You might have heard a lot about the health benefits of aerobic exercise. It is important for cardiovascular health, maintaining a healthy weight. Aerobic exercise is an effective therapy for treating mild to moderate depression. Despite these health benefits, a lot of people quit, get injured or do not enjoy aerobics the way they should.
Read on to know some easy tips by Dr. Andrew Weil to make aerobic exercise a rewarding, ongoing and safe process in your life:
- Indulging in a little aerobic exercise is better than not doing it at all. Dr. Weil recommends regular aerobic exercise for at-least 30 minutes a day, almost five days a week. Even a few minutes of aerobics can make a difference.
- It is important to gradually work up to this level. If you have not been working out regularly, you must increase the time of your aerobics sessions gradually.
- Dr. Weil recommends an average amount of physical activity over time. Missing one or two days is not the end of the world. You can easily make it up for that later. However, feeling bad for having missed one or two sessions might prove much more detrimental to your health than the actual harm of missing them.
- Another way of adding more physical activities to your daily schedule is to use staircase instead of elevators. Park your car at a distance so as to walk up to your destination, push yourself to do more physical work rather than procrastinating it or delegating it to others.
- If you exercise in a group, do not develop competitive thoughts. These thoughts might have a negative impact on your emotions, cardiovascular health and immune system. If you really cannot avoid being competitive, you can exercise alone.
- Competitive sports like tennis, handball and racquetball are not substitutes for continuous aerobic activities such as walking, cycling and running. In these competitive sports, the aerobic activity involves abrupt movement and sudden breaks, which is far away from being continuous. Dr. Weil advises that aerobics of continuous nature can provide maximum health benefits including cardiovascular health.
- You must always warm-up before continuing with high intensity aerobic exercises. This warming up ensures that your muscles are prepared for high-intensity aerobic exercises. Dr. Weil recommends doing a slowed-down version of the aerobic exercise you are going to perform such as walking, running or cycling slowly. You would have seen so many people doing gentle stretches as a warm-up practice, but it does not prepare muscles for aerobic exercises as good as slow movement does.
- Give few moments of rest after you complete your aerobic exercise routine. Continue doing the slowed-down movements for a few minutes before eventually stopping.
- In case you have not exercised regularly, you must visit your doctor before initiating an exercise regimen. Also, if you have a strong family history of cardiovascular diseases or high blood pressure, you must undergo a cardiac stress test.
- It is good to pay attention to the signs your body is giving. Discontinue your aerobics session as soon as you experience sudden unusual body pains or aches.
- In case of difficulty in breathing, fainting, chest pain, dizziness or light-headedness, stop exercising immediately. An immediate medical checkup is required in these cases.
- Your breathing and heart rate must revert to normal within five to ten minutes at the end of an aerobics session. In case, it does not you must immediately visit a doctor.
- Do not indulge in aerobics if you are sick and wait until you feel better. The strength and fitness you have lost would come back very soon but indulging in exercise after the initiation of an illness can make you sick for a longer time.
Follow these simple tips by Dr. Weil to enjoy your regular aerobic sessions.
