Corporate Fitness and Active Aging

The upcoming season can be hectic, and we often let our routines fall off track. Let’s keep you motivated into the cold months with 7 ways to stay motivated while starting or continuing your exercise program.

Tips to Stay Motivated:

Set Goals - Make sure you set realistic and attainable goals for yourself. For example, going to the Fitness Center three times a week for 30 minutes or taking a 15-minute walk three times a week.

Eliminate Barriers - Create an accessible, safe, and simple exercise program or ask your trainer to create one for you. Pick a day and time that most suits you.

Be Creative - Make an exercise routine that is different and fun. Stay away from doing the same thing all the time to avoid exercise becoming boring. For example, walk outdoors on a nice day to enjoy the scenery, switch your exercises up (reps, sets, order or even the exercise), or try adding a sporting activity. The old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks needs to be ignored in favor of exploration and creativity.

Reach Out – Connect with you onsite fitness staff or your local senior center. These are amazing facilities that offer a lot of different physical activities. Some centers/senior living communities have an available trained staff like NIFS to help, so ask your Wellness Coordinator, Health Fitness Specialist or Personal Trainer what they have to offer. Find classes or groups to join. Different types of exercise classes, dances, walking groups and water aerobics provide fitness and fun entertainment.

Have Fun - Pick exercises that are beneficial but ones you enjoy doing. Do not chose an exercise that you dislike, or you will dread doing it. Add humor, work out with people that make you laugh or that you can make them laugh. Listen to your favorite music or watch your favorite T.V. show while you exercise can help you complete your daily exercise goal.

No Excuses - Never make excuses for not exercising, avoid these excuses:

• Lack of time and interest
• Having an illness or being disabled
• The fact that exercise is expensive
• Dislike of exercise activities
• Lack of friends or people to do it with
• Lack of convenience
• It hurts
• It’s not fun
  Nonetheless, the importance of exercise surpasses any excuse given. With perseverance and creativity, you will be able to get started. Once you get started and start noticing all the benefits and results you will want to continue and maybe even exercise more often.

Be Focused on the Facts - Know the strong link between exercise and stable physical condition and health. When we begin physical activity or an exercise program, we feel much healthier and happier. Being physically active will make your daily activities easier and more attainable. The harder activities will become easier, and the not so hard will become simple. Not even mentioning the fact that you will be more independent.

 What will be your first step to staying motivated with your exercise routine??

When going through one’s fitness journey, there are often times when working out becomes repetitive and boring. When that feeling of monotony starts to take place it’s generally a good idea to find a way to spice up your training. You can do so by varying your intensities during training, which in many cases is a great idea. But another way to add some variety to your training is by simply substituting movements in on a cyclical basis. Let’s discuss why this is helpful and then talk about some ways to change up your routine.

Why would it be helpful to change your routine? Well in terms of preventing overuse injuries, it’s one of the easiest ways to prevent them.¹ This can be from a perspective of not just doing one modality of exercise, such as sticking to just running or cycling for cardio, or from a perspective of doing a similar exercise for over a period of weeks and months. Another benefit to changing up your routine, and specifically the exercises being utilized, is that it can help optimize training for strength and hypertrophy.² In terms of hypertrophy this change of exercise may provide a novel stimulus which can induce greater change in hypertrophy. In terms of building or producing strength, changing exercise selection while keeping intensity the same was shown to be more efficient than keeping the exercises the same or varying both the exercises and the intensity.³ Of course this has its caveats for both hypertrophy and strength, such as a redundancy if there’s an excess of variability in exercise selection.²

So now that you know the why, how are some ways to go about changing your routine? There are some simple but effective ways you change up your exercise selection without going too drastic with the changes.

1. Change the angle or range of motion of the movement: An effective way of changing the exercise without doing a completely new movement. For angle, think of it in terms of a chest press. You could either press completely horizontally or you could press it at an incline or a decline. The movement is different in a stimulus sense, but not completely foreign where your new to it. For range of motion, a good example could be a deadlift. Either you could pull it from the floor, you could stand on a platform and have the bar be lower than normal (decreasing ROM), or you could place the bar on pins/platforms (increasing ROM).
2. Use a different tool: Another easy way to do the same exercise but also changing up is by using different equipment for the same movement. Think of it in terms of using a barbell or a set of dumbbells for set of shoulder presses. The movement is identical, but the stress placed on the joints and muscles would differ.
3. Use accommodating resistance: Accommodating resistance, also referred to as Variable – Resistance, is when you use the addition of other equipment such as chains or resistance bands to affect the strength curve of a lift.

Connect with your Fitness Center staff and change up your workout with a new exercise prescription. 

Halloween is just around the corner, and we all know what that means: candy… almost everywhere! While candy is a tasty treat, as with most things, too much can have its consequences. Most candies provide very little nutritional value and are full of added sugars, one of the nutrients the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest most individuals limit in their diet. Added sugars provide calories (4 calories/1 gram of sugar) and when consumed in excess, can result in dental cavities and difficulty achieving a healthy dietary pattern within an individual's caloric limits, which may result in unintentional weight gain. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or can’t indulge in foods containing added sugars, like Halloween candy! Instead, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans provides a recommended daily limit for added sugars, advising individuals to consume no more than 10% of their daily caloric intake from added sugars. For perspective, someone who consumes 2,000 calories/day, should consume no more than 200 calories from added sugars, or less than 50 grams of added sugars each day. This year, be mindful of how many grams of added sugars you’re consuming from Halloween candy and try to keep your total daily added sugar intake below what is recommended based on your recommended caloric intake.

Curious about how many grams of added sugars your favorite Halloween Candy has?

• Reese’s Cup® (3 miniature cups): 13 grams added sugars
• Kit Kat® (4 mini/fun size bars): 17 grams added sugars
• Brach’s® Candy Corn (12 pieces): 22 grams added sugars
• Twizzler® (3 fun size pieces): 12 grams added sugars
• M&Ms ® (2 fun size packs): 16 grams added sugars
• Twixx® (3 mini/fun size bars): 8 grams added sugars
• Crunch® (2 mini/fun size bars): 14 grams added sugars
• Butterfinger ® (2 mini/fun size bars): 14 grams added sugars
• Milkyway ® (4 mini/fun size bars): 19 grams added sugars
• Snickers ® (3 mini/fun size bars): 13 grams added sugars
• Hersheys® (2 mini/fun size bars): 13 grams added sugars

What is your favorite Halloween sweet treat?