===================================================================== Safety Counts!
• Caution: Whatever your physical condition, you must see a doctor before initiating a new exercise program.
• Check your pulse frequently so you do not exceed your maximum heart rate, and make sure you can talk at all times during your workout. If you find you cannot speak without a great deal of effort, decrease your intensity.
• Warm up and cool down. Start and end your workout gradually, with a reducedintensity version of whatever activity you ' re doing.
• Stretch all your muscle groups as part of your warm up and your cool down.
• Stay hydrated. The heavier you are, the more water your body needs, especially before, during and after exercise. Drink before you feel thirsty.
• Don ' t exercise on an empty stomach. But don ' t eat for one hour before light exercise or for two hours before strenuous exercise.
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Find Your Target Heart Rate Zone
Here ' s how to calculate your Target Heart Rate zone: Subtract your age from the number 220, then take sixty and seventy percent of that number. Mathematically, the formula works out as follows:( 220-age) x. 60 and( 220-age) x. 70 = THR zone.
So the sample calculation for a 58-year-old woman would be:
220-58 = 162 x. 60 = 97 and 162 x. 70 = 113
This woman should keep her pulse between 97 and 113 beats per minute while exercising. Very overweight people should be especially careful because they may reach the high end of their zone quite quickly. =====================================================================
Calorie Expenditure
Take Your Pick. Each of the following activities done for the stated time periods burns about 150 calories:
• Washing / waxing a car for forty-five to sixty minutes
• Washing windows for forty-five to sixty minutes
• Playing volleyball for forty-five minutes
• Playing touch football for thirty to forty-five minutes
• Gardening for thirty to forty-five minutes
• Wheeling oneself in a wheelchair for thirty to forty minutes
• Walking one and three-quarter miles in thirty-five minutes at a rate of twenty minutes per mile
• Basketball( shooting baskets) for thirty minutes
• Bicycling five miles in thirty minutes
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