Get ready for exercise with therapeutic bodywork

Spring is here. If you are planning more outdoor activities, help your body be ready with a session of therapeutic bodywork. Barbara offers Rolfing® and CranioSacral Therapy.

Some people receive Rolfing® structural integration to help them move more easily or improve athletic performance. There are several types of exercise you can incorporate into your week.

1. General activity – move more during the day
Research indicates that sitting too long during the day can lead to a number of serious health problems down the line. Even people who are diligent about going to the gym are still affected by these health problems if they are mainly sedentary the rest of the time. To address the risks from sitting, we need to stand up and move more throughout the day.

You’ve probably heard many of these next suggestions before, as I have. I wondered how much good does it do? The answer is, quite a lot! You can no doubt think of other activities to add to your day.

When doing sedentary activities, stand up every 20-30 minutes. If you can, set up a standing workstation for your computer. While watching TV, fold clothes or do light exercises. Park farther away or get off the bus a stop or two early. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Go for a short walk over lunch. Walk over to talk to someone at work. Gardening and cleaning count, too. If you want to use a pedometer to track your progess, build up to 7,000-10,000 steps over the course of the entire day.

2) Resistance training
Using your body weight, hand weights, resistance bands, or machines at the gym to do resistance training is good for your bones and helps minimize the loss of muscle mass that occurs with age. Start with just 5 – 10 minutes, done 2 or 3 times a week. Build up to 20-30 minutes.

3) Cardio
Yes, cardio is still important even if you’ve ramped up your general activity during the day. A reasonable goal is to accrue a total of 30 minutes, 5 days a week. Breaking the time up into several shorter segments is fine.

4) High intensity
One source described high intensity exercise as the the body’s equivalent to unclogging a slow drain. It’s great for your metabolism. Fortunately, a little goes a long way when it comes to high intensity work. Go fast without hurting yourself. Build up to a total of 3-4 minutes, once a week.