The Do’s and Don’ts of Smart Exercising

From Dr. Vonda Wright author of FITNESS AFTER 40

- Don’t Cram Your Exercise on the Weekend. At the end of a crazy week, it’s tempting to try to make up for five days of inactivity by exercise-cramming. Like many “weekend warriors,” you’ll regret it on Monday. Sudden intense exercise can result in muscle strains, tendonitis, lower back pain, stress fractures, and other injuries that can make you want to stop exercising altogether.

- Smart Exercising: Schedule and try to maintain a moderate level of activity throughout the week.

- Don’t Skimp on Stretching. When it comes to supple and efficient muscles, length matters. Fitness-enthusiasts who ignore flexibility risk suffering tightness, stiffness, and frustration, if not injuries. To maintain flexibility, you must stretch daily. Studies have found that if you stretch for six weeks and then take four weeks off, you will return to baseline.

- Smart Exercising: Devote 15 minutes each day to stretching every muscle group, from the neck to the calves.

- Don’t Do Rapid-Fire Resistance Training. Jerking dumbbells up and down, fast and furiously, is a good way to tear vital connections between your muscles and your tendons. To effectively work the targeted muscle, each repetition should be taken through a full range of motion in a slow, controlled way.

- Smart Exercising: Take twice as long to lower the weight as you do to lift it. When you do bicep curls, for instance, if you lift the weight by bending your elbow for two seconds, then you should take four seconds to extend your elbow and lower the weight.

- Don’t Neglect Your Core. Your core is the “belt” of muscles that wraps around your midsection. Core strength is critical to success in every sport, including running and golf (how do you think Tiger Woods drives the ball so far?), as well as for preventing back pain and attaining a flat abdomen.

- Smart Exercising: Get comfortable with “engaging” or tightening your core. Make a daily commitment to at least one core-strengthening exercise: the plank.

- Don’t Forget to Keep Track of Your Heart Rate. Sweating through aerobic workouts only makes sense if you reach your target heart rate and stay there for 20 minutes, minimum. Raising your heart rate and keeping it up burns fat, increases your cardiovascular fitness, and actually keeps the heart muscle itself healthy. To calculate your maximum target heart rate, subtract your age from 220 and then multiply by 0.85. Working out at 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate is your goal.

- Smart Exercising: Periodically check your heart rate during aerobic workouts. If you don’t have a heart rate monitor, you can get a rough estimate by counting your pulse for six seconds and adding a zero.

- Don’t Overlook Your Equilibrium. Your body’s natural sense of balance begins to decline after age 25.

- Smart Exercising: Work balance boosters into your daily routine. Between sets of strength exercises or while brushing your teeth in the morning, try standing on one leg and balancing. You’ll regain the equilibrium of a 20-year-old if you can close your eyes, lift one foot off the ground one leg, and stay balanced on the other foot for more than 22 seconds.

Adapted from FITNESS AFTER 40: How to Stay Strong at Any Age by Vonda Wright, M.D., with Ruth Winter, M.S. with a Foreword by Nolan Ryan (AMACOM 2009).