Starting an Exercise Program
As promised in my previous post, this post is about starting an exercise program so as to improve your energy and improve your efficiency. Writing exercise prescriptions are an everyday part of my sports medicine practice. However, I would like to provide a few words of caution.
- Make sure you are healthy enough to exercise.
Consult your doctor to make sure that it is safe for you to start an exercise program. This is especially true if you have significant medical problems (e.g. diabetes, heart disease), have never exercised, or it has been a long time since you have exercised.
- Do not go from 0 to 60 mph.
Take it slow. If you are starting from being sedentary, you should not expect to be able to run a marathon tomorrow. Ramping up your exercise program too rapidly is a recipe for injury.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends the following for healthy adults:
- Moderate intensity cardiorespiratory exercise for 30 minutes, at least 5 days per week.
- Resistance exercises 2-3 days per week. This should include some core and balance training.
- Flexibility exercises at least 2 days a week.
I recommend starting with cardio training. If you are currently sedentary, try a walking program. Start at just 15 minutes a day, three times a week. Each week, increase the total weekly time by 10%. So week #2, instead of 45 minutes (15 minutes x 3 days), do 50 minutes (45 minutes + 4.5 minutes = 49.5 minutes). Keep increasing your weekly time until you get to 60 minutes. When you do, change your walking to 15 minutes four days a week. Keep progressing until you get to 5 days a week at 15 minutes a session. Then, add time to those 5 days. Once you get to 5 days, continue to increase the daily amount until you get to 30 minutes per session. After you reach that goal, let me know, and I can help you get to the next level.
If you are already exercising, look at the recommendations above. If all you do is cardio, add one day a week of resistance training. After a couple of weeks, increase it to two days per week.
If you already do resistance and cardio, then add session a week of stretching. A good combo of resistance and stretching is yoga. If you haven’t tried yoga yet, I highly recommend it. Do it twice a week, and you have satisfied both your resistance and stretching component!
So, start exercising. It will be hard at first but after a couple of weeks, you will look forward to your exercise sessions. Why? Because they will energize you! With that extra energy, you will find that you can work more effectively.
Let me know how it works for you.
Good luck!
Dr. Pete
Dr. Pete Publishing 