Fitness Are You Fit Enough For Your Life?

We all appear to recognise that proper fitness is an important aspect of an overall healthy lifestyle. When people are fit, eat healthily and reduce risk factors their health will improve, they will in the end visit the doctor and hospital less often thereby saving huge costs to society and themselves.

Often when people are starting to think about getting fitter they come up with a number of questions that they feel them should answer. These include:-

• Why do I need to be fit?
• What sort of activity should I do?
• How much should I do?
• How am I going to find the time?
• Should my children and teenagers do this as well?

Each of us has to find the answers for ourselves. I know that I do not have the knowledge to answer all these, or, even some of them, fully. Having said that here are some answers that may help you find your own.

WHY DO I NEED TO BE FIT?

To be fit a person does not have to be an athlete. There are various levels of fitness that people need for their every day lives and their sport. Everybody does not have to play sport of any kind, but everyone MUST be healthy to maintain his or her own health.

Either of two reasons, either a general fitness for general health, or, specific fitness so that you take part in a particular sport.

In times past fitness was defined as being able to perform all the tasks required during a day without suffering from undue fatigue. However, with the changes to lifestyle plus the technical development and automation now in our every day lives this can no longer be a valid reason. Fitness today can be defined as your body's ability to function efficiently and perform effectively in work and leisure activities. Being fit today means also that the body is better able to with stand diseases and to meet the challenge of emergency situations.

What sort of activity should I do? What would be right thing for me to do? Whoever you are, what ever your age and present health situation there is an activity for you. Some people hold back from exercising because them are self-conscious about their body and their ability. You will find a gym in your area, or, a community based class that you can attend. It is never too old to learn to swim and swimming can be a good exercise. Then there are the exercises that you can do by yourself and away from the spotlight. Here are a few activities that can help: -

Walking Most of us walk some part of everyday, but a lot less than we used to.Walking is the cheapest and simplest of all exercises, and making it a regular daily activity can greatly increase your fitness.

Walking improves the condition of your heart and lungs plus it works the muscles of the lower body. It is a weight bearing activity, so it may improve the bone density, yet it is also low impact, putting less stress on the joints than other forms of exercise.

Running/Jogging Just about the ultimate way to get fit, it is cheap and can be done just about anywhere at any time and is very effective It is a high impact activity as such it may maintain or increase bone density, but, it can also put more stress on your joints.

Swimming Is another popular way to start getting fit. Just about every town has a pool and if you cannot swim then you will find a learn to swim class based there. In most cases you will also find fitness classes at the pool geared to what ever level you require. All at a very reasonable cost.

Cycling Many of the short, under five miles (8.3 km) that we undertake everyday in a car can be also be undertaken by using a bicycle. By using a bike we are looking after out heart, controlling our weight, and, as a low impact method is easy on our joints.

Join a gym or sports club All forms of football are sports that you have to get fit to play, the racket sports such as squash, tennis, and badminton are great social events and a way to get fit and maintain fitness. Some of the advantages of going to a gym include, having to make an appointment, is social, has expert advise at hand all the time and has systems where you can measure your improvement.

Warning - Before starting any regular form of exercise discuss it with your doctor.

How much should I do?

If you want to be involved in international sport, you can find help and guidance. If you have an ambition to run and complete a marathon, help is available. If all you want to do is to lose a few pounds in weight, you can get help for that. Every community has groups that are committed to helping you get fit for the sake of your health. Why not accept this help and live a longer happier and healthy life?

Many people who have jobs where that they seem to be standing, walking, climbing stairs all the time think that they must be fit. It does not follow that they are. The average office worker walks about 3-4000 steps a day at about 2 feet (600mm) per step that means that he/she is walking about 2666 yards (2400 metres) per day

To stay healthy a person needs to be taking about 10,000 steps per day. For weight lose 15,000 to 20,000 steps per day are required. This means that a person walking 20,000 steps in an eight-hour day covers about 1500 metres per hour, a distance that some athletes do in less than 4 minutes.

Why not get yourself a pedometer, they don't cost very much and you will be surprised how few steps you take a day. It could start a new healthy way of life.

Our world today is one where increasingly physical activity has stopped being part of our every day life. In out home we have domestic appliances to wash dry and clean for us, we have cars that we use to get around in, and, manual labour is no longer required from us, we do our work sitting at a desk. When we get home we spend most of the evening in from of the television. Sound familiar?

Then some people believe that exercise is something miserable that has to be very, very hard to do any good. This is not true.

Exercise should be enjoyable because if you do not do something that you enjoy then you will not stay with it.

The intensity at which you undertake your exercise can be either strenuous, moderate or mild. It will depend on your current level of fitness and what you want to achieve.

An example, a person may find running or jogging a mile in nine minutes to be very strenuous whereas an Olympic 10,000M runner would find it to be a mild activity.

According to a Government study only 37 percent of men and 24 percent of women take enough exercise to get any benefit from it. Experts state that:-

• 30 minutes a day five days a week of moderate-intensity physical activity should be the goal of every adult.
• You do NOT have to do the whole 30 minutes in one go. It can be spread out in three ten minute bursts through out the day
• the activity can be a 'lifestyle activity', for example, walking the dog, walking to the shops, a structured exercise or a sport. It just needs to be at least moderate intensity.
• People who have a specific risk from obesity, or, who through a medical condition need to control their weight, need 45 - 60 minutes of exercise at least five times a week.
• to maintain a healthy bone density activities that produce high physical stresses on the bones are necessary.

Remember

• Start slowly
• Get advise from your Doctor before you start
• pregnant women, a fit mother is an asset to her baby. Get advise before your start
• Eat sensibly. A balanced nutritious diet is essential.
• Warm up and stretch before you start an exercise.

How am I going to find the time?

I know the feeling only too well.I am using every hour of the day, how can I fit in something else? A basic exercise programme does not take very long to do, 30 minutes a day, or, three ten minute bursts. If we look at our daily routine most of us will find the time if we want to.

Back in the 1950's the Canadian Air Force published a booklet in which they outlined the activities that people should be doing every day for their health or sport, this was called the 5BX. The Five Basic Exercises. Many people followed this exercise regime as it involved only a few minutes each day and could be done in their own home.

If you are employed

• leave the car at home and walk to and from work.
• if a shower is available at work, run to and from work.
• walk for half and hour at lunch time.
• talk to your employer, they may provide a gym or exercise room at work,

If you look after children

• Take them to the local swimming pool.
• Play with them in your garden or at the park.
• walk them to school.
• check out the local gym, many of them have child caring facilities available while you exercise

You just cannot fit anything more into your day, how about getting up half and hour earlier and going for a walk before you start your day?.If you get home late and just blob out in from of the TV to unwind how about getting some form of exercise machine and use it while watching the TV?

SHOULD MY CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS DO THIS AS WELL?

The short answer is Yes, they should exercise every day. You may think that children are the last people who would need to worry about their fitness, unfortunately their generation are the one most at risk.

When I was child fitness was not an issue. There was no television, very few cars, limited number of takeaways; every family seemed to have a garden. If people wanted to go somewhere they walked; ran, or, cycled

To see a person who had a few extra pounds on his/her body was not common.People tended to accept that these people either had some medical conditions, or, were just plain lazy and sat round all day doing nothing.

I am not saying that people were better in those days because if we did not have to be active we were not, and paid the penalty for being lazy even then.

The trend towards obesity by our children is alarming many health experts around the world. They are eating the wrong foods and are not exercising anywhere near enough for their health.

We are constantly told, on TV, over the radio and in the newspapers, that children need at least one hour of physical activity each day where they work up a bit of a sweat and get slightly out of breath. If you can get them to do something more strenuous then so much the better for them.

Have fun.