We all know we need exercise, but finding a routine that is safe, fun and effective is often a challenge. Recent findings show the benefit of what is known as HIIT, which stands for “High Intensity Interval Training”. It’s not as tough as it sounds, because you can take the idea and make it fit you.
The beauty of HIIT is that it provides fast fitness results with short training times. For instance, a 20 second hard sprint to exhaustion is followed by a 1 to 2 minute recovery walk. This is then repeated 6 or 7 times. Studies show this approach increases the bodies natural Human Growth Hormone, which helps us add muscle while increasing immune response, and does so much more than walking or running at a steady state.
The problem for most of us is that it is easy to pull a hamstring or worry a knee or hip trying to jog or sprint (or even walk) fast enough to really tire-out in 20 seconds. Depending on your level of fitness, you can easily gain HIIT-like changes by merely walking faster, cautiously, while keeping a tall posture, then slowing your pace for the “rest interval”. Even safer is to walk uphill 20 seconds at a mildly challenging speed, then ease up for a couple of minutes, then repeat. Give it time and build up.
A great and necessary option is weight lifting, and perhaps the most “bang for your buck” can be safely had with “The Farmer’s Carry”.
Here we do what we have done for millennia: walk with a load in each hand, arms hanging down, head and chest up, with smooth form that enables us to walk a good distance. This exercise can be done in a similar effort/rest cycle. A strong grip on a dumbbell weighing anywhere from 3 lbs and up to half your body weight can be used in each hand. Keep good form and gradually increase weight. This move definitely builds muscle.
I like to get most of my “exercise” with what is called Karma Yoga: the yoga of chores. We all have stuff to do. So walk tall, keep your head and chest up and bottom back when lifting anything, and try to breath in and out through your nose at all times. Do this daily and learn to love it (cause if you don’t love it, you will leave it). Then watch what happens.
Once again, the benefits of duplicating man’s lifestyle history, doing what our ancestors have all done, is shown to best improve health and physical ability. We are made to move, lift, bend, push and pull – that is, we are built to work – outside, on a daily basis.