Exercise Motivation

Strength Training
Aerobic Exercise

I get it. It’s hard to make time for exercise. You know you should exercise. Maybe your doctor told you to exercise. But you’ve got work projects, and household responsibilities, and maybe kids with all of their activities. And then there’s social media, and Netflix, and you are so tired by the end of the day. It’s easy to postpone exercise until after you’ve made that important business presentation, or after you’ve finished your home repair project, or after your daughter’s soccer season ends.

On the other hand, no one likes to think about becoming frail as they age. According to the Clarity Final Report (2007), the things people fear the most about aging are (1) losing their independence because of poor health, poor memory or an inability to get around, (2) having to move into a nursing home, (3) losing their family and friends, and (4) having to give up driving. Exercise is the prescription for postponing most of these life-altering events indefinitely into the future. This is one reason why the American College of Sports Medicine recommends strength training 2-3 times a week and at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise every week. Research has shown that following these guidelines is associated with lower mortality risk.

Strength Training. According to an article in the New York Times, “People Who Do Strength Training Live Longer – and Better” (August 24, 2022) people who take part in strength training sessions 1-2 times a week have a 40% lower mortality risk than those who don’t exercise at all. Muscle strength is required to get out of your chair, to open a jar of pickles, to carry your groceries into the house, to do yardwork and more. We progressively lose muscle mass as we age, but regular strength training prevents the loss of muscle mass and improves both muscular strength and endurance. Building muscle increases the amount of fat-free mass in your body and increases your resting metabolism. Stronger leg muscles protect the joints and make them more stable, which helps reduce the pain of osteoarthritis. Stronger leg muscles also reduce the risk of falls in older adults. Stronger muscles in the back and abdomen allow you to stand up straight and avoid lower back pain as you age. Strength training increases bone mineral density which lowers the risk of osteoporosis, and for those who already have low bone density it helps slow the progression of the disease. Strength training increases glucose metabolism which lowers the risk of diabetes, and for those who are already diabetic, it helps manage glucose levels. Strength training lowers the incidence of many chronic diseases, and improves psychological well-being.

Aerobic Exercise. Aerobic exercise is strength training for your heart. The heart is the most important muscle in the body. It beats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Regular aerobic exercise increases the ability of the lungs to hold air and strengthens the heart muscle so that it pumps a greater volume of blood with each stroke. Aerobic exercise lowers the resting heart rate. The maximum amount of oxygen your heart can deliver to the working muscles declines as you age, mainly due to physical inactivity and an increase in body fat. Once it declines to a certain level, a person loses functional independence. Poor aerobic fitness is a more accurate predictor of death than risk factors such as hypertension, smoking and diabetes. Aerobic exercise retards this decline. Aerobic exercise also improves insulin sensitivity, helps prevent diabetes, can reduce coronary artery disease risk by 50%, lowers the incidence of colon cancer and breast cancer, can improve balance and prevent falls, preserves bone mineral density, can help the exerciser lose and maintain loss of body fat, lowers blood pressure (if elevated), and can improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Recent research suggests that aerobic exercise is also good for your gut bacteria.

The longer you go without regular exercise, the more likely you are to have dementia. You are also more likely to get diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, all of which may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease. There is no time like the present to get started. You do not have to lift heavy weights. In fact more repetitions with lighter weights has been shown to be more effective with older adults. You do not have to start running marathons for your aerobic exercise. Find something you enjoy: a brisk walk in your neighborhood, ride a bicycle, play pickleball, go dancing, join a sports league, swim laps, or take a water fitness class. Check out the Plano Parks & Recreation website or the Parks & Rec website in your city for more options.

See you in the pool!

Author/Instructor Photo
Chris Alexander

Balance Training at Home

14 Exercises for Seniors to Improve Strength and Balance | Philips Lifeline

Although the pool is a great place to do balance training, with COVID-19 cases on the rise in many states, we are still being encouraged to shelter in place as much as possible. It is important to stay active during this time, and it’s a good idea to include balance training among your activities. It is especially important if you are older than 60 since balance training reduces your risk of falling.

Exercise Etc. Inc. offered a Balance & Fall Prevention webinar in 2019 describing a variety of balance exercises you can do at home. Some recommended strength training exercises include the following:

  1. Resisted rows for the upper back. If you don’t have a band, do a standing row. From a lunge position, with the R leg forward, pull a dumbbell (or water bottle) in your R hand from your knee up towards your hip, squeezing your shoulder blades. Then repeat on the L side.
  2. Toe scrunches to strengthen the toes.
  3. Standing heel lifts to strengthen the calf muscles.
  4. Deadlifts to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings. Keep your back straight. If you don’t have dumbbells, use water bottles.
  5. Chair squats to strengthen the quads.

In addition to strengthening the muscles that are important for balance, there are some specific balance training exercises you can do. First find your neutral alignment. Sit in a chair up against a wall and put a balloon behind your head. When you are able to maintain that position, try standing up against the wall with the balloon behind your head. Progress from there to walking with a book on your head.

The following exercises are done sitting in a chair:

  1. “The airplane” – Extend the arms to the side and lean slowly side to side.
  2. Alternating heel/toe lift – Lift your heels one at a time while pumping your arms with the elbows bent
  3. Seated crawling – Lift your knees one at a time while lifting the opposite hand as if you were crawling up a wall.

A one legged stand is another recommended exercise. There are a variety of ways you can practice it. At first you may need to hold on to a chair or the wall for support. Next try standing on one leg without holding on for a minimum of 5 seconds, or as long as possible. Always have support available in case you start to lose your balance. Progress to standing on one leg with one arm up. Next stand on an unstable surface, such as a one-inch thick piece of wood about the size of your shoe. You could also stand on a brick or a book. Finally try batting a balloon while you are standing on one foot on your unstable surface.

Besides strength training, practicing neutral alignment, chair exercises and one legged stands, it is important to practice walking fast. The faster you can walk, the lower your mortality rate. Shift your weight from your heel to the ball of your foot to the toes. Keep your spine in neutral and your head level. Your toes point forward and your feet are 3-5 inches apart. Your elbows are bent 90 degrees, your arms are close to your body and they pump for momentum and balance. Don’t forget to breathe! The following are some exercises you can do to improve your gait:

  1. Tap one heel at a time on the floor in front of you. Then tap the toes in front of you. This improves ankle strength and ankle range of motion.
  2. Walk with long steps to improve stride.
  3. Lift knees with arm pumps to improve your arm swing efficiency.
  4. Lift your heels up behind you towards your buttocks to improve hamstring strength.
  5. Walk with one foot in front of the other to improve stability.
  6. March to reduce shuffling.
  7. Walk with head rotations to improve balance.
  8. Walk with U-turns to strengthen hip rotators.
  9. Walk backward.
  10. Place 2 cones (or water bottles) 10-20 feet apart. Walk fast from A to B, pivot and walk fast back to A.
  11. Step sideways from A to B and back to A.
  12. Place a chair 10 feet from your cone (or water bottle); from a seated position stand up, walk to the cone, pivot and return to the chair.

All of this can be done in your living room. Pick several exercises to do at least 3 times a week, or even daily. You can also do some fast walking outside in your neighborhood. If you live in Texas, like I do, you will want to do this early in the morning since it gets too hot in our summer afternoons and evenings. Keep moving!

Chris Alexander

Chris Alexander

Home Workout

COVID-19 has most of us homebound these days with no definite end in sight. What are you doing to fill your time? There is probably a lot of Netflix movie and TV binge watching going on. But it is important to stay active as well. Here are some ideas to get you moving:

(1) Spring cleaning is probably not on the top of anyone’s list, but it is spring and house work is exercise. It is recommended that you regularly clean door knobs, light switches, faucet handles, toilet handles and seats, computer keyboards and cellphones, all of which you touch frequently. For the cellphones, use a wipe for cleaning glasses. Get more ambitious and clean the refrigerator, wash the curtains and deep clean the bathrooms. Since my grandchildren are not coming over during this time, I took the opportunity to wash all the toys in their toybox and replace all the batteries. Cleaning supplies can be hard to find. You can order safe, bio-degradable cleaning supplies online from Branch Basics at https://branchbasics.com/shop/

(2) If you enjoy gardening, that is another great way to get some exercise. You can create a container garden for your patio or work in your backyard garden. There has been a lot of rain in Plano, Texas which is good for the flowers; my verbena and bluebonnets are especially beautiful. The rain has been good for the weeds too, so weeding is one of my projects. If you want to plant something, Calloway’s allows you to make phone orders for curbside pickup.

(3) Walking is the perfect exercise for everyone and the spring weather has made walking around the neighborhood especially enticing. Explore those side streets that you usually just drive past in your car. Remember to maintain social distancing, since many of your neighbors have the same idea.

(4) You can do a strength training workout in your living room. I’ve got two home workout videos on YouTube that you can check out for ideas. The first video uses household items that you already have for equipment. Go to https://youtu.be/xtGvywsYY4g to view it. The second video uses bands. Go to https://youtu.be/DwXrroDRaOc to view that one. Other Plano instructors have also created videos. You can find them on the Plano Parks & Recreation Facebook page.

The pools may be closed but we still have to keep moving. Stay safe!

Chris Alexander

Maintain Your Flexibility

Some of my water fitness class participants enjoy stretching at the end of class and a few leave the pool before we get to the stretches. Are they missing anything important?

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends incorporating stretching exercises into your workouts 2-3 days a week but notes that daily stretching is most effective. They recommend that stretches be held for 10-30 seconds. Stretches that are held for 10-30 seconds are called static stretches. Stretching can also be dynamic. This means that you move a joint slowly through its full range of motion.

Stretching is a way to improve flexibility. Loss of flexibility results in a slower walking speed, smaller steps while walking, back pain and increased risk of falls. Improving flexibility reduces your risk of getting injured during physical activity. Muscles that are less tense are likely to have fewer aches and pains. You are less likely to have muscle cramps. Increasing your range of motion helps with balance. Flexibility and strength are two sides of the same coin. Stretching lengthens the muscles while strength training contracts the muscles. Performing both types of exercises makes you more physically fit.

There is a type of dynamic flexibility training that involves both stretching and contracting the muscle group being targeted. It is called Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation or PNF for short. In PNF an arm or a leg moves in a diagonal pattern. In the first illustration above, the right arm starts at the upper left front corner (left shoulder) and moves to the lower right rear corner. In the second illustration, the right leg starts at the upper left front corner and moves to the lower right rear corner. The opposite motion from the lower left front corner to the upper right rear corner is also performed. PNF stretching improves range of motion and muscular strength at the same time.

Ai Chi is another form of dynamic stretching. It was developed in Japan in 1993 by Jun Konno and introduced to the United States by Ruth Sova. Typically performed in shoulder depth water, Ai Chi moves arms and legs through a full range of motion while focusing on breathing patterns. You can find a video of Jun Konno performing Ai Chi on YouTube. A number of variations of Ai Chi have been developed. I find Ai Chi wonderfully relaxing and created a variation to use with my deep water classes. Ruth Sova is compiling the variations, including mine for deep water, which she will publish later in 2020.

Static stretching, dynamic stretching, PNF and Ai Chi can all be performed in a water fitness class to meet the American College of Sports Medicine’s recommendations on flexibility exercises. If you would like some ideas for stretches for various muscle groups to get you started, see pages 18-19 for shallow water and pages 175-176 for deep water in my book Water Fitness Progressions.

See you in the pool!

Chris Alexander

Keep Your Inner Core Strong

Muscles of the Inner Core

Most of the time when we hear the word “core” we think of our abdominals. And in fact it is important to keep the abdominals and all the other muscles of the trunk strong. These muscles work together to maintain good posture and to support and move the shoulders, the back and the hips. They are often referred to as the powerhouse of the body, stabilizing the trunk and allowing us to move our arms and legs powerfully and safely during exercise.

Beneath these core muscles are the muscles of the inner core and they have an important job to do. The brain is protected by the skull, the heart and lungs are protected by the rib cage, and the female reproductive organs are protected by the pelvic bone. But the remaining organs are protected by the inner core. The muscles of the inner core are the diaphragm at the top, the multifidus in the back, the transverse abdominis in the front, and the pelvic floor at the bottom. A weakness in the diaphram can lead to reflux. A weakness in the multifidus can lead to slipped discs, a weakness in the transverse abdominis can lead to a hernia. And a weakness in the pelvic floor can lead to incontinence.

Women are more likely than men to suffer from incontinence. However, in men sometimes an enlarged prostate exerts pressure on the urinary tract, controlling the flow of urine, and then the pelvic floor becomes weak. If the prostate is surgically removed, men will have a more serious issue with incontinence. Therefore, both men and women are encouraged to include pelvic floor exercises in their fitness routine. The Harvard Medical School recently published an article entitled “5 of the Best Exercises You Can Ever Do” which listed Kegel exercises as one of the five for both men and women. You can access the article at https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/5-of-the-best-exercises-you-can-ever-do

Exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor are less often called Kegels because the research has changed the way the exercises are performed. To perform core contraction correctly, lift the pelvic floor and then gently draw in the transverse abdominis. There should be no change in your breathing. Incorrect core contraction involves strongly bracing the abdominals before lifting the pelvic floor, but this bracing puts downward pressure on the pelvic floor. Furthermore, you typically hold your breath during a strong brace of the core. Instead, keep your upper abdominals relaxed. Perform the exercise gently and slowly. Activate the pelvic floor smoothly. Draw in from the pubic bone. Use 30% effort when drawing in the transverse abdominis. Your breathing is gentle and continuous.

How long to hold the core contraction depends on the type of incontinence you are having a problem with (or wish to avoid). Stress incontinence is leaking when sneezing, coughing, etc. For this do 10 quick pelvic floor lifts 2 or 3 times a day. Urge incontinence is leaking on the way to the bathroom. For this do a maximum of 10 repetitions at a time, hold the contraction for 10 seconds at most, and take a 30 second break in between contractions.

My resource for this information is Marietta Mehanni, the pelvic floor ambassador in Australia, who presented a workshop entitled “Aquacise Your Pelvic Floor” for the Metroplex Association of Aquatic Professionals in Dallas on October 5, 2019. As you might guess, pelvic floor exercises can be done in a water fitness class.

See you in the pool!

Chris Alexander