Welcome to this week’s Five from David
Your exercise tip – How much and how intense?
This is the question we all ponder or ask. The guidelines can be confusing, so we have added some clarification.
Cardiovascular exercise
If you want substantial changes (managing a healthy body composition and or losing weight steadily) you need to be exercising at a moderate level (where you are getting a pattern of deep breathing happening but can hold a broken conversation) for 150 minutes per week or exercising at a vigorous level (a level where you are continually breathless, cannot have a conversation and may be perspiring heavily) for 75 minutes per week.
For extensive results (defined as continued weight loss and building a healthy body composition) exercising at the moderate level for 300 minutes per week or exercising at the vigorous level for 75 minutes per week will achieve this.
Resistance training
It is recommended that you train with a routine containing eight to ten exercises, completing one or two sets per exercise. This should be conducted two days per week and should be no more than sixty minutes. Larger muscle group exercise before smaller muscle groups are advised.
The intensity level should be rates at a seven (on a scale between one and ten – ten being unable to capably complete an exercise). Ideally, when you are attempting the last few repetitions in the last set on an exercise, you should be feeling you are only just able to achieve this with good technique.
The final piece of advice about all your exercise is to keep it simple.
Your health tip – an ounce of prevention
Each day we hear of people being diagnosed with diseases, then having treatment to stop the progress of that disease. Some, unfortunately, are untreatable. What has this got to do with exercise?
Exercise is a preventative measure which research is showing as playing a key role in the prevention of many of the modern diseases of our age. Regular exercise only takes time, and as the saying goes ‘make time for exercise or make time to be sick – what do you prefer?’.
Wouldn’t you prefer prevention over treatment?
Your life tips
Don’t be afraid to be quiet and to listen. We learn more from people with our eyes and ears than talking to them.
This week’s wise words
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Have a great week and keep healthy in 2018.
David.