If you’re a sedentary adult, meeting the recommended goals of at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week may seem overwhelming. You may even think there’s no way you can counter years of inactivity.
But it’s never too late to start exercising and reap the health rewards. Restoring the heart’s elasticity prevents the increase in cardiac stiffness that’s linked to sedentary aging.
There is one caveat, however. Because the stiffening of the heart starts in late-middle age, training needs to start before it’s too late. That means before age 65, while the heart retains plasticity and the ability to remodel itself.
Here are tips for establishing a safe and sustainable exercise routine.
Start slowly: “Some exercise is better than none,” said Pedro F. Saint-Maurice, lead researcher for a study on late-life exercise published this year in JAMA Network Open and postdoctoral fellow with the National Cancer Institute. If you can’t get 30 minutes a day from the beginning, progress slowly and gradually increase your exercise.
In a 2018 American Heart Association study, for example, researchers progressively increased participants’ activity over six months, ultimately reaching a sustainable practice of 30 minutes of exercise per day, four or five times a week. Starting slowly is not only safer for a previously inactive body, but it helps keep you from getting discouraged if you try to do too much too fast.
Think beyond formal exercise: Don’t limit yourself to structured workouts. “It’s very important to try and incorporate activity into daily routines,” said Soren Brage, a principal investigator at the University of Cambridge.. “There are opportunities for being a little active in every domain in life,” such as parking a little farther away, taking the stairs more frequently or adding walk breaks to your workday. And all those small bursts of activity add up.
Mix it up: Include a variety of cardio, strength training and stretching, and include moderate- and high-intensity workouts to get the best impact. Multiple study results demonstrate that there are whole-body impacts to starting exercise, so incorporate all styles of activity to achieve the best results.
Enlist a partner: Exercising with a friend or family member can keep you motivated and consistent. Diana Bridger, a 59-year-old Virginia resident and self-described “committed couch potato,” was intimidated to start running at first, limiting her runs to nighttime when no one would see her. But when a neighbor learned Bridger was starting to run, she suggested they run together. Eighteen months later, the two have shared countless miles of encouragement and support, and Bridger has completed 18 races.
— Marissa Cruz Lemar, The Washington Post
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