Lisa Lemler, associate director of the University’s Department of Recreation and Wellness, presented a lively and well-attended workshop on maintaining an active lifestyle.

It’s never too late to start building more activity into your life, and activity can be tailored to your age and physical condition. Activity improves both physical and mental functioning; it both extends life and makes life more enjoyable.   

For this UMRA workshop presentation via Zoom on January 19, 2021, Lisa described and illustrated, with selected exercises, five components of an active lifestyle:

1. Movement throughout the day. Try to engineer activity into your daily activities. For example, get up and move around every 20 minutes, take the stairs, and park farther away rather than close to your destination. Consider setting specific goals and getting an activity tracker to measure your progress.
2. Aerobic activity (aka “cardio”). Activities that elevate your heart rate are important to cardiac functioning and include walking, cycling, and swimming. Guidelines call for getting a weekly minimum of 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. An activity is considered vigorous when it makes it difficult to carry on an extended conversation. 
   
   The key to benefiting from aerobic exercise is doing it consistently. Activities that you will do consistently are likely to be ones that interest you and that you find enjoyable. Try different things until you hit on the ones you like.
3. Strength training. People lose muscle mass when they age, but the effects of that loss can be mitigated by doing strength exercises. You should try to do something to work each major muscle group at least twice a week, doing at least one “set” of 8 to 20 repetitions of each exercise. You can use weights, weight substitutes (e.g., soup cans, detergent bottles), resistance bands, or your own body weight. 
   
   Lisa illustrated two simple body weight exercises: For the upper body, wall pushups: leaning into a wall or counter, and pushing off. For the lower body, repeatedly rising from and sitting down on a chair, without lingering in the chair or using your arms.
4. Flexibility exercises. This involves gently stretching different muscles for a total of at least 10 minutes a day, either after other training or intermittently throughout the day.  Hold each stretch for 10 to 30 seconds, without causing pain. Besides static stretching, consider active stretching activities like yoga or Pilates.
5. Balance and posture activities. Improving balance and posture is important to fall prevention. Do a few exercises intermittently throughout the day. When you are doing such exercises, like standing on one foot, have a support nearby and use it whenever you need it. Over time, you will probably use it less and less.

The internet is full of exercise programs. When trying exercises, look for those that induce a “burn” (indicating your muscles are working) but that never create sharp pain. 

—Ron Matross, chair, Workshop Committee