【The key point of this article】 Governments and institutions often use data to inform people about the importance of movement, but this confuses the elderly. The US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion publishes the "American Sport...
【The key point of this article】 Governments and institutions often use data to inform people about the importance of movement, but this confuses the elderly. The US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion publishes the "American Sports Activities Guide" every year, detailing suggestions for sports at each age. However, each person has different physical fitness levels, so the fitness should be adjusted. Any rhythmic movement can achieve aerobic exercise, such as chasing children in the park or throwing balls with children in the backyard. It is recommended to perform 150-300 minutes of exercise every week, and beginners should start with light exercises, such as walking. In addition, strength training is also very important. --by ChatGPT
Today, governments and other institutions always like to tell us how much movement is needed to stay healthy and reduce weight. Friends of the aged are of course no exception, but when you want to follow these "rules" and try to incorporate them into your life, it may be very confusing.
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) regularly updates the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which are divided according to age and fitness.
You can find the latest version of the guide on the official ODPHP website.
I will disassemble this guide so that you can understand the content and know how to adjust it according to your situation. Everyone is different, and we start differently.
This guide just describes the rough outline of our sports goals, and you don't have to stick to it. Please remember that this is your body and you know it better than anyone else, so when you feel wrong during the training, never be afraid to adjust it.
In addition, we need to know that this guide does not consider everyone's physical fitness. For example, it is recommended that you train 2.5 to 5 hours a week. If you have been practicing for a while, this may be a good goal to work hard; but if you are a newbie, it may take you 10 minutes a day and then gradually increase.
Sports guide for friends of the ageGeneral sports suggestions✔ 2.5 to 5 hours per week. But if your body has some conditions that may hinder your ability to exercise, you should be able to do so. In the case of poor physical condition, what you can do is to "avoid sitting for as long as possible."
Aerobic exercise(such as walking, swimming, and riding)
✔ Experts recommend that you should do moderate intensity aerobic exercise at least 3 times a week. If you have already exercised regularly, you can mix the "5th Medium Strongness" and "7th to 8th High Strongness" training courses in these 3 times (lowest is level 1 and maximum strength is level 10).
Muscle strength training✔ Temperament training for the main muscle groups of the human body twice a week.
Softness Training✔ Regular softness training at least 2 to 3 times a week can improve the freedom of activities and reduce your risk of injury.
Next we will disassemble this guide so that you can use it in real life.
Aerobic MovementAerobic Movement is the key element that makes us stronger and maintain our mobility. You may think that aerobic exercise must have a certain degree of strength. You may think of running, jumping or high-strength interval training, but any exercise can achieve the effect of aerobic exercise as long as it maintains a relatively long time during the rhythmic movement.
You can choose from the activities listed below:
● Walk.● Jogging.
● Running.
● Network ball.
● Pickleball.
● Ball.
● Swimming.
● Riding bicycle.
● Heavy yard work or homework (such as weeding, raking leaves or mopping).
● Hiking.
● Yoga (including flow yoga Vinyasa Yoga or power yoga).
● Dancing.
● Aerobic exercise course.
In fact, we often engage in aerobic exercise in our daily lives, such as chasing children (or sledding children) in the park, or throwing balls with children in the backyard for a period of time, which can be regarded as aerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise is not strong, it is just a "comfort circle" that is slightly beyond your suitable level.
Below we divide strength into levels one to ten:
Strength level Self-feelingLevel 1: It feels leisurely and leisurely like watching a TV, and it feels very good.Level 2: Just move casually and feel good.
Level 3: It feels like walking or strolling in a leisurely place, which is very relaxing, and this strength may be easy for the whole day without any problems.
Level 4: Move faster and you will start sweating soon. It's beginning to approach the movement.
Level 5: I feel like I'm exercising, but I only slightly beyond the "comfortable circle". I can speak normally, and I feel good.
Level 6: It’s farther away from the comfort circle at this time, and it feels more laborious, but it’s still a lot of difficulties. Now I feel like I'm fully committed to the movement.
Level 7: I can still hold on! Although I was breathing heavily at this time, I could still say it, but I can only say some short sentences.
Level 8: This strength is already out of breath and can only last for a short time. If you must speak in this situation, you can only say one or two words at the top.
Level 9: Nothing can be said at all! I feel like I'm almost out of reach!
Level 10: The feeling of dying!
is obvious. The above automatic scale is not very formal and not official, but it can give you an idea of "the feeling of sports strength" and the strength you are currently in. If you want to improve your aerobic capacity, it is recommended that you lock in the 5th or 6th level for training.
For example, you have to walk. To reach level 5 strength, you can imagine that you have to walk very quickly in order to get on the far bus, but your knees are uncomfortable so you don't want to run. This strength will be slightly beyond your "comfortable circle", but it will not make you feel uncomfortable.
Advanced trainers can choose higher strength, such as brisk walking, running or high-strength interval training, which will increase to around 7 or 8, and may even sometimes increase to 9, but it depends on what movement you are doing.
The key to aerobic training is to strengthen your heart and increase your energy and endurance. If you want to lose a few pounds of weight, aerobic training can also burn more calories. If you are a beginner, or you just start moving, you can start walking with a light and strong force, and do it 2 to 3 times a week, only 5 to 10 minutes at a time. As your body becomes better and your body becomes stronger, you can slowly increase your walking time.
The "Guidelines for American Sports Activities" recommends that you exercise for 150 to 300 minutes per week. If you exercise every day, you will need to exercise for about 20 to 40 minutes per day. Although it is written like this, it is best not to be too strict at the beginning, and start with your comfortable feeling first. Even 5 minutes is counted.
Muscle Strength TrainingThe main concept of muscle Strength Training is to make your muscles use more force than before. Actually, you may have experienced this situation many times, such as when the season changes, you will do something you haven't done in months, like garden art or snow.
Muscles can cause some pain in short-term super-negative load conditions, but from a long distance, it will make your muscles more refined. Here are the general guidelines for muscle strength training:
● Strengthen muscle activities, including weighting, using elastic straps, bare hands, heavy garden work, or frequent moving heavy objects.● In order to achieve the greatest training benefits, you should focus on the training of the main muscle groups, including the chest, back and shoulder muscle groups, the quad, the quad, the lower body and the core muscle groups.
● Your goal is to weigh at least two days a week, and don’t practice continuously. At least a few days apart, so that your body can recover at some time.
● Each practice exercise requires 1 to 3 groups, each group repeats 8 to 16 times. "Number of groups" refers to several cycles that must be continuous in total for the same action; "Number of repetitions" refers to several cycles that each action must be repeated in the same cycle. For example, if you put a weight on and put it down, and then take a rest after repeating it 10 times in total, it means you have completed 10 sets of 10 times. You will often see in the entire training plan that the number of groups is first, the number of repetitions is later, and the middle is represented by multiplication. For example, "1 x 10" means "total 1 group, each group is repeated 10 times".
● When you become stronger, you should increase your weight or increase your strength training day for one more day.
Softness TrainingAnother piece of the picture that maintains the activity is "Softness". It decreases with age, usually due to muscle shrinkage, which may reduce the correlation activity.
Softness is closely related to the correlation activity. The hysteresis is a good example. You can imagine that after lifting your right knee up to the height of your hip, you can also turn your knee smoothly to the right. If you can do it, it means that your hysteresis is very active.
But there are still many factors that can lead to a lack of activity, such as:
● Gene— Some people are particularly soft, only because they inherit the soft genes of their parents.● Related section structure — The structure of the related section is beyond our control. If there are inherent structural restrictions, it will limit our activity.
● The softness of the strap, tendon and muscle will affect the movement and curvature of the correlation.
● Strength— Another very important part is the strength of the antagonist muscle. Antagonist muscle refers to the muscle group that is opposite to the active muscle. When the active muscle contracts, the antagonist muscle is stretched. For example, the dip brachial brachialis is the active muscle, and the trip on the back is the antagonist muscle. Another example: If your quadrilateral (front of the thigh) is very tight, it may block the softness of the thigh back side of the thigh. So we need to practice the softness of the front and back sides of the body at the same time, and the effect will be more significant.
Softness is the basis of many capabilities, so it is important (already arranged in this book training plan). Working to improve softness will help reduce certain factors that lead to balance problems. Another reason why training softness is important is that these actions can increase the synovial fluid associated with the period. This not only increases the activity space in your body, but also reduces the degradation of the relationship.
Preventing falls is important to everyone, especially friends with a happy life. The following statistics may also make you excited. The National Council on Aging (simplified by NCOA) found:
● Falls are the main cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries to older people.● Falls cause more than 2.8 million injuries every year.
● The damage cost of falling in 2015 exceeds US$5 billion.
» Avoid exerting excessive pressure on the knee; Some exercises that are not properly operated may cause knee pain, especially for actions such as squats, lunges and other knees that may have large bent. For most movements, we want you to keep up with your feet and avoid being too far away from your knees when you bend. Because when the knees protrude too much forward, they will suffer more pressure, resulting in pain and inappropriateness.
» Keep the links in good order — Another thing we should note is to make sure the links do not move in an incorrect direction. Think about the action of squeezing your waist and squeezing something, if your knees protrude outwards instead of directly forwards, you are likely to suffer. Pay special attention to this during training to avoid sports damage.
※ This article is excerpted from "The First Book of Training in the Power of the Lege Clan"."The First Book of Training in the Power of the Lege Clan"
Author: Peggy. Vina
Translator: Xu Guofeng
Publisher: Face
Publication date: 2023/02/02
Responsible editor: Gu Zihuan
