A 3 Part Series: Nothing to Sweat! - Part 1

My collection of makeshift maneuvers worked perfectly for me because it included each of the three components that a well-balanced fitness program requires:

1) Cardiovascular or aerobic component — for improving function of the heart and lungs, burning calories, and helping to control cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and stress

2) Strength-building component — for maintaining good muscular firmness and shape

3) Flexibility component- for greater mobility along with relief from stiffness and stress
These are the raw ingredients of fitness, to be cooked up in any way you find most palatable to your particular responsibilities and lifestyle. Bits and pieces of each type of activity, like pennies in a piggy bank, can add up; they count just as much as the same amount of time spent at these activities all at once.

Component 1 : Cardiovascular/Aerobic Exercise
Yes, this is the type of exercise that started the fitness movement off and running, and it includes, quite simply, activities continuous and rhythmic in nature that work major muscle groups (such as the arms and/or the legs) sufficiently to strengthen the respiratory system and heart.

Exercise of this type — partly because it can be done for extended periods but also because it helps the body develops fat-burning enzymes — is generally regarded as the best for controlling weight. Because of its continual employment of the circulatory system, aerobic exercise also is considered the best type for lowering blood pressure, reducing serum cholesterol and triglycerides, and helping to alleviate and build resistance to stress — all significant factors in reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Do we need to run races or chain ourselves to a ski machine for hours to reap the benefits? No. All we need is a total of about 30 minutes a day, divided into whatever time quantities we like. Best of all, this potent health-enhancer can be found nearly everywhere.

Or at least it could be, “if we’d just approach more of our everyday activities with a little more oomph,” says exercise physiologist Bryant Stamford. “So many of our everyday activities have the potential for being far more forms of exercise than we let them. By increasing the intensity with which we approach many of our household chores and leisure time activities only slightly, we could increase the health benefits they produce quite substantially?

Activities that otherwise would be good merely for being mild calorie-burners could become officially aerobic, in other words. They would be strenuous enough to misc the heart rate and oxygen consumption to levels which measurably improving not just our fitness but also our odds against most major diseases.
This isn’t to suggest that there aren’t significant benefits to virtually any physical activity we undertake, even if it’s just washing the dishes,” Dr. Stamford says.

“There is, however, a threshold beyond which health benefits appear to increase rather dramatically? That threshold is the target heart rate you may have heard mentioned in connection with some of your fitness efforts of old. Put simply, it’s a level of exertion capable of producing measurable improvements in the cardiovascular system — an increase in the amount of blood the heart is able to pump with each stroke and a decrease in your pulse rate while at rest. Calorie burning also increases proportionally to the amount of passion with which we approach any given activity, so it’s not just our hearts that benefit when we pick up the pace — our figures do, too.

But for a go-getter like you, that shouldn`t be a problem, right? The fact that you’re so busy needn’t hinder your fitness: It can help by motivating you to employ the levels of exertion that promote fitness best!