Mountains of evidence reveal that cardio exercise promotes longevity,but it can be confusing to sort out all the latest studies that compare lifestyles and life spans. Some have looked at how you move vs. how much you sit; others at counting total steps vs. number of steps per minute (indicating intensity); still others at accumulating minutes of moderate activity vs. alternating brief periods of high intensity activity with rest periods, known as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
A career dedicated to more than 30 years of teaching fitness has taught me many life lessons! Some are based in the science of exercise physiology, some in human behavior, and others from my own personal experience of pursuing a lifelong fitness routine. The following twelve “rules” are what I have found work best across the board.
While sheltering in place at a friend’s home, I found myself working on a small round table with half of the materials in my lap, sitting in a wing chair that offered no back support. Working from home can present many challenges, including improvising an office set-up with a desk and chair.
In the early 1990s, there was a scarcity of interest, research, funding, and support available to breast cancer survivors for improving their fitness and well-being. Beauty and fashion industries hadn’t woken up to the call. However, the grassroots support group SHARE in NYC was at the ready. After a thorough screening by their gatekeepers, I began creating and delivering fitness programs to their members, who were eager for help.
The signals of aging are weak but persistent. To be prepared for creeping changes, we need to tune in to the subtleties of how our bodies are aging and respond with a targeted strategy. Developing an awareness can head off aging issues and help you keep a youthful edge.
Early on in my career I worked with a client who’d had breast cancer and made such dramatic progress in her fitness training program that she felt there must be other women who would also benefit. With her encouragement, I began researching what little information was available at that time to help cancer survivors improve their fitness.
It’s not so much that I love the act of running as that I love what it does for me – the health benefits of building bone, strengthening my heart, clearing my arteries, keeping my brain sharp – and the lifestyle benefits of staying fit for travel, for building stamina for long trips, for climbing up to the top of perched villages or the steep escalators of the Q train!
I was always proud of my concave abdomen, my belly naturally flat and slightly hollow like a teen-ager’s. I used to feel lucky and wonder how long it would last. Then one day in my early 40’s, it seemed to pop out overnight, becoming rounder. Not only rounder, but firmer, too. I saw the beginning of the belly my mother and grandmother developed with age.
You may be familiar with the well-publicized risk factors for bone loss and osteoporosis, such as being a woman, aging, menopause, family history, being small and thin, an inactive lifestyle, and smoking. But did you know that anxiety can also increase your risk for bone fractures?
I was fortunate to be born with athletic talents; you could say fitness is in my bones. As soon as I could walk I was doing flips off the jungle gym in the backyard and practicing “flying” from the top of a small play house. Every spare minute you could find me playing with jump ropes, pogo sticks, stilts and hula hoops.
Years ago, a friend encouraged me to try running. She made it sound so invigorating to gear up and be out in nature, jogging along the reservoir path in Central Park, under a beautiful canopy of trees that change with the seasons. It looked easy enough, until the first time, when 1.6 miles stretched out before me like a marathon. Plugging away, I made it, and, over time, it gradually became easier to run around the reservoir.
Strength training sculpts the contours of your body and strengthens the bones within. By building lean body mass, it boosts your metabolism and your energy levels, making you resistant to the slow down that occurs with age. A well-designed exercise program that includes weight training will impact your weight, health, fitness and well-being for decades to come.
