Walking, aerobic exercise questions?

Walking is by far one of the best exercises that anyone of any age can do; however, I feel that to get the most out of your walking you should focus on what the purpose of the walk is. For example, if you are just going out in the neighborhood to make chit chat with some neighbors you might not get as much benefit out of this activity as you would imagine. While I do agree that some exercise and movement from the couch is better than none, I would like to see that heart rate go up to 75% of maximum(discussed in previous blogs) for about 20-30 minutes, 3-4 times per week. There have been some questions come to me asking how many steps it takes to make a mile. Of course the answer to this will vary with each individual since everyone does not have the same length of legs so the strides of each individual would be different. Rule of thumb is that 10,000 steps should equal 5 miles, and it is estimated that most people take 5,000 steps in their everyday normal activities. So, to gain additional exercise for the heart one should take the extra 5,000 steps, for a total of 10,000 steps to guarantee a good aerobic workout. Regardless of how many steps you take it is safe to say that 2,000 steps will give you a mile of walking. There are other ways to measure your walking, i.e. you can count your steps with a pedometer, a gadget that you clip to your belt and it counts the steps for you. The other way to measure your walking is by counting city blocks, 12 city blocks will generally equal a mile, or the other way is simply by time. Go out and walk for an hour and you will get the desired distance for sure.

Another question came in concerning a 57 year old woman who participates in aerobic exercise classes three times per week along with lifting weights, Pilates and yoga(WOW this is the same as a balanced diet of food). Her question: Since she had been doing this workout schedule for over 2 years she wondered if she would stay at a plateau without any more improvement. The good news answer here is that this is an excellent exercise routine for heart’s health. Even if she is on a plateau, it’s a good plateau to be on. In regards to the strength question a person does have to make new demands on the muscles with greater challenges if they expect to make progress in strength and muscle growth. My thoughts would be to consider if any of the muscles have begun to deteriorate because of the plateau and if so then add 10% to the weight training and possibly alter the exercises that are being done first to last. In other words if you are doing curls first and then bench presses, change this around in order. Also, you can increase the number of repetitions by 10%. As a safety measure I like the conservative 10% increase and remember, Rome was not built in a day(while I really don’t know how long it took to build Rome) and exercising should become a life style habit in your life.
Off to do a bicycle ride,

Mike Greer