Over the past 28 years I’ve owned two small workout studios. I’ve prided myself in teaching fitness programs based on the science of exercise. Sadly, the fitness industry has been filled with scams and misleading fads that promise too much and provide too little. The popular media have told the public about all the latest trends and the hot fitness topics but the whole truth has been hard to find.
The common misconception is that all we need to do is an aerobic workout (like walking) for about 30 minutes a few times a week. About 25 million women participated in the Aerobic Dance craze for a decade with the hopes that they would get everything they needed from the popular group-exercise workout.
The truth is that that’s not enough activity to give you what you need (health, wellness and long life) and way too little to give you what you want (fat loss and muscle firming)! You need more resistance and more activity every day. In August 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association reminded us of the physical activity guidelines we need to follow:
- Take 10,000 steps each day. This is a healthy level of daily physical activity. You need a pedometer to give you accurate feedback.
- Most days, get 30 minutes of additional, more intense movement that causes an aerobic heart rate response. Pick what you like: inside or out, in 3 10-minute segments or one continuous 30-minute workout.
- At least twice a week, do a strength building routine (10 exercises) that gives resistance training to all the major muscle groups. The resistance should be intense enough to make it hard to do 10 repetitions of each exercise. You need a variety of resistances, rubber band, tubes, hand weight and perhaps a barbell or machine with a weight stack. One pair of hand weight isn’t enough. To strengthen and firm an individual body action, you need to customize the resistance.
Alice Lockridge, MS Phys Ed
PRO♥FIT
www.AliceLockridge.com