Military Officer - December 2007 - (Page 60) Not necessarily. In fact, you can get — and stay — fit in less time than you think: 20 to 30 minutes a day is all it takes. The trick is to know exactly how to maximize your exercise time. “As we age, the most important thing is to maintain our engines, and the engines of our bodies are the muscles. The heart, of course, is the fuel pump,” says Dr. Wayne Westcott, fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass., and author of several fitness books, including Strength Training Past 50 (Human Kinetics, 2007). As we get older, we naturally lose muscle, not only making us less strong but also slowing our metabolism, causing us to burn fewer calories in the course of a day. Fortunately, resistance training can help offset that loss. Personal trainer Craig Ballantyne, author and owner of www.turbu lencetraining.com, agrees maintaining and building muscle is vital to health — and it doesn’t mean spending hours at the gym. “Strength training is essential for men and women to live independently well into their later years. Fortunately, strength training is the most efficient type of exercise available — you get a lot of results in a short amount of workout time,” he says. What if you don’t have access to a gym or exercise equipment, or you just plain hate working out? If it’s an access problem, there are ways to work around it by doing simple exercises at home, most of them without cumbersome equipment. If you have trouble sticking with a fitness regimen because you don’t enjoy it, take heart: There are ways to make your workout more tolerable and even fun. “The problem with exercising indoors is that it’s very boring,” Westcott admits. “Fortunately, you can work around that problem.” Build those muscles People think they have to spend a lot of time at the gym or follow a complicated routine to build or maintain their muscles, but according to Westcott, that’s not the case. The most efficient way to maintain or build muscle is to do circuit training at a gym using machines, Westcott says. That means doing a basic series of eight to 10 exercises, targeting every major muscle group in the body, with little rest between exercises. Do a single set (eight to 12 repetitions) of each exercise. The last repetitions should be a challenge. “It takes maybe 20 minutes if you’re in good shape and 25 minutes if you go slower. If you can do that twice a week on non-consecutive days, that’s all you need,” Westcott says. Most gyms have weight machines that are designed to be worked in a circuit. The circuit should include exercises such as the leg press, which works your entire leg, and machines that target the muscles of the backs of your thighs (hamstrings) and the fronts of your thighs (quadriceps). The circuit also should incorporate exercises that work your back, chest, shoulders, and arms — both the triceps (the back of the arm) and the biceps (the front of the arm). You also can include exercises to strengthen your abdominal muscles and the muscles of your lower back and Using an exercise ball to perform bodyweight exercises is an inexpensive and effective way to strength train in the comfort of your home. 60 MILITARY OFFICER DECEMBER 2007 PHOTOS/IMAGES: TKTK http://www.turbulencetraining.com http://www.turbulencetraining.com
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