Workout Prescriptions
“I want to be healthy”
You’re not a huge fitness fan, but want to feel healthy and live to a ripe old age. A minimum of 30 minutes a day of moderate-intensity physical activity five days a week gives you a 20-30% reduced risk of premature death and up to 50% reduced risk of major chronic disease, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. This amount of physical activity can boost your emotional wellbeing and ability to deal with stress.
Walking the dog or pottering about in the garden is better than nothing, although the above mentioned moderate-intensity physical activity, so you should feel warm, your breathing and heart rate should quicken and you may start to sweat a bit. Brisk walking, vigorous housework, or playing doubles tennis are all good options.
If you want to become a sprightly granny, you should also consider flexibility and strength training. Try to stretch your muscles two or three times a week, holding each stretch for 20 seconds. Do standard stretches, yoga, pilates or tai chi classes, which will also help your balance.
Strength training should be carried out two to three times a week, with a minimum of eight to ten exercises involving the major muscle groups (arms, shoulders, chest, abdomen, back, hips and legs) in each session. You should do a minimum of one set of eight to twelve repetitions with a heavy enough resistance to bring you to near fatigue. Also, try to add easy resistance exercises into your daily routine – strengthen your ankles and calves at the photocopier by rising onto your toes and holding for a count of five, then lowering and repeating, or boost arm strength by carrying a basket at the supermarket.
“I want to lose weight”
Instead of hugely reducing your calorie intake, which can leave you with very little energy and make it hard to get your nutritional needs, you can help burn off wobbly bits by exercising more. There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so to lose a pound over the course of a week; you’d need to expend 500 more calories a day than you usually do. The amount of calories you burn when you work out depends on your age, weight, genes and fitness levels, but roughly speaking it takes about one hour 40 minutes to burn about 500 calories by walking at four miles an hour, or 50 minutes by running at six miles an hour. It can be quite hard to fit this amount of exercise into your day. So, if you want to lose a pound a week, split those 500 calories – eat 250 calories a day less and burn off the other 250 through exercise. As a guide, you shouldn’t take your calorie intake lower than 1,200 calories a day.
Many women stick to cardio and overlook resistance training, but weights can be the slimmer’s best friend. Not only will it make you stronger for everyday activities and your cardio exercise, it will also increase your metabolic rate, which means you’ll burn more calories, even when you’re asleep. For weight loss, do two to three sessions a week with moves to work all the major muscle groups. To get results make sure you’re using a weight that’s heavy enough for you to be near fatigue but keeping good technique on your last rep of each set.
Lastly, don’t get too hung up on your body weight – it’s how you look that counts. You’ll gain muscle mass through resistance training, which means you may not see the needle dive on the scales, but you’ll be losing body fat, toning up and your clothes will fit better.
The perfect programme
Ideally, your weekly exercise programme should include these three elements.
• Cardiovascular work – also known as CV or cardio, this is an activity which increases your heart rate, such as swimming, brisk walking or running.
• Flexibility training – this involves stretching your muscles, tendons and ligaments. It can be done as yoga, pilates or with a simple stretching program.
• Strength training – also known as resistance training, this involves overloading your muscles in order to strengthen them. This includes carrying heavy bags, using the weights machines at the gym, using your own body weight in moves such as press ups, or lifting dumbbells.