Resilience Tips: Our Aerobic Imperative
By Sandy Davis, a.k.a. "The Resilience Guy"
The Importance of Exercising Every Day
In last month’s guest article, Alex Green described for us a wealth of benefits you can derive from exercising regularly. In particular, he spelled out for us the virtues of intentionally walking every single day.
New research findings are converging on what is becoming a widely accepted “gold standard” of regular exercise. If you want to enjoy the many life-sustaining benefits that regular exercise can afford you, most current recommendations are that you walk for an average of at least an hour every day.
One of Those Rare Shortcuts?
Emerging research findings also point to the fact that you can gain at least as many benefits from exercising aerobically1 for half an hour, as you can from exercising non-aerobically (i.e. at a lower level of exertion) for a full hour.
At first glance, this appears to be one of those rare shortcuts. Here is a way you can reap all the valuable benefits of exercising in half the time. Ah, but there’s a catch. You do have to exert yourself about twice as hard.
So, on the one hand, if you are pressed for time, exercising aerobically may in fact be an effective shortcut to building and sustaining your own vitality. On the other hand, if you looking something for free, you’ll quickly discover that exercising vigorously is approximately twice as much work as exercising in a causal and leisurely manner.
In other words, as in most matters, the returns on your investment in regular exercise will depend squarely on how much time and effort you choose to invest. Choose the approach that works best for you.
The Additional Benefits of Regular Aerobic Exercise
Regular aerobic exercise provides you with an array of valuable benefits that go beyond the ones you can reap from regular non-aerobic exercise.
The primary additional advantages of regular aerobic exercise are:
• A significant strengthening your heart muscle
• A lowering of your blood pressure
• A cleansing of your body via profuse perspiration
• A marked increase in your overall physical stamina
• Improved weight management
• Additional strengthening of your immune system
• A rewarding increase in your physical agility
• A most enjoyable sense of being fully alive
I would like to bring your attention especially to the last item in the above bulleted list.
Our Aerobic Imperative
The human body is supremely well designed to walk, run, jump, skip, hop, dance, and otherwise move through space both powerfully and gracefully. Thus, all of us have the potential to become athletes. If we don’t develop this remarkable potential, however, it remains dormant.
The more you indulge yourself in a sedentary lifestyle, the more you squander this birthright. When you refrain from exercising regularly, your body atrophies. It comes down to the stark reality that you need to “use it or lose it.”
If and as you lose your ability to move about both powerfully and gracefully, you will inevitably sacrifice a large measure of the joy of being fully alive.
If you want to tap fully into the joyfulness of your own vitality, you have to develop and sustain your ability to exercise aerobically. Making time to do this on a regular basis is one of the most important gifts you can give to yourself.
Unless you honor this aerobic imperative by exercising vigorously on a regular basis, you will end up compromising your vitality, your personal resilience, and your happiness.
When you do make it a practice to exercise aerobically either every day or every other day, you will start to experience the rejuvenating state of being in the flow. And after a hearty aerobic workout (pun intended), you will also get to savor what is commonly called a runner’s high. You will feel an afterglow of elation that can serve to re-invigorate you all day long.
The Platinum Standard of Regular Exercise
If the gold standard of regular exercise is walking for an hour a day, I would like to propose a platinum standard. This higher standard would be met by exercising aerobically for an average of at least half an hour every other day.
When you reach this higher standard, all sorts of additional benefits accrue. You will end up in better physical condition, you’ll have more vitality and resilience, and you’ll find much more enjoyment in being alive. You will also have more bounce in your step, and a more visible smile in your eyes.
Call to Action: Honor Your Own Aerobic Imperative
If you aren’t already exercising on a regular basis, here’s how to get started:
First, before you set about increasing your level of regular physical activity, check with your physician to make sure that you have no latent conditions that would counter-indicate gradually increasing your level of physical exertion. Be prudent. Use common sense.
Once you know that you are in the clear to start exercising more vigorously, make a commitment to intentionally walk every day for a minimum set period of time. Thirty minutes a day will get you started. Sixty minutes a day is the apparent new “gold standard.”
If you are already walking every day, experiment with “ratcheting up” your level of exertion. Start to intentionally walk faster. When are ready, break into short intervals of slow jogging. Once you can sustain a slow jog, gradually push yourself to run faster, longer, or both.
Remember: You need to exert yourself hard enough to bring your heart rate up into your aerobic zone and sustain it there for a period of time. (For a short definition of aerobic exercise, see the first footnote below. For information on using a portable heart monitor, see the second footnote.)
So start now, dream big, and go for not just the gold, but for the platinum. Yes, you can….
Relevant Quotation:
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, you can. Boldness has a genius magic and power to it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Further Information on Aerobic Exercise
For a much more detailed discussion of aerobic exercise practices and how to incorporate them into your daily self-care structures, see Section 10 in The Resilience Manual: How to Thrive in Stressful Times.
Footnotes
1. Your maximum heart rate is approximately 220 minus your age in years. Aerobic exercise entails elevating your resting heart rate to a level that falls within 60-85% of your maximum heart rate, and then sustaining your heart rate in that aerobic zone for the duration of your chosen exercise activity. At that level of exertion, you heart is able to re-oxygenate your blood as fast as your physical activity depletes oxygen from your blood. Aerobic exercise is strenuous enough to cause you to perspire. When you are exercising aerobically, you can still speak in full, if somewhat broken, sentences. You normally won’t run out of breath, and you normally will be able to sustain this level of physical exertion for relatively long periods of time.
2. In order to calibrate precisely how hard you need to exert yourself to first reach and then sustain your own aerobic level of exertion, it’s best to use an inexpensive digital sports heart monitor to give you immediate and precise feedback on your heart rate. Sports heart monitors are built right into many stationary exercise machines, such as treadmills, elliptical machines, stationary bikes, rowing machines, etc. Alternatively, you can purchase a portable unit at a sporting goods store for $75-$100. I highly recommend using one of these devices.
You are welcome to re-publish the above article in its entirety either on a web site or in a blog, providing you do not change the article and you include the following attribution in its entirety:
Copyright © 2010 Alexander M. (Sandy) Davis. To find out more about Sandy Davis and the resilience-related manuals and services he offers, visit www.ResilienceWorks.com. To subscribe to his free monthly e-newsletter, send an e-mail to Subscribe@ResilienceWorks.com. FYI, he’s “The Resilience Guy.”