If you're not an athlete or a serious exerciser—and you only wish to exercise to your health or to suit higher in your clothes—the gym scene will be intimidating and overwhelming. What are the very best exercises for me? How will I find the time?
Just walking on treadmills, stationary bikes, and weight machines will be enough to send you straight back home to the couch.
Yet a few of the very best physical activities to your body don't require a gym or require you to be fit enough to run a marathon. These “workouts” can do wonders to your health. They may also help control your weight, improve your balance and range of motion, strengthen your bones, protect your joints, prevent bladder control problems, and even prevent memory loss. I'll help.
No matter your age or fitness level, these activities are a few of the very best exercise you may do and can enable you to get in shape and reduce your risk of disease.
1. Swimming
Research has shown that swimming can even improve your mental state and put you in a greater mood. Water aerobics is another choice. These classes enable you to burn calories and tone up.
2. Tai Chi
This Chinese martial art that mixes movement and rest is sweet for each body and mind. In fact, it's called “meditation in motion.” Tai chi is made up of a series of graceful movements, one transitioning easily into the following. Because classes are offered at different levels, tai chi is accessible — and helpful — to people of all ages and fitness levels. “It's especially good for older people because balance is an important component of fitness, and balance is something we lose as we age,” says Dr. Lee.
Take a category to enable you to start and learn proper form. You can discover a tai chi program at your local YMCA, health club, community center, or senior center.
3. Strength training
If you suspect that strength training is a masculine, cowardly activity, re-examine. Lifting light weights won't make your muscles grow, but it can make them stronger. “If you don't use the muscles, they will lose their strength over time,” says Dr. Lee.
Muscle also helps burn calories. “The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, so it's easier to maintain your weight,” says Dr. Lee. Like other exercise, strength training may also help preserve brain function in later years.
Before starting a weight training program, you'll want to learn proper form. Start light, with only a pound or two. You should have the option to lift the load 10 times with ease. After a couple of weeks, increase it to a pound or two. If you may easily lift a weight greater than 12 times through a full range of motion, move as much as a rather heavier weight.
4. Walking
Easy to maneuver, yet powerful. It can enable you to stay trim, improve levels of cholesterol, strengthen bones, control blood pressure, improve your mood, and reduce the chance of many diseases (eg diabetes and heart disease). I may also help. Several studies have shown that walking and other physical activities can even improve memory and resist age-related memory loss.
All you would like is a very good fitting and supportive shoe. Start walking for about 10 to quarter-hour at a time. Over time, you may start walking faster and faster, until you're walking 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week.
5. Kegel exercises
These exercises won't enable you to look higher, but they do something just as vital—strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder. Strong pelvic floor muscles can go a good distance toward stopping incontinence. While many ladies are accustomed to Kegels, these exercises can profit men as well.
To do Kegel exercises accurately, squeeze the muscles you'll be using to carry yourself back from passing urine or gas. Hold the contraction for 2 or three seconds, then release. Make sure to loosen up your pelvic floor muscles completely after the contraction. Repeat 10 times. Try to do 4 to 5 sets a day.
Many things we do for fun (and work) count as exercise. Mowing the yard counts as physical activity. So does ballroom dancing and twiddling with your kids or grandkids. As long as you're performing some type of aerobic exercise for not less than half-hour a day, and also you include two days of strength training every week, you may consider yourself an “active” person.
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