Health maintenance and exercise

According to oxygen consumption patterns during exercise, they can be divided into aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

Brisk walking, jogging, aerobic dance, swimming, bike riding, and fitness instrument practicing such as treadmill, stationary bike and stepper, are all well-known aerobic exercise, of which requires longer exercise duration with moderate- to mild-intensity rhythmic movements. The energy required for these exercise programs is majorly provided through fat or sugar oxidation. Most of the muscles (2/3) in human body are involved during exercise: Mild- to moderate-intensity for 15-40 minutes or longer.

Long-term aerobic exercise can increase the level of hemoglobin, improve immunity, anti-ageing, enhance cardiopulmonary fitness, expedite fat oxidation, prevent arteries from becoming sclerosis, and reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. The required intensity of aerobic exercise varies from person to person. The simple and effective calculation of intensity is as follows: The 10-sec pulse rate after exercise multiply by 110% can be used to estimate the heart rate during exercise. For people aged 20-30 years, the exercise heart rate should be approximately 140 bpm; people aged 40-50 years should be 120~135 bpm and people aged 60 years or above should be 100~120 bpm.

Energy consumption pyramid

The 1^st layer: Try to avoid watching TV, playing video games or sitting in front of computer

The 2^nd layer: Riding bicycles, swimming, aerobic exercise, playing basketball or playing tennis 3 days weekly (1 hour per day)

The 3^rd layer: Sit-up, yoga, mountain climbing and leisure activities 2~3 times weekly (for at least 20 minutes)

The 4^th layer: Eat a great amount of vegetables plus 2~3 times of fruit per day

The 5^th layer: Climb stairs rather than taking the elevator, housekeeping, walking rather than driving

 

Relative to aerobic exercise, sprint running, weight lifting, throwing, high jump, long jump, tug-of-war and resistance training are aerobic exercise programs very popular in recent years, of which has extremely low oxygen consumption during exercise. Because rapid and powerful movements, blood glucose may not have sufficient time to be oxidized and thus only provide “Anaerobic energy supply”; i.e. high-speed and vigorous exercise under “Anaerobic” conditions. Therefore, most of the anaerobic exercise programs are powerful and instant exercise, which hard to persist for longer time. It also takes longer to relieve delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).

 

• The full information regarding walking and jogging

Walking and jogging are both the easiest and doable exercise programs for everyone. However, poor posture or the lack of warm-up exercise in advance or stretching exercise afterward, not only cannot achieve the goal of heath maintenance, but causes sport injuries.

 

Before exercise

Eat some snacks one hour prior to exercising to supply with sufficient carbohydrates, including some whole grain oatmeal, whole wheat soda crackers, banana (one) or a small piece of whole wheat bread. A 5-10 minutes of warm-up exercise (e.g. jogging or walking) to slightly sweating is required to stretch and relax muscles.

 

During exercise (main part)

A 30~60 minutes aerobic exercise. For people who do not have a regular exercise habit, the exercise can be done in several sessions with proper intervals depending on their physical adaptations. If the exercise duration is more than one hour, proper water supply is required. If the exercise lasts for more than two to three hours, some proteins (15 g per hour) and carbohydrates (30~45 g per hour) are required.

 

After exercise

Slow down the steps, gradually reduce exercise intensity, and regulate respiratory rate accordingly. A 5~10 minutes slow pace walk allows heart beat returning to heart rate prior to exercise little by little. Stretch exercise muscles at the same time to reduce muscle soreness and fatigue. The supplement of proteins and carbohydrate is required within two hours after exercise to help repair muscle tissues. Banana plus low-fat milk, steamed bread plus boiled eggs or sweet potato plus sugar-free soymilk are all nice dietary options.

 

Correct exercise posture can effectively prevent from sport injuries and efficiently improve fitness and health at the same time. How to walk fast but correctly, please refer to the following notes:

1. Stride: Close the feet together, step forward naturally following the body inclination (forward). If the goal is to increase the step width, tile the pelvis forward to increase the degree of thigh moving backward. The increase of step width can ameliorate the brake effect caused by excessive stepping forward and thus reduce the impacts on the knees.
2. Cadence: “Arm swing” is the key to expedite cadence. The harder and the faster arm swing, the faster cadence. The beginner can practice starting from 60 steps per minute.
3. Arm swing: Both arms are flexed in 90 degrees with gently fist-holding position. When swing forward, the level of the fist should reach up to the chest level and parallel to the ground. The elbow is at 90 degree of flexion. Keep arm swing without moving laterally. Both arms should not over the midline of the body.
4. Trunk: Which should be kept upright without leaning forward or backward and look straightforward.  

 

Jogging is “A series of fluent balanced movements”. In addition to regular physical training, good jogging posture is also the key to avoid sport injuries. How to jog efficiently and beautifully?

1. Legs and feet: Pretend the body arts below the knees are empty, to help you transfer your attention to more important body parts such as arm swing, core muscles and thigh muscles. Never lower your center of gravity during jogging, otherwise you may feel tight legs and then drag your trunk forward using legs and feet. Imagine that your feet are as light as feather when landing, followed by rolling feet forward along with gentle heel-up. Jogging should be an exercise with elegant leg circling alternatively.
2. Pelvis: The pelvis plays an important role in body balance and exercise. Try not to spill out the bowl of water during jogging by stabilizing the pelvis through core muscle contraction (use the lower abdomen to lead the swings of both legs); i.e. allow the core muscles to stabilize and guide leg movements.
3. Trunk: Responsible for the stability and coordination of the trunk and the connection between upper and lower trunk. Trunk also plays a key role in jog efficiency and posture accuracy. During jogging, the trunk should be kept upright rather than bending forward. Although trunk upright is required, the body and limbs should be relaxed. Imagine there is a line cross over the top of your head and pulls your spine upward toward the sky. The center of the body should be powerful while the four limbs and the trunk should be soft and flexible.
4. Arm swing: Arm swing should swing backward, so leaning the body forward may achieve balance. Use the shoulder as the fulcrum. One of the arms is the pendulum, another arm is the swing arm, and the elbow is the clapper. The arms swing backward alternatively while using the elbow as the swing center. When one arm is swinging backward, the other arm may swing forward. By controlling such rhythm and allow both legs following such movements, the arm swing could be more easy and effort-friendly! Arm swing should be limited in forward and backward directions without crossing over the midline of the body. Otherwise, excessive arm swing may result in trunk rotation and waste even more energy!

 

Start a walking and jogging habit

Jogging is the extension of walking. Through correctly practicing walking and jogging, our cardiopulmonary fitness can be improved! The secret of walking and jogging is “Jog slowly and walk rapidly”. Slow jogging prevents from tachycardia while brisk walk prevents bradycardia. Keep the differences of heart rates between jogging and brisk walking limited to facilitate persistent movement switching and smooth respiration.

Jog for 3 minutes, brisk walk for 1 minute and then jog for another 3 minutes. Repeat practice for total of 50 minutes. Human body is familiar with such switching frequency. Once the movements are fluently switched, the duration of exercise can be gradually increased. Keep such exercise habit, and you may improve cardiopulmonary fitness and muscle strength as well as endurance little by little.