Physical Activity Plans Black Women's Health Imperative

Getting Started: A Quick Guide to Staying Physically Active

Are you ready to jump start your physical activity program? Before you start, remember to set realistic goals. You should also know the recommended activity levels you’ll need to maintain depending on your goals.

To prevent weight gain and for overall health benefits, 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity is recommended on 5 or more days per week. If you need to lose weight, 60-90 minutes of physical activity is recommended each day.
If you're 65 years of age or older, are generally fit, and have no limiting health conditions, minimum recommended guidelines include 2 hours and 30 minutes (150 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., brisk walking) every week and muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms).

Benefits of Physical Activity

Control your weight

Reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease

Reduce your risk for type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome

Reduce your risk of some cancers

Strengthen your bones and muscles

Improve your mental health and mood

Improve your ability to do daily activities and prevent falls, if you're an older adult

Increase your chances of living longer

You’ve heard of the many benefits of staying physically active: lower risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke; reduces high blood pressure and cholesterol; and is essential to maintaining a healthy weight loss. Other great benefits of physical activity include strengthening of muscles, bones and joints and easing of mild depression and anxiety.

Getting Started

If you are currently inactive or have not worked up to the recommendations mentioned above, don’t worry. The key is to start of with realistic goals, such as 30 minutes of activity each day for 3 days, than work your way up to 5 or more days each week. If you’re trying to lose weight, add an additional ten minutes each day until you reach at least 60 minutes each day.
Remember, physical activity doesn’t mean torturing yourself by doing activities that you don’t enjoy. Moderate-intensity physical activity includes:

Brisk walking
Gardening or yard work
Dancing
Bicycling
Weight training (Do 8 to 10 strength exercises for 8-12 repetitions each twice a week)

It’s also good to consider working in more vigorous physical activity into your fitness plan, such as:

Running/jogging
Bicycling (more than 10 miles per hour)
Swimming (freestyle laps)
Aerobics
Walking very fast (4-1/2 miles per hour)
Heavy yard work, such as chopping wood
Weight lifting (vigorous effort)
Basketball (competitive)

By varying your activities and increasing the intensity (how hard) and length of time you exercise, you’ll avoid getting bored or reaching a “plateau” (when you see no physical changes in the body and when your workouts become easier to complete).

Turn It Up—Aim for Complete Fitness

If you’re already active and looking for ways to turn up your exercise plan a few notches, consider aiming for fitness by including cardiovascular, flexibility and strength training exercises as regular parts of your physical activity plan.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

A) Cardiovascular—walking, jogging, aerobic dance, biking, swimming. These activities will increase your heart rate and give the “life” muscle, the heart, a work out. Aerobic workouts should be done on a regular basis to maintain your cardiovascular health and help prevent weight gain.

B) Flexibility—stretching. This activity is important for keeping muscles and joints flexible for common movements such as reaching, bending and walking. Stretching should be done daily before and after physical activities to prepare muscles to begin moving and to limit soreness after exercising.
C) Strength or resistance training—dumbbells, pushups, wall squats. Muscular strength workouts include any activities that require resistance against the major muscles of the body. This is important: because resistance training will help muscles burn calories more efficiently due to the increase in lean body mass. Be sure to remember to breathe when lifting – do not hold breath. This is of particular concern for people with high blood pressure.