Heart Health Challenge #1 ~ Get Moving

Throughout the month of February (Heart Health Month), Melrose Muscle Therapy will be posting various heart health challenges on their facebook page.  Here is the first one:

Get Moving!

Adults need at least 30 minutes of moderate level activity each day. Children need at least 6o minutes!

If you haven't worked out in a long time, start small and work your way up to 30 minutes each day. 


Here is some information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to find out if your daily activity is moderate:

One way of monitoring physical activity intensity is to determine whether a person's pulse or heart rate is within the target zone during physical activity.
For moderate-intensity physical activity, a person's target heart rate should be 50 to 70% of his or her maximum heart rate. This maximum rate is based on the person's age. An estimate of a person's maximum age-related heart rate can be obtained by subtracting the person's age from 220. For example, for a 50-year-old person, the estimated maximum age-related heart rate would be calculated as 220 - 50 years = 170 beats per minute (bpm). The 50% and 70% levels would be:

• 50% level: 170 x 0.50 = 85 bpm, and
• 70% level: 170 x 0.70 = 119 bpm

Thus, moderate-intensity physical activity for a 50-year-old person will require that the heart rate remains between 85 and 119 bpm during physical activity.

So now that you know how to measure the intensity, let's come up with some exercises you can do.

1. walking - If you are not used to walking, get up and walk to the end of your block, turn around and go back home.  Once this becomes comfortable, go to the next block, and so on and so on.  If you are used to walking, pick up the pace and walk briskly for a while.  See how long you can go to get to 30 minutes.  If you need a break, slow down the pace again.
2. yoga - Try a beginners class at your local yoga studio.
3. hula-hoop - Use a basic hula hoop, and try hooping for 10 minutes.  too easy for you?  Get a weighted hoop.
4. jump rope -
5. play catch - remember when we were little, and we played catch for hours?  try doing it for a small amount of time.  Make sure you don't over do it as your muscles will be sore since we don't typically use our arms in this fashion in day to day life.

What are some activities you can think of that we haven't listed here?  Comment below.