Dr. Kevin Roberge, Chiropractor

Find an activity you love, do it often, and try to continually improve at it. This can apply to anything in life, including physical activity. One thing that I have realized over the years is that I am more apt to exercise and train if I find something that I enjoy and have an event or a goal for which I am training. I've always loved cycling, so I've signed up for a bike race every year for the last several years. From the day I sign up, I never miss a training session and I find I make my biggest gains in my fitness level leading up to the competition. While cycling is something that I enjoy very much, I decided it was time for a new challenge.

Weight training has long been a passion of mine, so I decided to enter a national powerlifting competition. Again, from the day I put my name on the entry form I never missed a training session and I made significant gains in my strength and power in areas where I had been stagnant for years.

I found an activity that I enjoyed, added a sense of purpose by way of a competition and incorporated it into my daily routine. All of these elements are key factors in maintaining an active lifestyle. The benefits of competition are that they tend to keep us accountable to a training routine because there will eventually come a time of testing.  For those who feel they do not enjoy the buzz of competition, it is still important to set personal goals and continue to work hard to reach or exceed them.

Currently, I lift 4-5 days per week outside of my cardiovascular activity that I participate in on a regular basis, which  includes cycling to and from the office everyday. By the end of the week I will have averaged 60 to 90 minutes of daily activity.  

Which leads to this month's question:

I exercise for 20 minutes, 3 times a week. Is this enough?

 No. But I do believe this is a concept that this is a common misconception. While it could be argued that anything is better than nothing, the human body was designed for movement and in the absence of activity it begins to degenerate.

The truth is that the average person should be building themselves up to exercising an hour per day. In fact, the Canadian Public Health Agency (CPHA) recommends accumulating 60 minutes of physical activity EVERY DAY for adults and 90 minutes for children and youths. I absolutely concur with these as minimum recommendations. Think of physical activity as an investment you make in your health to which you contribute about 1/24th of your day.

Note that's ACCUMULATED exercise. This can include a brisk 30 minute walk at lunch and 30 minutes of raking leaves. According to the CPHA, this should include 4-7 days per week of endurance or cardiovascular exercise, 4-7 days per week of flexibility or stretching and 2-4 days per week of strength or resistance training per week.

Why Strength Train or Resistance Train?

Every pound of muscle you have burns 50 Cal/day just being there. If you are inactive after the age of 30, you lose 3-5% of your muscle mass and strength per decade every year that you do not resistance train. Resistance training doesn't necessarily mean spending hours in the gym everyday. Research has shown that one set to exhaustion is almost as effective as 3 sets. So when it comes to resistance training, as a starting point, if you did a full body workout with one set of each body part to failure twice a week, you would be fulfilling the strength portion of your recommendations in a short period of time.
(For a full body workout, go to: www.sevenandahalfminuteworkout.com)
When it comes to cardiovascular training or endurance training (i.e. brisk walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, skipping rope or circuit training) you should build up to at least 20 minutes of continuous activity. You will need to gradually build up to an intensity at least to the point where you can just barely carry on a conversation and are breaking sweat.

Remember to find activities that you enjoy, and incorporate them into your daily routine and gradually build up to about an hour a day of accumulated physical activity.

Exercise Tip Sheet:

1. Find something you love to do, and stick to it - Try several different things and stick with what you really enjoy. This will keep your routine sustainable.
2. Engage yourself in your activity - Keep your mind focused on the task at hand, even close your eyes if you need to visualize.
3. Sign up for a class, team, event or competition - With this, you have a purpose behind your workouts.
4. GRADUAL build up - Never exercised before? Why not start with even one minute on day 1, two minutes on day 2…See where that puts you in 2 months!
5. Put exercise into your schedule and incorporate it into a routine - It takes about 30 days to develop a habit, exercise is no exception. You schedule when to get up, afternoon meetings and dinner time, so of course your workout needs to be scheduled as well. You can have a weekday routine:  a 30 minute walk at lunch hour and 30 minute workout after work, and a weekend routine:  a one hour bike ride Saturday and Sunday.
6. Turn off the TV - Did you know you actually burn less calories watching TV then if you stared at a blank wall? Is your life really being enriched by The Bachelor and Survivor? Take that one hour of your life back and go for a brisk walk/run/bike whatever. Absolutely addicted to Lost? Skip rope or set up an exercise bike or a set of dumbbells in front of the TV and workout there.
7. Progression and Overload - There needs to be an incremental increase in your workload, which is always just beyond your capacity. If you are talking on your cell phone while riding the exercise bike, you're probably not working hard enough.  If you run or walk for example, you need to continually increase your distance while increasing your speed. For weights, you need to increase the amount you are lifting and the number of repetitions.
8. Goal Setting - Set a long term big goal ("Able to walk to the Calgary Tower in 30 minutes") and ongoing microgoals ("Just to the end of this block").
9. Get an exercise partner - This essentially doubles your motivation. That other person will help push you by just being there.
10. Always look for new challenges - Try something new that you have never done before at least once every season. This helps keep things fresh, and knowing that you can only improve at a new activity is highly motivating and rewarding.