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5 great tips for sustainable summer living
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How health care leaders can prioritize health equity for the LGBTQIA2+ community
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One surprising effect of wildfires: itchy, irritated skin
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Orienteering: Great exercise and better thinking skills?
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Health care should improve your health, right?
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Ultra-processed foods? Just say no
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The cicadas are here: How's your appetite?
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Life can be challenging: Build your own resilience plan
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Bugs are biting: Safety precautions for children
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Power your paddle sports with three great exercises
Exercise & Fitness Archive
Articles
What you can learn from wellderlies
Some people live long lives with no disease or serious illness. What can they teach you about healthy living?
Image: Creatas | Thinkstock /Thinkstock
You won't live forever, but it may be possible to live a long and maybe disease-free life by following the lead of "wellderlies."
This is a term to describe a special group of people who have reached ages 90 to 100 without having any major health issue or disease. And if they do get sick, it often happens late in their life and a short period before death.
HIT workouts may boost exercise motivation
High-intensity interval training may be more enjoyable than moderate continuous exercise and may help sedentary adults stay motivated when doing new workouts.
Find your exercise fit!
Figuring out the exercise style that best suits your needs will help you stick to a plan.
 Image: © iStock
Making a plan to get regular exercise can be challenging. There are many options, and you may not be sure how to narrow them down. "The result may be that you put off exercising," says Madhuri Kale, a physical therapist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.
It helps to know the basic categories of activity you can choose from: exercise classes, gym workouts, home workouts, and vigorous work or recreational activity. Here are some pros and cons to consider for each.
Rx for longer life: Maintain healthy habits
It appears that the risk of an early death falls with each additional healthy lifestyle behavior that is maintained, even in people who are overweight.
Is a new tool for fitness research already in your own pocket?
Real-world tracking of exercise habits with a smartphone may inform future cardiovascular research.
 Image: © Halfpoint/Thinkstock
Nearly two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone, which comes in handy for instant access to all sorts of information, from driving directions to medical advice. According to a Pew Research Center report, 62% of people have used their phone to research a health condition.
But smartphones can also collect personal health data, aided by apps that track your activity level throughout the day. Because activity and fitness levels are so closely tied to heart health, an accurate assessment of these factors may offer new clues for preventing heart disease.
The case for measuring fitness
Cardiorespiratory fitness may soon be considered as a vital sign on par with blood pressure and heart rate.
 Image: © iStock
Three decades' worth of solid evidence linking a sedentary lifestyle to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and early death has silenced even the most ardent exercise deniers. Nonetheless, a metric quantifying a person's level of aerobic fitness has yet to make it into the set of tools commonly used to predict heart disease.
But that may soon change. The American Heart Association recently released a statement calling for cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) to be considered a clinical vital sign, similar to how blood pressure, heart rate, and tobacco use are treated now. Assessing fitness level at your annual visit would help your doctor get a better picture of your underlying heart health and risk of disease down the road.
Why good posture matters
"Stand up straight." That's timeless advice we've probably all heard at one time or another. It's worth heeding. Good posture is important to balance: by standing up straight, you center your weight over your feet. This also helps you maintain correct form while exercising, which results in fewer injuries and greater gains. And working on balance can even strengthen your abilities in tennis, golf, running, dancing, skiing — and just about any other sport or activity.
Not an athlete? It still pays to have good balance. Just walking across the floor or down the block requires good balance. So do rising from a chair, going up and down stairs, toting packages, and even turning to look behind you.
No excuses: How to layer up for walking in cold weather
Image: iStock |
"It's too cold." "It's too hot." "It's raining." Weather-related excuses are some of the most common reasons that walkers don't walk. But with the right clothing and preparation, almost any type of weather can be walking weather.
A key to staying warm when you're walking in cold temperatures is to stay dry — and that's exactly what layering helps you do. By removing layers as you warm up, you'll avoid excessive sweating, which can cause you to become chilled, especially later in your walk. Then you can replace layers as you cool down to remain warm.
6 tips to help you keep a walking regimen on track
Regular walks are an incredibly popular way to exercise — and it's easy to see why. Walking is easy and free (except for a good pair of shoes), and can be done just about anywhere. But it's those very qualities that can also make it very tempting to skip. If your walking routine is in danger of lapsing, try one or more of these strategies to keep going.
1. Have a backup plan.  For example, if you sleep in and miss your morning walk, you commit to taking that walk during lunch instead. Or, maybe you know that dinner with friends will prevent you from taking your evening stroll, so instead you sneak in a 15-minute walk in the morning and another before you meet your friends. And keeping a pair of sneakers in your car gives you the option to squeeze in a walk whenever you have a little extra time.
Does balance go south starting at 40?
Evidence suggests that the vestibular system in the inner ear—which helps detect motion and maintain balance—starts to decline early in middle age and gets worse with each decade.
Recent Blog Articles
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15375/conversions/71da1de7-3c71-4341-9f3a-810d2deb31c6-micro.jpg)
5 great tips for sustainable summer living
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15367/conversions/0f11bddf-8146-4805-ab1c-53b6561c24fd-micro.jpg)
How health care leaders can prioritize health equity for the LGBTQIA2+ community
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15357/conversions/f951361f-c837-4704-a143-0f9b207ed1d9-micro.jpg)
One surprising effect of wildfires: itchy, irritated skin
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/14057/conversions/120519c1-033d-4843-b85b-af90955c3f9a-micro.jpg)
Orienteering: Great exercise and better thinking skills?
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15309/conversions/a32d083c-d4b8-4a24-8a4f-f05d4d394dd1-micro.jpg)
Health care should improve your health, right?
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15310/conversions/50802077-6dd5-461e-a720-a04899353d48-micro.jpg)
Ultra-processed foods? Just say no
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15303/conversions/4304af30-c59b-4dc8-ac93-f4ac1c590752-micro.jpg)
The cicadas are here: How's your appetite?
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/15304/conversions/384b5a4a-770a-47f3-b8e5-9422e290d096-micro.jpg)
Life can be challenging: Build your own resilience plan
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/11415/conversions/9ca5a45a-7ad8-48a0-9f1a-08bdd7e2091f-micro.jpg)
Bugs are biting: Safety precautions for children
![blog image 1](https://domf5oio6qrcr.cloudfront.net/medialibrary/12577/conversions/320556aa-870b-4186-8366-49e0a3b4f290-micro.jpg)
Power your paddle sports with three great exercises
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