Top 10 Tips on Starting an Exercise Program
As a sports medicine physician, I often get asked how to start an exercise program and how to keep up with it. While there are many recommendations regarding this seemingly simple task, my experience is that too much information can be daunting to those just starting out. Therefore, I will attempt, with the help of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), “Exercise is Medicine” initiative, and the American Heart Association (AHA) to boil it down to ten practical tips.
To preface however, patients with chronic diseases, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or any medical concern should see their physician before starting an exercise program. Specifically, The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and The American Heart Association (AHA) recommend that men ≥45, and women≥ 55 with two or more major cardiac risk factors symptoms of coronary artery disease, or those with coronary, pulmonary or metabolic disease need symptom limited exercise testing before starting. The major cardiac risk factors are being male, increasing age i.e. >65, heredity including race, smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, obesity, and diabetes.
In talking with patients, a lot of them will be initially motivated to start exercising but will quickly burn out and stop. They may be overwhelmed with the intensity of exercise, succumb the “too much too soon” phenomena, and build a barrier to going back to exercise in the future.
Here are my Top 10 tips to starting an effective, sustainable and most importantly enjoyable exercise program.
Tip 1: Block out time for exercise every day. Make it a no choice appointment for yourself. Don’t give yourself the chance to back out. For example, if you are exercising in the evening or at lunch, pack your gym bag, running shoes, etc and go straight to the gym after work. If you are exercising in the morning, lay your exercise clothing out and set your alarm across the room so you are forced to get up early.
Tip 2: Choose cardiovascular activities that you enjoy. Studies show that you will stick with your program longer if you pick something you love.
Tip 3: Vary your activity. Prevent burn out by rotating through 3-4 different cardiovascular activities. Mine are cycling, elliptical, running, stair-stepper, basketball, and swimming. If you “feel” like doing one particular activity more than the others on a certain day, go ahead and do it, even if it’s a lower intensity activity.
Tip 4: Consistency is the key: It matters less what you do, but you HAVE to do it at least 5 days a week once you reach your goal! The more you do it, the more it becomes habit, and the more “addicted,” in a good way, you will become to exercise. Make it a part of your new healthy lifestyle initiative.
Tip 5: Start off slow. Too much too soon will likely result in undue soreness, possibly injury and you being discouraged. Build up intensity, length of activity and number of work outs per week. A good starting point is 10-15 minutes every other day at low to medium intensity. Every week add 5 minutes to the workout until you are at 45 minutes per work out. Later you can start filling in the days you’re not working out with a goal of 5 days per week.
Tip 6: Don’t over-train! There is too much of a good thing. Your body needs to recover and especially initially, 7 workouts a week may not give you enough time to recover. Don’t forget to sleep. Your muscles and connective tissue build and heal at night almost exclusively. Without good quality sleep, you’ll breakdown and get injured.
Tip 7: Incorporate strength training. The goal is to do 8-10 strength training exercises, 8-12 repetitions, twice per week.
Tip 8: Do balance exercises: While not obviously going to give you cardio-protective or weight loss benefits, balance and proprioception (the ability to know where a body part is in space) exercises can help prevent injury. This is critical if your exercise of choice is something like basketball and tennis, as well as outdoor running.
Tip 9: If your goal is to burn fat, the best time to exercise is first thing in the morning. Through the night, your body has burned through much of your muscle glycogen stores (your muscle’s storage form of energy), and you can burn up to 300% more fat in a shorter time than if you exercise with the same activity in the afternoon or evening after you have eaten. It may take 30 minutes to get to the fat burning stage in the evening, and then another 10-20 minutes to actually burn the fat.
Tip 10: Eat within 20-60 minutes of exercising. Your muscles have an open door for glucose and nutrients during the first hour after exercise. Eating something healthy like a glass of milk or a protein shake right away and again 3 hours later will help you recover faster, and will help you have a more effective work out the next day.
Bonus: Set realistic goals. Give yourself enough time, and smaller “stepping stone” goals to build up to them. My wife and I had never run a marathon but we both had run shorter races including half marathons before we attempted to train for the San Francisco marathon. It still took us around 8 months to get there.
Sources:
http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/documents/StartingExercise4_000.pdf
http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/physicians.htm
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.185649
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
You play basketball, Dr. Rowan? It’s ON.
Nice blog!
A
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Thank for the great suggestions! Do you suggest any fitness books or specific programs to keep up the inspiration?
April 24th, 2009 at 2:01 am
These are very helpful tips. I’m planning to print it out and renew my exercise regimen now that spring is here. I think the hardest part is consistency – I can go in spurts of a week or month or train for something in particular, but incorporating year-round into a busy lifestyle can be difficult!
April 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I would also suggest taking a classes! Rockclimbing, martial arts, tennis, etc. It compels you to try new things that you might have been thinking about and actually sticking with it since you have to pay for it. Learning the basics and proper form from someone who knows is a lot less frustrating than fumbling on your own. As you get better, you can step up the class levels as well and learn more technique.
Also taking classes with a like minded friend or partner helps!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I’m glad I happened to read your blog. As a male approaching that scary 65-year-old threshold, I wonder how many of your tips are suitable for older non-athletes. Would you drop any? or add any? Are the number of repetitions or intensity of activity you suggest appropriate for all ages?
May 11th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Any recommendations on marathon training? Good book or website?
May 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Thanks for all the feedback and questions!
Robert, if you are planning your FIRST marathon, I suggest reading Jeff Galloway’s website at http://www.jeffgalloway.com. I fully endorse the run walk method for safe distance running. It may not be the best thing for the elite runner who is looking to shave seconds off a marathon time but it’s perfect for everyone else!
RonT, my exercise tips are applicable to all ages of athletes. The rule of thumb after being cleared by your physician to exercise is start slowly and increase slowly. Exercise for those older than 65 is critically important for health prevention. In fact, I may do a post on that in the future. Good luck!
Tracy, a good solid exercise program starts with training your core. Therefore I like suggesting a good Pilates program to my patients. As always, talk to your physican before starting. Good luck! Bring a partner to help motivate you on your “off” days!
May 13th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Great suggestions!
I have a 2 kids ages 8 & 4, I was wondering how much exercise kids need on an average?
May 13th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Great question Renu. Childhood obesity rates are skyrocketing, and this phenomenon is not being helped by trends towards physical education and recess time restriction in many states. Inactive kids become inactive adults. I will write about this in the future!
The American Heart Association recommends at least 60 minutes of DAILY moderate to vigorous exercise for children and adolescents. For younger kids older than 2, 20 minutes of daily vigorous is recommended.
Remember that kids use adults/parents as role models! Lead by example!
I hope this helps!
May 14th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Thank you for the advise. This is great, now I know how much they are supposed to be doing.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Excellent tips, Dr. Paul! I am encouraged to start building an exercise program right away and get back in shape. All your suggestions were helpful. I especially like tip #6, #9, and #10. I didn’t realize that muscles and connective tissue build and heal at night almost exclusively. And also exercising in the morning to burn fat is most effective. I also like the idea of eating something healthy right after exercising since I’m usually hungry right after a workout. Originally thought that would be counter effective. It’s always good to start somewhere with building a program, and Dr. Paul breaks the process down into manageable steps. One thing I would like to see changed is establishing a consistent exercise program for teenagers and college students. Most high schools only require 1-2 years of physical education courses, and after those two years, participation in workout programs tends to dwindle away as students focus more on their studies. Thanks!