Exercise and Physical Activity as Medicine
It’s probably safe to say that most people know exercise is good for them. Perhaps you’ve heard the adage “sitting is the new smoking”?
But if it’s such a good thing, why doesn’t everyone do it?
Many people think of exercise as a means to an end. That “goal” may be to lose weight, keep a new year’s resolution, or just become generally healthier. But it’s actually so much more than that.
Inactivity is one of the leading modifiable risk factors for global mortality.
Those with an inactive lifestyle have a 20-30% higher rate of mortality than those who are physically active.
Some guidelines for physical activity:
2018 US Dept of Health and Human Services Guidelines for Physical Activity for Americans
For Adults:
- Move more and sit less throughout the day
- 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity each week
OR
- 75-100 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity each week
OR
- Equivalent combination of each intensity each week
AND
- Muscle strengthening activity involving all major muscle groups at least 2 days a week
- Balance training for older adults
But making exercise all about avoiding death takes so much of the fun out.
The truth is, there are many more positive reasons to exercise than negative ones.
For example:
- Weight loss and/ or weight maintenance
- Improved strength and endurance
- Improved cardiovascular fitness
- Reduced stress, anxiety and depression
- Improved sleep
- Improved cognitive function
- Improved fatigue
- Improved bowel function (reduces constipation)
- Reduced blood pressure
The list goes on and on and on.
But even when people know the importance of exercise, many of them still can’t manage to make it a part of their lives. You may have also experienced what it’s like to run into these obstacles.
Some common reasons people don’t exercise include:
- Motivation
- Time
- Weather
- Fear
- Money/ Cost / Equipment
- Kids/ Family
- Knowledge
- Fatigue
- Age
- THINKING you CAN’T
So…how can you overcome these hurdles? Watch the video to learn more.
A helpful practice is to stop seeing them as a large mass of insurmountable obstacles. Instead, look closely at all of your reasons for not exercising and think up strategies for overcoming them.
For instance, if time is an issue, look for ways to incorporate physical activity into your normal routine. You probably have time for a couple pushups in the morning. A tiny portion of the time you spend scrolling on your phone could be put into getting your heartrate up for a couple minutes.
Or, if knowledge is the issue, go ahead and follow some fitness accounts on social media. Little nuggets of useful information will start ro filter their way into your feed.
Here’s a mantra for overcoming the hurdles between you and physical activity:
Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can.
Each day, move more and play.
Add more years to your life and more life to your years.
Are you ready to take charge of your health? Schedule your free 20-minute discovery call with our New Patient Coordinator to see how you can become a patient at MaxWell Clinic and start your healing journey today.
hi everybody and welcome
um i can’t see anybody so i’m gonna give this a few minutes to let
people time to log in but i’m really excited about tonight
i’m really excited to spend time talking with you about exercise and physical activity
my objective for our times together is to share my passion i actually really really enjoy exercising i know that’s
probably odd for a lot of people because most people dread it but i actually really like it and so this is really a fun topic for me to do
um some of you may prefer not to discuss exercise but you’re here for a reason so
i hope we can learn something together um so my objectives for tonight are to share my passion um educate
the maxwell family because you are family and
physical activity is foundational as far as max
maximal wellness and to inspire you to get moving and to continue to be active for your entire
life it is my hope that you will make exercise a priority like brushing your
teeth the old adage of if you don’t use it you
lose it is very true and applies here
first some housekeeping uh objectives here so if
you can make sure you’re muted and if the internet goes out for some reason
just hang on don’t go anywhere and i will switch to my wi-fi but i don’t think that’s going to happen
so um this was a cute slide i wanted to include i think it’s safe to say that
most everybody knows that exercise is good for you um you may even have heard that sitting is the new smoking
so if it’s such a good thing why doesn’t everybody as nike says just do it
many people think about exercise as a means to an end usually that end
is to lose weight or to start a new year’s resolution or just to be overall
healthier um or post 2020 pandemic an effort to fit back into your regular
clothes since we a lot of us have been wearing sweatpants um on the zoom days
but it’s so much more powerful than that according to the journal of american
college of cardiology physical inactivity is one of the leading modifiable risk factors for global
mortality with an estimated 20 to 30 percent increased risk of death compared to
those who are physically active that’s pretty that’s a pretty shocking um
statement and there’s an abundant amount of scientific evidence that demonstrates that physical act
people that are physically active of all age groups and ethnicities have higher levels
of cardiorespiratory fitness health wellness and lower risk for developing several chronic medical illnesses such
as cardiovascular disease and compared to those that are
physically inactive so the more active you are the better but even a little bit
of exercise or even physical activity is beneficial and that’s what i’m going to show you tonight
so this is a little bit of a more serious
graphic than the last one um and what it’s showing is that um
the more the person who’s more sedentary who’s sitting most of the time in other words their daily sitting time is much greater
compared to someone who is more physically active this graphic is uh
from the medical journal of lancet in 2016 and i like it because it brings home the point that it’s not all about
weight loss um so one of my goals today is to share the information with you and empower you
empower you to have one or more tools in your one more tool
in your wellness tool box
so let’s define what we’re talking about here physical activity um
sorry i need to make my slide a little better a little bigger for me to see it um physical activity is any movement
that is carried out by a skeletal muscle group that requires energy to perform so physical activity
can be many things it can be work related or chores um it can include outdoor activities
playtime which we as adults seem to have forgotten how to do um because we’re so
busy working all the time um examples would be walking the dog cleaning the
house actively playing with your kids or grandkids taking the stairs gardening etc
exercise is intentional movement that is planned structured and repetitive
that is intended to maintain or improve physical fitness so
exercise can be going to the gym but it doesn’t have to include a gym because many things can be done outside in
nature or in your neighborhood or in your home even without equipment and the pandemic
it’s been a lot of things but one thing it has been is it’s created many more online resources
for us to use but we have to seek them out we have to know what to look for and we have to take the initiative to
explore those things um but which is more important well both is
important here
how much do you need well this is the u.s department of health and
human services updated their guidelines in 2008 2018
and they did they pretty much said that to move more
throughout the day that’s bullet point number one um the second thing that they uh
recommended is moderate intensity aerobic activity defined as
150 minutes that’s about two and a half hours or 300 minutes about five hours a week
a week of moderate intensity exercise
that means you’re working hard enough to raise your heart rate or break a sweat
one way to tell if you’re in a moderate intensity aerobic activity is that you’ll be able to talk
but not sing the words to your favorite song um and that’s just kind of a good baseline a
lot of people have wearables now and they can track their heart rate and all that but we’re not getting into all that tonight so just moderate aerobic
intensity would be you could have a conversation with someone might be a little short of breath but
you couldn’t sing all the words to the song because you don’t have that much wind examples of moderate intensity
activities would be brisk walking aerobic water aerobics riding a bike
dancing doubles tennis pushing a lawnmower hiking rollerblading vigorous activity
is 75 minutes or about an hour and 15 minutes or 250 minutes or two and a half hours
approximately of more vigorous activities meaning you couldn’t really sing or even talk in full sentences so
you might be doing this kind of number where you’re trying to hold a conversation but you just you just can’t talk um
examples of vigorous activity would be hiking up a hill with a heavy backpack running swimming laps aerobic dancing
heavy yard work like digging or hoeing singles tennis cycling jumping rope
those are more vigorous activities well do you have to do one or the other or do you have to do both no it’s either or or
it can be some combination of either one um and so and it doesn’t matter it
really doesn’t matter if you do it all in one you know 15 minutes a day if that’s all you’ve got
on that day because of the other requirements that you have to other commitments you have to do that’s
fine just do what you can on the day you can do but collectively over a week you want to shoot for these goals and they
added muscle strengthening activity involving all major muscle groups uh at
least two days a week and then balance training for older adults so
are we meeting these goals some of you may be some of you may not be some of you may think this is completely
overwhelming um so this is a slide that shows us at
least in 2010 to 2015 no would be the answer
um as a nation we’re not doing so great as far as movement is concerned this
graphic i liked it because i’m a visual learner and i like the pictures um it’s from a cdc report it’s again it’s old
report um but i couldn’t find a more recent graphic that i wanted to share that
had all the different states and the actual numbers on them so i used this one but the cdc report looked at how
many adults in every state melt the guidelines to achieve 150 minutes of weekly
um moderate activity and and at least two days per week of muscle strengthening
activities and nationally the data shows that we hit about 22.9 percent
of folks met the goals but individual states varied and as you can see in the south
not so proud um out west colorado [Music] a little bit better so what about the
kids because it’s not just adults these were adults this was age i think 18 to 65. um but what about what about
kids i thought this was kind of a fun a fun little graphic
so the guidelines for
children um and teens so this was like ages six to 18. um the guidelines were
there as well in that same report it came out in 2018 um but in our very tech
savvy world most u.s kids fall woefully short in all age groups
the in 2018 the united states report card on physical activity for children
and youth as evaluated by the national physical activity plan alliance team of
experts score for overall activity rating for our kids is a d minus now
that doesn’t apply to everybody it was averages but the bottom line is we live in a very
different life than our ancestors did um we live in a land of convenience um i am
personally grateful not to have to grow my own food like my grandmother did um
and um but things have become so convenient these days that um we don’t even have to go to the grocery store we
can you know do a something an app um and have have it
just delivered and we don’t even really have to cook we can uber eats or we can delivery dudes and food just appears at
our house so this this was really more about kids but
everything has been sort of made convenient and i really like convenience i’m not against convenience but i think
that’s kind of working against us and i think that in this pandemic that we’re
still in um it’s really um changed a lot of people’s
exercise activities some people i have heard are doing more and that’s awesome some people
have slipped up and are not doing as much they can’t go to the gyms they can’t get out as much um so and that’s
affected our kids they’re not going to school well some of them are some of them aren’t so it’s really been pretty impactful as
far as physical activity is concerned
so what are the benefits of physical activity the first one is kind of a no-brainer
and i’m going to go through some of these faster than others but i will take questions at the end
weight loss is pretty obvious but as a general rule of thumb um it’s got to be
paired with diet people get very frustrated because they get all fired up and they get gun home they come and start running i’m gonna do all these
things and they don’t lose any weight why why is that well it could be that
your diet didn’t change because that really has to pair with everybody’s a little different but it
really has to pair it’s about 80 diet and 20 activity
but as a rule of thumb you need to burn about 3 500 calories to lose one pound
of fat or more simply put lu to lose a pound a week that’s about 500 calories
that need to go missing each day whether that’s through diet or through burning them off with exercise and this can be
accomplished in many ways it’s best to combine diet and exercise as far as that’s concerned
improve strength and endurance that’s obvious
improves cardiovascular fitness most people when they think of exercise they think of cardiovascular health and it’s
good for your heart your heart is a muscle and so you work that muscle with aerobic activity and you’re
going to have better cardiovascular fitness reduces stress anxiety and depression
randomized controlled trials of many studies comparing exercise to antidepressants reported
that exercise and into low-dose antidepressants were equally as affected and when you paired the two there was
even bigger benefits um and improved sleep i’ve had lots of uh
patients tell me that oh my sleep is improved and i’ll say well what changed well i started exercising
but it’s also in the literature improves cognitive function uh
aerobic exercise increases something called bdnf which is an acronym for
brain-derived new neutrophic factor in the brain
and this is responsible for enhancing cellular metabolic activity of
the brain and it increases neuroplasticity and this is not just true in folks that
are older it’s true in younger kids there was a study i think out of ireland
um i can’t tell you where i read this but where they they took a group of young
males who were pretty much sedentary and they took this memory test of just matching things and then they took half
of that group and exercised them to almost exhaustion for like 30 minutes on stationary bikes the other graph the
other half they just let them sit there and then they both sets both groups we
took the the test on memory uh and this would be a short-term memory test and these were young gentlemen they weren’t
older um like in their 20s and the exercise group
performed higher and got more correct answers than the sedentary group in that
one trial so there’s lots of studies like that so it does improve cognitive function for all age groups um
improves fatigue and some people are like well i’m tired i don’t want to exercise how’s that going to help me out
you’d be surprised now if you try to exercise and you are extremely fatigued
or you just can’t you don’t have enough energy to do that i encourage you to talk to your provider
there may be some nutrient deficiencies there may be some mitochondrial issues
there’s a lot to dig into there but for the most part uh it does improve
uh fatigue um
improves bowel function reduces constipation you think about it you take your dog on a walk it poops um same
thing for humans the more you move the less stopped up you get it improves overall
bowel function reduces blood pressure about 150 minutes of moderate intensity
exercise a week which works out to be about 30 minutes a day depending on how
you how you do that if you do most days a week can lower systolic blood pressure
five to nine degrees millimeters of mercury
reduction of blood sugar and improves insulin sensitivity and this is a big one because higher levels
of insulin insulin in the body um create lots and lots of inflammation and
that’s really really bad for the brain and brain health so it improves the sensible sensitivity
of uh insulin as well as reducing blood sugar it lowers cardiovascular disease
mortality decreasing risk of atrial fibrillation decreases
congestive heart failure cardiovascular events um
it’s pretty uh well known but wanted to mention it here lowers the adverse lipid profile
that’s mostly in increasing the hdl it can also help lower the ldl
um lowers the risk of diabetes and that kind of goes with the
blood sugar and insulin sensitivity reduces the risk of false related injury
for older adults well if you’re practicing balancing exercises you’re going to stay upright more likely
if you have more muscle you know twitch you know slow twitch
fibers or fast twitch fibers which we do lose as we age it’s gonna um help you um
uh improve if you’re starting to go down to be able to catch yourself
it improves quality of life you can do more things if you feel like doing
being more active and that’s important it improves bone health
lowers the risk of osteoporosis bones are at their maximum strength and
density somewhere between the ages of 25 to 30.
so we really want our kids exercising and moving and being active because
they’re building um muscle strength which is also building bone health
and so the more you build the more you can hang on to and that is
able to be maintained if you’re actually uh doing those weight-bearing exercises
reduce the risk of dementia we already talked about cognitive function but there have been studies lots of studies
that look at exercise with dementia improves function and reduces pain in
patients with arthritis that’s most people say oh i can’t exercise because i’ve got bad knees i
have arthritis actually if you improve your
muscle strengths around those joints it actually is beneficial and there have been
studies that show that for osteoarthritis and even rheumatoid arthritis i have several patients with
rheumatoid arthritis they go to physical therapy they’re actually typical they’re able to be more mobile and have decreased pain with very targeted
supervised exercise programs that’s that’s huge
improves immune function
oops i want one one slide too far over here hold on
sorry i have two screens and so on that’s why i’m looking over here to to be able to be on the same slide as
you are um reduces symptoms of pms and menopause less hot flashes
less irritability everybody is up for that um for pregnant women who it reduces
excessive weight gain postpartum depression and gestational diabetes now you obviously need to follow guidelines
in regards to exercising with pregnant as you’re pregnant and talk to your ob
about that but most obs will allow you to continue to do some form of exercise
with some guidelines throughout most all trimesters
reduces sarcopenia sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass and function
um or strength uh it is a normal part of aging muscle mass decreases
approximately three to eight percent per decade after the age of 30. that’s kind of depressing
and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60 and this leads to loss of function lower metabolism loss
of mobility and loss of independence none of the things that you want
muscle is a metabolic furnace it burns about 35 to 50 calories a day compared
to a measly two calories per pounds of fat but the sad thing is is that as our hormones change
and as our activity level changes and frequently as our diet changes not always for the better we end up kind of
switching our body composition to more fat less muscle but exercise will help
you make that shift in a more positive way weight training can counteract some of
the muscle loss but it will not stop sarcopenia completely but you’re better off starting out with
more muscle in your 20s and 30s so anybody who’s on this webinar that’s listened to this
that’s younger now is your time start building start building it up um
sorry go back two slides um
decreases erectile dysfunction so for my men on the call
there’s that uh creates relationships and community i know that
personally i didn’t always start out loving exercise it has been a journey and
process for me um i would say i probably really bought in when i was about 38 39 i was actually
39 um and i didn’t buy in all at once it was a
very slow momentum get going and now i’m i’m pretty passionate about it but um
but the community and relationships that i’ve built through do
through exercising and workout groups has been amazing and they are really close friends and it’s
and i look forward to going to work out because i get to see my friends and
have people that that i know are enjoying the same thing or sometimes not enjoying it as much but
um but we’re we’re all there in pain together um trying to work on our health
and well-being so that’s that’s a that’s a positive uh improved autophagy uh autophagy is an
intracellular housekeeping um it sort of is a clean out of misshapen
and misfolded proteins um and it improves mitochondrial
function reduces the risk of multiple cancers and
the recurrence of cancers
the this slide is from the nih uh national cancer institute data
and this is showing um that there is strong evidence that the higher levels of physical activity are
linked to a lower risk of several types of cancers you can see the statistics here
these are people the percentage of lower cancer risk in those people who
are highly active versus a group of people with the lowest activity in
meta-analysis studies so these are multiple studies combined data and as you can see
these aren’t just low numbers these are pretty significant um and for several other cancers there is
more limited evidence of an association these include certain cancers of the blood as well as lung pancreas
prostate ovaries thyroid liver and rectum
exercise has many biological effects on the body um and
one of many of those are attributed to this lower cancer risk some people think well if you’re
exercising you have less obesity if you have less obesity then you know
obesity is linked to cancers yes that’s true but there’s other metabolic pathways that that occur lowering levels
of sex hormones with exercise and that would be pertinent in breast and colon cancer
preventing higher levels of insulin which has been linked to the development of both breast and colon cancer
decreasing inflammation um improving the immune system
decreasing exposure of the gastric gastrointestinal tract to suspected
carcinogens because if you’re constipated you’re not detoxing sweating the sweating of exercise is one
way your body detoxes itself that’s important
so and of course the obesity factor as well or even just increase visceral fat
so
here’s a graphic that i really liked and this came from the american institute of cancer research
um and it kind of shows here have the different pretend people on the side and it shows
joe who’s very active in the yellow all day long he’s at a sit stand desk he’s
walking he’s lifting things you get the sense here he’s biking for leisure fun
activity and then he goes to bed so he’s very active and he may you know the green is the actual exercise but he’s
pretty active throughout the day and his cancer risk indicator is much
lower in contrast to the person here on the bottom who is
very sedentary with the highest cancer is but there’s a lot of good spots in between
um you know and there’s a lot of and one reason i like this graphic is
because it kind of shows you the more active you are even if you’re doing that one hour of really intense workout
if you go and you just sit at home or at work the rest of the day
that you know it didn’t discount that one hour that one hour absolutely 100 counts but could
you could you do a sit stand desk could you you know take your groceries into
the house one bag at a time instead of trying to make fewer trips could you park further out in the parking lot could you take
the stairs at work um you know could you walk the dog when you get home from work and make the dog
happy um so really making up for the rest of the sedentary time is important and i think
that’s what this this slide shows now this slide is specifically about cancer but
you get the gist
so what about exercise for cancer survivors
is it safe yes there’s strong evidence that moderate intensity training um
and or resistance exercise during cancer treatment can reduce fatigue anxiety depression improve cold life and
physical functions can help improve lymphedema in breast cancer patients beneficial effects on
survival of patients with breast colorectal and prostate cancers and those are just the ones that have the
biggest data breast cancer survivors who were the most physically active had a 42 percent
lower risk of death from any cause and a 40 percent lower risk of death from
breast cancer than those who were the least physically active colorectal cancer
there’s been multiple studies there um and you know same with prostate
it’s really it’s really powerful
additional benefits of physical activity um lower risk of all-cause mortality that’s
death lower cause of death if you exercise and or become physical like physically
active as we define the two are different exercise is a type of physical activity but we’re talking about the
overall benefits of physical activity um building community and connection which
i talked about my personal experience with that it sets a healthy example for your children and other family members
because you can’t really tell your kids they need to go outside and play and there’s nobody outside you know
you’re sitting in the house i mean lead by example kind of thing um increase self-confidence and self-esteem
i know that’s been very very true for me and that’s what made me think that this graphic was so funny i’ll give you a
minute to read that
so if physical activity has all these
benefits and it’s free why not as nike says just do it
well what are the roadblocks i’m not motivated to do it um
well it was interesting because as i was thinking about my talk today i was also
thinking about um i i did go and exercise today in the same small group that i exercise in and
most of they’re all women most of the women are i think our youngest is 38 it’s a group
of about six or seven the oldest is in her mid 60s and we’re everywhere in between
and after workout today i said what is everybody’s motivation for working out
today like what is your or not today just in general what is your motivation to work out and the answers i got were really
funny one woman said um actually i got three people that said
for my mental health so there’s that um i got one person who said so that i can
still fit in my clothes because i don’t want to have to buy new clothes i got one person who i hadn’t seen in a while
and she showed up and she said i don’t have motivation i said well you something got you here why are
you here and she said well covet is why i’m here i gained 17 pounds
and i have to get this off okay um and the most interesting answer that
i got was um because i have severe scoliosis and i had never noticed this
because i’m not her physician um because i have severe scoliosis and if i
didn’t do this i might not be able to [Music] walk
or do things comfortably and i’ve done this for 35 years and i don’t i don’t
know another way of life it’s like getting up and eating breakfast i get up and exercise i thought that was amazing
it gave me a whole new level and she actually is one of the oldest people in the class so i thought that was very
inspirational but some people just aren’t motivated
time time is a big player here um a lot of people when i say you know
do you work out no i don’t have time to do that um
so you have to find the time you have to prioritize um and carve out and it doesn’t matter
it can be just just 15 minutes i know that a couple of people at the maxwell
clinic will go out and take a couple of laps around the building at lunch i know a couple others that do a couple of laps
through the building going up and down the stairs just to get some movement in
so finding the time and making it work for your schedule weather that sounds like a stupid one to
put on there but whether a lot of people like well i was doing good until it got cold
i understand that i don’t love to exercise in the cold either but i also don’t have to exercise when it’s super
hot so um you know that’s a that’s a uh
you know it’s an excuse and i’m guilty of using it as the next person
um but when it’s raining what’s your backup plan um have a friend that you
can rely on and be like hey you want to meet me at the mall and we’ll be mall walkers today because it’s torrential
rain outside but i don’t want to miss my workout
um fear that seems kind of like a silly one um fear people have a lot of fear
about exercise they’re afraid they’re going to get to the gym and not know what to do they’re going to feel
embarrassed they don’t have the right clothes they are fearful that they’re going to be hurt
um they you know they’re fearful that people will stare at them um
you know and they haven’t worked out they’re not fit enough to be there i’ve heard a lot of um i have personally felt
in the past and also have heard from close friends and family um and patients that those those that fear
is a big one cost money equipment
um you know i can’t afford to join the gym i don’t have any equipment at that if i
only had this i could do this oh my bike has a flat tire all the all the things
you don’t really need that much equipment to work out in fact you don’t need any at all there are a gazillion
now body weight workouts online um if you want to do a hit which is a high
interval high intensity interval training you can go to youtube and do hit and stream it
you know to your laptop or to your television um you know
you look it up on google you can find lots of different videos for lots of different things
and that’s free kids and family this is a big one for
moms and even dads because you know we’ve got all the kids and i’ve you know
i’m i’m the like lowest one on the totem pole and speaking from
being a mom of two boys who are now older i went through that i didn’t do much at all when they were little um and
that’s on me i could have i mean it didn’t feel like i could have but in retrospect i could have um
so finding the time incorporating getting creative um
you know frequently i see a group of moms doing like stroller walks and you
know squats behind their strollers and doing different things to get out have community and move their
body um so there’s options there um knowledge
i don’t know what to do that’s legit um you know you you can’t be expected to
know what to do so seeking someone who does know what to do is an option for
some people it’s not an option for everybody if you can get a trainer that’s great if you can’t get a trainer then
you know watching tutorial videos online again free um there’s lots of options
there fatigue again if you are too tired to exercise
please speak to your clinician that is super important um
because if you really are motivated and you just try and you don’t have the energy to do it then
that may be something going on nutritionally or uh with your
energy in a mitochondrial type way age oh i’m too old i can’t do it well
i’m kind of old myself and i don’t feel that old because i do move and so i think you feel less old the
more you move there’s a video in here that i will not play due to the sake of time but i want
to share the link with you so that you can watch that will speak to that
and thinking you can that’s probably the absolute biggest one of all most people
think they can’t i have thought that i can’t do a lot of stuff that i have since done and there’s a lot of stuff
that i probably think i can’t do still but um it’s it’s a it’s almost mind over matter
um your body is the finest most complex machine that you will ever own
it requires regular and consistent maintenance just like your home or your car
so you know so what will it be a ferrari or a stock car
um i believe we all have the power to create health no matter what our genetics are or life
circumstances our bodies have innate universal intelligence and if you give it what it needs
each day and it can and will repair itself
it’s about the small choices that we make every day those choices seem insignificant in the moment but they are
so important long term so
start where you are use what you have do what you can
each day move more and play and add more years to your life and more life to your years
and when i said that about george when i said that about age i was thinking of george now in preparation for this
webinar i was looking at a bunch of different things and found this article in ronald runner’s
world online um it is about george etzweiler who is 99 years old and he is
still running races um when i read the article
embedded in the article is a video which i’m not going to play for the sake of time if you’re interested i think this
was in the hold on just a second
this was in the may 2019 uh runner’s world magazine but if you just google his name
halfway through the article there is an embedded video and it actually made me teary when i
watched it he is the cutest man and he is just a true inspiration he began running when he was 49 years old and he
just kept going so i encourage you to find your in for inspiration and focus on your goals and
whatever you do just be consistent thank you for your time and
attention and now i’m going to answer some questions it looks like i have some
sorry this is i’ve been looking over there i have two screens and this is the first webinar i’ve done with this
format so bear with me here folks let’s see
i am going to stop sharing my screen
and
okay i have a question um it says i have recently begun
yoga class with a one-on-one teacher starting at the beginning
how will this work for weight loss muscle movement and muscle improvement and how should i include
more vigorous exercise this is a great great question
yoga is an amazing practice and it will absolutely most people think of yoga as
being meditative stretchy and you can find classes that are very meditative and stretchy um
and those are all very important things but there have been yoga classes where i have like been drenched in sweat and it
was not a hot yoga where i was working i was building muscles there’s a lot of
planks involved there’s a lot of core work um there’s a lot of balance and
muscle strength so that is that’s really huge so so that’s awesome um including
more vigorous exercise i would start with walking i mean i don’t know you so
i don’t know what your conditions are but most everybody can start somewhere just start by
moving around more um simple things um you know
if you can walk in your neighborhood take a loop around the block if you can do it then the next day two two two
loops um if time is an issue then walk a little faster just do you know and
increase it from you know little bits by little bits because nobody starts out like running a
marathon i mean it’s it’s hard you have to you have to build up and i would recommend that if
anybody on this call is i’m hoping inspired or at least educated by
what what i talked about today is that you that you just start something i mean just
just move more throughout the day and then take that to the next level by you know
walking you don’t need equipment for walking um so um and then looking into things um
you know like high intensity interval training that can be pretty intense you can watch some
videos online and if you’re like oh no i can’t do that i do recommend that you um get somebody to kind of you know
watch your form and make sure and that can be somebody that’s in your house like am i doing what they’re doing on
the screen do i look like that um be careful who you ask because you don’t want somebody to be critical um but but that’s that’s
important um second question is functional training compared to other exercise
um i am all about the functional training because
the um and let me let me explain what functional training is functional
training is doing movements that we would do in our life like in other words
i think a air squat is a great functional movement because we all have to get up out of a
chair and that’s important um
so i’m not going to go through exercises here because this is not really the purpose of this but i am
i really am a fan of functional exercise functional exercise is a mimic of exercise that you do in daily life so
you know shoveling you know the move you know that kind of that kind of movement that’s a functional exercise um you know
if anybody’s ever tried to dig a hole in tennessee we have a lot of clay and it will get your heart rate up um so that’s
you know but there’s also functional movements that you can do in the gym there is a wonderful
um trainer he doesn’t live here anymore his name is garrett mclaughlin and my boys
who are now in their 20s used to he used to train kids and young athletes but he
he has an amazing set of videos that are very targeted explaining everything and he does a full
functional training evaluation of different parts and you can google him um and i will
have them add this to the to the video for the rewatching i don’t
know how that how they do that but i’ll have somebody send you that information um or put it available out there but
he’s he’s great he doesn’t live for anymore so you can’t go see him but he does do a lot of online videos um and how
important is a heart rate target
if you are i think that that is important but i am not a person who likes to
you know track that i don’t have a wearable um a lot of people do um and there are
certain uh gems that really train to that heart rate like orange theory locally
they you know try to get you in the zone um and it depends on if you’re trying to
to train for something um that’s important if you’re also trying to hit a
cardiovascular you know point that’s also very important but for the most part i’m not
real big on having people check their heart rate most people don’t want to fool with the numbers they
mostly just want to you know know is this am i doing enough and i think if you’re getting that
vigorous exercise where you’re like if you’re walking and your whole gig is you’re just walking around the block all
the time and that’s great that’s awesome but could you change it could you add heels could you add stairs could you go
faster could you maybe run a little bit and do you know an interval training where you run for a minute and then you
walk for two minutes and then you you know run for another minute and you walk for two minutes um
and so i’ve never and i guess that’s my bias because i have never um
done a target heart rate but i know a lot of people are really big on that
and i think that is all the questions we had for today so um
thank you guys for attending and um this will be recorded you can go back and watch it if you need to
um and i will um look forward to seeing some of you guys
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