doing five times a week, and that's great as long as you are enjoying it and you are doing it. So moderate intensity exercises, here's your definition, are exercises that will raise your heart rate and increase your breathing rate as well. You should be able to talk through this, but should not be able to sing a song. Exercise that fit into this group, would they be things like brisk walking, walking stairs, water aerobics, dancing, yard work, casual biking, tennis or volleyball, playing with the kids, like jumping on a trampoline or playing at a playground with them again, where you can still talk, but you would not be able to sing a song? Vigorous physical activity is defined as a high level of effort causing your heart rate and breathing rates to significantly increase. And it will be hard to talk without taking a deep breath. And examples of this are running fast cycling, playing singles, tennis or basketball or jumping rope, where again, it is hard for you to even speak because you might be out of breath. And then the third definition I wanna go over is muscle strengthening exercises. So these are where you're making your muscles work harder than usual. And this can be done through weights, a weight machine, free weights, resistance bands, or maybe like your body weight for example, pushups and sit ups are muscle strengthening exercises that you're just using your own body as the weight. Keeping that in mind, it's one of the most important as we age, because we do lose that muscle mass. Incorporating this at least two times a week and working your different muscle groups. Maybe arms are really easy for you to work out, so you only focus on the arms. You don't wanna do that. You wanna also focus on your back, your legs, your shoulders, all the different muscle groups that are in your body, making sure you're doing those every week. Now other exercises like Tai Chi, yoga, Pilates, these incorporate a lot of stretching, flexibility, balance, and muscle strengthening. We don't wanna leave these out because they're I part important as well. Tai Chi, for example, is listed as a light intensity physical activity. But as we age, this may be considered moderate intensity depending on our muscle strength. Maybe. We start out with something like this and we move to something else. Also, incorporating something like Tai Chi is great for anyone of any age, as long as you're also doing those moderate to vigorous and the weight training as well, because it's gonna help with things like balance and also pain management for those who may need it. When you're looking for an exercise routine, always as a disclaimer, we're gonna tell you to talk to your doctor first before starting any exercise program. Especially if you have a chronic condition and then pick from things that you like to do. I also get pretty bored easily with my exercise routine. I find that I have to change it up ever so often. So maybe I will do one specific type of cardio and Pilates for a couple months. As soon as I find myself start getting bored of that, I will change it up because I don't want to stop exercising'cause I'm bored. In order for me. To keep on going. I find that changing up my type of exercise is important and where we live when we have seasons and sometimes it's too cold to go outside, it kind of makes it easy.'cause sometimes you're gonna have to do things maybe inside your house or at a gym, and then other times a year when it's nice outside, you can do outdoor activities. Just keep that in mind when you're planning your exercise routine. One last thing I want to leave you with. It is just incorporating small bits of exercise throughout your day. Like I said previously, if you have a sedentary job, this is super important. You don't wanna be sitting in a chair for eight hours at work, getting up and doing 20 squats maybe every hour. You have an alarm and it tells you to move. And during that moving time, you have five minutes and you get up and do your squats or you do leg lifts at your desk. There's plenty of YouTube videos for desk stretching or desk yoga where even you're sitting in your chair. I know there's Tai chi that you can do sitting maybe if the weather's nice, you get up and just take a quick lap around your office building. I like to keep. I think they're one pound weights. They're like ankle weights, but you can wear'em on your wrist in my desk drawer and I'll just wear them throughout the day. Sometimes either on my ankles or on my wrist while I'm working. I don't even really notice they're there'cause they don't weigh very much. But it's helping to get some extra muscle strengthening for me throughout the day. I do notice it when I take them off. How? How much lighter either my wrists or my feet feel. So I'll encourage you to look those up. Look up things like yoga or seated tai chi on YouTube. Maybe you can find a quick little video. Stretching is fantastic throughout the day, so keeping that in mind and maybe doing that at your desk. It doesn't have to be an hour or two hours at the gym every day. These little things that you incorporate throughout your day. Adds up to that exercise amount that you're supposed to get. And also keep in mind things that you already are doing, like going grocery shopping, carrying in groceries can be muscle strengthening. Maybe instead of just letting them dangle, you're trying to lift them a little bit as you're bringing them into the store. These can all be things that we do, again, to help muscle strength or helping our bodies throughout the day. Thank you for listening today to the Extension Connection Podcast. Again, this is Lindsay Edwards, your family and consumer science extension agent in Polk County. And if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, and I look forward to talking to you next time on the Extension Connection.