Exercise and Fitness Archive

Walking is one of the best ways for older adults to get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week. But to ensure people get the most from their walking workouts, they need to focus on intensity. One way to do this is with target heart rate. A typical target heart rate for moderate-intensity exercise is between 65% and 75% of a person's calculated maximum heart rate. Improving walking form and doing interval workouts can help increase speed and thus intensity.

To optimize cardiovascular health, the best strategy may be a workout that combines three types of exercise: moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, and strength training. Moderate activity burns calories and boosts metabolism, which helps control weight. Moderate-to-vigorous exercise also helps dampen the body's "fight or flight" response, which plays a role in chronic stress and anxiety. Aerobic exercise in general also helps the heart to become more efficient and blood vessels to become more flexible. Strength training makes the body more efficient at burning fat for energy and helps improve insulin sensitivity.

Monitoring daily step count can encourage people to be more active. When it comes to assessing fitness or risk for major illnesses, though, is a new measurement that combines both average steps and heart rate better?

Some people may feel like it's pointless to exercise if they're not losing weight as a result. But there are many reasons to exercise beyond weight loss. Regular exercise has a long list of health benefits, including an energy boost, better sleep, and reduced risks for addictive behaviors as well as many chronic diseases such as heart disease, strokes, many cancers, dementia (including Alzheimer's disease), diabetes, depression, anxiety, pneumonia, osteoporosis, and kidney problems.

Several strategies can help people cope when stress incontinence leads to urine leaks during exercise. For example, doing low-impact (rather than high-impact) exercise will put less stress on the pelvic floor muscles, helping to reduce leakage. Wearing absorbent "bladder leak" underwear can keep someone dry and comfortable during activity. Regularly strengthening the pelvic floor, abdominal, and hip muscles will bolster the body's ability to keep urine from leaking out of the bladder.

In a 2024 study, researchers found that the short-term brain boosts people receive after doing moderate to vigorous exercise can last 24 hours.

In a 2024 study of more than 183,000 middle-aged healthy people followed for 13 years, those who closely followed a plant-based diet had lower risks of developing blood clots in the legs or lungs, even if their genes made them more likely to get the blood clots.

Chair exercises are a great way to supplement a person's regular workout, or as a replacement when they can't do their usual routine. They also can be used for people returning to exercise after an injury or surgery, or for those with physical limitations. Chair exercises can offer a full-body workout and especially help address two areas people need assistance with as they get older: strength and flexibility. Most chair exercises can be modified to make the movements more or less challenging.