The conflicting information about exercise is probably as confusing to you as all the nutrition information you read. There are as many opinions and schools of thought as there are experts. When considering the type of exercise to do, the correct answer depends upon your personal goals and objectives. One thing is certain…your body needs exercise in order to maintain optimal health. If you are like most Americans, your level of exercise is woefully lacking. Even most people who spend hours exercising are falling short of the correct amount of stimulus to create the maximum response. Another group of people are of the mind set that if a little is good, more must be better and they train themselves into a state of lowered immunity and exhaustion.

A distinction must be made between exercise and training. Thanks to the increased awareness of weight training from all the body building and fitness magazines, most people think of exercise as a chore that requires extreme discipline and regimentation. (If you are training for a competition or to achieve a personal fitness goal, this may be an accurate description. Focusing on the end result is enough to keep you motivated and engaged.) Exercise does not have to be Spartan drudgery, though. In fact, for overall health benefits, its best if it is fun and varied.

There are many reasons why exercise is important. For one, it pumps your blood harder and brings more oxygen to all the tissues of the body. More oxygen translates into proper regeneration and repair of the cells. Exercise keeps blood from pooling in your veins, as well as moving the lymphatic fluid of the body. With out vigorous movement, toxins accumulate in the lymphatic system and putrefy. Think of this as the drainage system for your body, much like the gutters of your house. Ever clean those things out after a couple years of neglect…YUK!

Patients ask us all the time, “So doc, just what is the best exercise for me?” The short answer is, “The one you’ll do.” The long answer is a little more precise…

Any exercise program should involve at least three components; flexibility, strength, and endurance. As you age, the priority should be in that order. After all, when your eighty you’re going to be much more concerned about reaching up into the cupboard or getting yourself off the toilet than running down the 7 AM train. The key distinction to make about these three components is that you don’t have to train like a Yogi, a power lifter or a marathon runner to get good, balanced exercise. You should just try to do a little of each every day. The other secret is that it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. A very intense, but short duration will give as much, if not more benefit as a long routine. Remember, your body is a stimulus/response system. The idea is to give just enough stimuli to initiate an adaptive response.

There are only six primary movements that your body has to perform, no matter whether you are doing yard work or playing in the NFL. You need to be able to squat, lunge, lift, push, pull and twist. All the activities of daily living will entail one or more of those primary movements. All it takes to stimulate your body to respond in an adaptive manner is to perform a few of each of those movements each day. That can be done in a body weight circuit routine in less than 10 minutes.

The next thing to do daily is a simple stretching routine. Have you ever watched a cat, dog or horse first wake up? What’s the first thing they do? That’s right…they stretch. They do this because they know instinctively that they may have to either run after their food or run to keep from becoming food. (At least their ancestors did and the instinct has remained.) What they are doing is “recalibrating” there joints, muscles and nervous system from a state of sleep to a state of movement. From a state of slow metabolism and low oxygen need to a state of high metabolism and high oxygen need. This process of stretching switches certain hormones and brain chemicals into action and they are ready to handle the stressors of life for another day.

What do you do? If you are like most people, you wake up, (yeah, you might stretch your arms over your head…sorry, that’s not going to cut it. If you were on the Serengeti, you’d already be Hyena food.) you stumble to the bathroom, you empty your bladder, you make your way to the coffee machine, you climb into the shower, you dash off to sit in your car, (in a slouching posture), you work all day staring into a computer screen and try to not let your body melt into your desk, you then drive home, eat dinner and hang out in your recliner in front of the T.V. before you make your way back to bed. (OK, that’s an overview…sure you went to meetings, maybe the gym, you might even have hung out on the sidelines of a kids game…you get the idea, though.) No where did you do any real stretching. All it would take to do enough stretching is to go through a 5 minute routine as soon as you get up. (OK, you can go pee first.) For a very easy and effective routine, get Dr. Pete’s Spinal Hygiene DVD. It will take you through a very comprehensive stretching routine, as well as some techniques to improve your sleep. You will also learn three basic body weight exercises that you can do in less than 5 minutes a day and keep your body fit for the rest of your life. Remember, it’s not about duration, it’s all about intensity. Intensity does not equate to painful, though. You need to provide just enough stimuli to get the body to adapt.

The final recommendation is to simply walk! You can go for a 20-30 minute walk after dinner. You can park on the farthest side of the parking lot at stores or the mall. You can take the stairs rather than the elevator. The idea is to simply use the muscles God gave you, rather than being lazy. Technology has allowed us to stop using our bodies. That is not necessarily a good thing. It can make life easier and work more efficient; all great benefits of technology, however, don’t become such a slave to technology that you abuse your body with neglect. Start walking. (If you have pain that prevents you from walking, see the Structure section of this website…get your body fixed. You don’t have to live with pain.)

Below is a sample daily routine that you can perform in a very short period of time. Do this for 30 days and let us know how you feel…

Upon waking:

Through out the day: WALK, WALK, WALK, WALK. Take the stairs, park farther away, etc.

At night: Spinal molding (Spinal Hygiene DVD)

The key issue is to change your thinking about exercise. If you are not a regular exerciser, don’t try to set a rigorous schedule and make major changes all at once. Take baby steps. Begin with replacing a half hour of T.V. time with a walk in your neighborhood. Rather than cut your lawn with a riding mower, use a hand mower. Small changes over time will make it easier to ramp your activity level up later. The bottom line is TAKE ACTION. There is never a perfect time to implement an exercise program in today’s busy lives…but do it anyway. Too often people wait for the perfect situation to start something. They get stuck in, “Ready, Aim…Aim…Aim…” but never “Fire!” Try the, “Ready, FIRE, Aim” approach. The universe rewards ACTION!