Exercise & Fitness for women over 40

More than 60 percent of women don’t get the recommended amount of physical activity, and one in four women aren’t physically active at all. That number jumps in women over 55–nearly 40 percent of whom say they get no leisure-time physical activity.

Yet the benefits of physical activity and exercise if you’re middle-age or older begin at the top of your head and continue to the tips of your toes, affecting every body system in between and contributing more to your overall health and longevity than any pill or diet ever will. And studies find that your mid-30s through your 40s is a critical time period for determining whether you’ll remain physically active after menopause, something you definitely want to strive for. The best reason? You’ll likely live longer. One large study of older women found that exercise reduced all causes of death in postmenopausal Of or occurring in the time following menopause women.

Regular exercise lowers blood pressure, reduces levels of “bad” cholesterol while raising levels of good” cholesterol and slows your resting heart rate, enabling it to work more efficiently. In one study, women who walked briskly for three or more hours per week slashed their risk of heart disease 35 percent compared to women who walked less frequently.

Several studies have found that physically active women experience less intense and fewer symptoms of menopause, including the ubiqu-tous hot flashes. In one survey of 625 runners aged 34 to 72 (average age 51), three-quarters said running had a positive impact on menopause, one-third said it improved their mood and overall emotional status, and one-fourth said it decreased menopausal symptoms.

Physical activity also reduces your risk of colon cancel; perhaps by helping food move through the digestive tract more quickly, thus limiting the contact of cancer-causing chemicals with the cells that line the colon. It reduces the risk of kidney stones, gallstone surgery and diverticular disease And, weight-bearing exercise, like walking, riding a bike or lifting weights, not only strengthens muscle, but also strengthens bone, helping increase bone density and prevent osteoporosis.

Exercise can also lower the risk of the disease women fear most: breast cancer. A study published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health Fitness Journal of 26,000 women found that women who exercised at least four hours a week had 37 percent fewer breast cancers than sedentary women. Researchers think that moderate to high activity levels lower a woman’s lifetime exposure to estrogen, a primary risk factor for breast cancer.

Exercise has numerous emotional benefits, too. It can help you fall asleep faster and sleep longer and deeper, and relieve depression. One small study found that just 30 minutes of daily walking on a treadmill at various intensities worked faster than medication to lift depression. Even if you’re not depressed, the release of feel-good hormones called endorphins endorphins, neurotransmitters found in the brain that have pain-relieving properties similar to morphine. There are three major types of endorphins: beta endorpins, found primarily in the pituitary gland; and enkephalins and  during physical activity can provide a euphoric feeling, according to Todd Stitik, MD, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Then there are exercise’s well-studied stress-reducing benefits. In study after study, aerobic exercise,
n sustained repetitive physical activity, such as walking, dancing, cycling, and swimming, that elevates the heart rate and increases oxygen consumption resulting in improved functioning of cardio-vascular and respiratory systems.

Blasting Through the Excuses

So if the benefits of exercise are so clearly significant, why isn’t every woman out there running, biking, walking, swimming, lifting or any of the other numerous -ings that translate into physical activity?

“The number one barrier we hear is ‘I don’t have the time,’” says Bess H. Marcus, PhD, who directs the Physical Activity Research Center at Brown University Medical School in Providence, RI. The center conducts scientific research on various aspects of physical activity and health.

That may be due to the mistaken belief that physical activity means hard, intense exercise, the kind that makes you drip with sweat and leaves your muscles aching the next morning.

Get over it, say exercise experts. You can gain significant benefits in as little as 30 minutes a day of physical activity, ranging from vigorously cleaning your house to riding your bike to swimming laps. And you don’t need to do it all at once; you can break your exercise into smaller increments that together add up to 30 minutes. That’s why many exercise experts were alarmed by the recent recommendation from the Institute of Medicine that Americans need 60 minutes of physical activity a day. “That’s a recommendation for weight loss, not health,” Dr. Marcus says reassuringly. So if you re trying to lose weight, yes, you need to increase the amount of physical activity you get (and decrease the amount you eat). But if you’re focused on health, 30 minutes a day of moderate-intensity physical activity should do it.

Which brings us to the next confusing issue around physical activity: Just what do they mean when they say “moderate intensity?” “Moderate intensity is walking between three to four miles an hour with some urgency, like you’re late for an appointment or to catch a bus,” says Dr. Marcus. “It’s definitely not strolling.” You can still talk while doing it, but you’re slightly breathless.

But don’t get all hung up about time and intensity, says Dr. Marcus. “The most important way for people to be able to stick with physical activity is to be flexible in their approach. Particularly women.” That means walking around the block while your child is at piano practice. Doing a light jog or a brisk walk around the soccer field while your kids practice. Using a 15-minute break at work to briskly walk up and down the stairs Adv. 1. down the stairs – on a floor below; “the tenants live downstairs”
downstairs, on a lower floor, below , or a free half hour at home to weed the garden or rake leaves. The important thing is to plan for the activity.

“We want people to make physical activity a priority so that they write it into their schedules,” says Dr. Marcus. “But people also need to be flexible enough to roll with the punches and get away from all-or-nothing thinking,” she says.

One thing that may help: Surround yourself with people who also are physically active. A national study conducted by researchers at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president.  of nearly 3,000 women 40 and older found that if women didn’t see other people exercising in the neighborhood, they didn’t feel like exercising themselves. In the study of ethnically diverse women, only about nine percent met the definition of being regularly active. Other reasons the women didn’t exercise: caregiving duties–whether for children or other adults, lack of energy and, believe it or not, a lack of hills in the neighborhood (the researchers speculate that a hilly neighborhood provides more interesting scenery and is more conducive to walking). The women also said they’d rather exercise on their own than in a group-led exercise class, a response that probably relates to women’s needs for flexibility. And some women said they didn’t want to exercise because they were self-conscious about their physical appearance. Other research finds even a l ack of sidewalks or unsafe neighborhoods can keep people from exercising.

What’s New at the Gym

Forget high-impact aerobic classes with blaring rock music. Today’s health club offerings are likely to be mellower, featuring lots of stretching, flexibility exercises and even meditation through yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi Tai Chi Definition

T’ai chi is a Chinese exercise system that uses slow, smooth body movements to achieve a state of relaxation of both body and mind.  classes. It makes sense that health clubs are expanding in this direction considering that those 55 and older make up the fastest growing demographic in their membership. (14)

Between 1994 and 1999, the percentage of health clubs offering yoga jumped from 36 to 74 percent, while one in four now offer Pilates, a method of exercise and physical movement designed to stretch, strengthen and balance the body.

How hard are you working out?

For years, we’ve been told to exercise to within 75 to 80 percent of our maximum heart rate, or MHR MHR (US, Australia) n abbr (= Member of the House of Representatives) → Abgeordnete(r) f(m) des Repräsentantenhauses . At gyms throughout the country, charts listing the heart rate goals for various age groups decorate the walls.

This scale (below) scores how difficult a particular activity feels to you. A score of 13 to 15 should put you at roughly your target heart rate. If your score falls below 10, push yourself a little harder; if your score is over 17, ease back.

6-No exertion at all

7-Very, very light

9-Very light

11-Light

13-Somewhat hard

15-Hard

17-Very hard

19-Very, very hard

20-Maximal exertion

Another way to determine how much physical activity a movement or exercise provides is to find out its MET, or metabolic equivalent .

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVEL (PAL)

                           PAL Change   Weight   Aerobic/
Activity             METs   (1 hour)   bearing?  anaerobic

Lying quietly        1.0      0           No      Neither
Walking (2 mph)      2.5      0.09       Yes      Aerobic
Golf with cart       2.5      0.09       Yes      Slightly

Cycling (leisurely)  3.5      0.14       Yes      aerobic
Raking lawn          4.0      0.17       Yes      Aerobic

Golf without cart    4.4      0.19       Yes      Aerobic
Gardening            4.4      0.19       Yes      Both

Walking (4 mph)      4.5      0.2        Yes      Aerobic
Mowing lawn          4.5      0.2        Yes      Aerobic
(power mower)

Tennis (doubles)     5.0      0.23       Yes      Both
Dancing (aerobic)    6.0      0.29       Yes      Aerobic

Climbing hills       6.9      0.37       Yes      Both
(with no pack)
Swimming             7.0      0.34        No      Aerobic

Walking (5 mph)      8.0      0.40       Yes      Aerobic
Jogging              10.2     0.53       Yes      Aerobic
(10-minute miles)
More information can be found at the Free Dictionary.

May 21, 2011 · administrator · No Comments
Posted in: Exercise, Health and Fitness

Leave a Reply