Topic of the Quarter

Physical Activity

Definition: Any activity which uses large muscle groups and contributes to energy expenditure.
This can be done either at work, home or in leisure time in order to enhance health and well-being.

You can build a considerable amount of activity into your daily life through walking, cycling, dancing or even gardening. These are all excellent activities that, if done regularly, will soon improve your health and help you back to fitness. You could even plan a home workout lifting hand weights or cans of food whilst watching your favourite TV shows.

You don’t have to push yourself to extremes to get the health benefits of exercise. Exercising excessively can run the risk of over-training and ending up feeling worse. It is far better to alternate more strenuous workouts with easier ones such as a hilly walk one day which pushes you, followed by a flat walk the next day.

Exercise should never hurt! A little muscle soreness when you do something new is fine but soreness doesn’t equal pain. You don’t need to make your muscles burn to know they’re working. If it hurts, stop doing it. Also, if you are gasping for breathe or feel pain, stop and consult your doctor.

Sit ups (crunches) are important for strengthening the stomach muscles but muscle is muscle and fat is fat and if you have excess fat in your abdomen, no matter how many crunches you do you won’t be able to see the muscles.

Study results have shown that even in people who are overweight, their risk of heart disease is reduced if they achieve a moderate level of fitness compared with people who are overweight and unfit.

Whether its 5 minutes of exercise here and 10 minutes there, it all counts!

Current guidelines from the Department of Health state that all adults should have 30 minutes of moderate activity on at least 5 days of the week.

The National Heart Forum says that if everyone walked a minimum of 30 minutes, five days a week, 37 percent of heart attacks could be prevented and millions of pounds could be saved each year.

Useful Websites

www.menshealth.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/health
www.thefitmap.com