Swimming as cardiovascular exercise

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

I am sure that swimming is a really great form of exercise. And, equally, I have no doubt that the resistance of pushing water around is good for the muscles, but, for most, I have reservations about its’ effectiveness as a cardiovascular exercise. Now I am not talking about the dedicated swimmer, who probably belongs [...]

Knee trouble and exercise

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

I’ve had fairly bad knees for a long time – cartilage damage from too much football (soccer) when I was young. A long time ago when I was still playing, a couple of days after a match, I went to my doctor with an extremely swollen and painful knee. He told me to quit football, [...]

Muscle loss as you get older

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Known as Sarcopenia – see Wikipedia for the full details. I realise that with my balance being aimed at core and torso exercises and the emphasis on shape, I may have slightly neglected a point associated with muscle mass, in that the biggest muscles are around the top half of the legs and the hips. [...]

Running surfaces

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

I often hear fitness experts on running say that there is more stress on the joints when running on hard surfaces like roads, pavements and paths etc. Now, I like to run a bit, and my knees are not too good at all (cartilage damage from too much football when I was young, one knee [...]

How long to exercise?

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

I am going to stick my neck out here and say around 10 minutes minimum to around 40 minutes maximum, with 20-30 minutes being optimum/average. In my book this goes for all sorts of planned exercise, from cardio-vascular like running, or weights sessions or even my favoured variety of muscle control exercises. Why do I [...]

How often should you exercise?

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Well that depends on what you are doing doesn’t it? If you are doing strenuous cardio stuff like running then the wisdom is at least twice a week with three times a week being the optimum. You certainly shouldn’t run EVERY day. Likewise, if you are exercising your muscles to breakdown, as in weight training, [...]