Dakota Beacon

As the holidays beckon some folks are grudgingly considering physical fitness in their New Years resolutions. The over-50 crowd may feel like a million bucks and want to prove it. Funny how the mind says, “I feel like a kid again” but the body says, “Give me a break!”

For all the good intentions, it is wise to ease into physical activity especially for anyone who has abstained for any length of time. Standard advice: check with a doctor and follow his or her guidance. Feeling fine and being fine are two different things. Your doctor can best assess your ability to manage physical stress.

A dictionary definition of physical fitness reads, “An ongoing state of health whereby all systems of the body are conditioned to withstand physical stress and are able to perform at an optimum level without injury.” Fitness encompasses weight control, flexibility, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and cardio-respiratory (CR) efficiency. Each of these items is important, but CR tops the list.

The CR system is critical to staying alive. As the term implies, the system includes (1) the cardiac system (heart, arteries and vessels) which move blood throughout the body and (2) the respiratory system (lungs) which collects oxygen intended for transport by the cardiac system. By design, CR system moves oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the body. How efficiently this is conducted depends on (you guessed it) a person’s fitness.

Neglect of the CR system incurs risks. A common failure of the cardiac system may result in a heart attack. Failure of oxygen to reach the brain produces a stroke. That’s basically what the layman needs to know.

Good aerobic conditioning may be achieved by exercising at your target heart rate for 20 to 30 minutes each day. Swimming, jogging, and team sports will do. For many people, walking is even better. It’s cheap and easy. People hike for health, saunter for serenity, and ramble for recreation. That’s the beauty of walking.

Physical therapists and physicians have a comprehensive way to determine fitness. The American Physical Therapy Association offers a simple way to measure CR fitness by calculating your TARGET heart rate. The first step is to find your MAXIMUM heart rate. Do this by subtracting your age from 220. If you are 65 years old, your calculated MAXIMUM heart rate should be 155 beats per minute (bpm).

Next, calculate your TARGET heart rate. Your TARGET heart rate will be between 60 and 80 percent of your MAXIMUM heart rate. Using our example of a 65-year-old person, multiply 155 bpm by 0.6 and 0.8 respectively producing two figures: 93 bpm and 124 bpm. The TARGET heart rate of the person in our example falls between 93 and 124 bpm.

With a doctor’s concurrence, go ahead gradually with your fitness program. During your routine workout, check your pulse by placing your fingers gently alongside your voice box. Count your heart beats for 15 seconds, then multiply that number by 4 to find the beats per minute.

As aerobic fitness improves, three things stand out. First, you may need to recalculate your TARGET heart rate higher as your CR system becomes more efficient. Second, your resting heart rate may begin to drop. This, too, reflects a more efficient CR system. A normal resting heart rate should be between 60 and 100 bpm. And, third, you will recover your resting heart rate from the peak of your target heart rate in less time immediately following exercise.

You may discover other pleasing side effects as well. Your muscle tone will improve, and your weight will be redistributed as your muscles strengthen and you control your food intake. All of this contributes to a healthy sense of well-being.

A word of caution. Do not fall victim to the fallacy that exercise is a primary way to lose weight. This is not true. For example, walk or jog on a treadmill that registers the number of calories burned per hour. For the sake of discussion, let’s say you perform an activity on the treadmill (jogging) showing an expenditure of 500 calories per hour. One pound of human fat has 3500 calories. To lose one pound of fat you would have to jog continuously for 7 hours without stopping. Most folks do not have the time, the stamina, or the willpower to engage in that type of activity. It is far easier and more productive to cut back on calorie intake.

Stay fit. Stay safe. Enjoy life. No one lives forever, but weight control, diet, and exercise will positively enhance your quality of life.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).