BURN FAT, GET FIT, IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH AND LOOK AND FEEL GREAT Everybody knows that exercise does the body good. But sometimes we need a little reminder of just how much good it does. For those who’d rather watch the game on TV than get in it, we’ll offer a bit of motivation. Here’s what taking a walk or doing some push-ups today can do for you: Stay slim. Exercise powers up your metabolism, the body’s fat-burning engine, so you’ll lose weight. Build stronger bones. Studies show that men and women who lift weights or do some sort of resistance training have denser bones than people who don’t do strength-building exercises. Denser bones mean less risk of fractures of the hip and other parts of the skeleton. Keep Your Heart Strong. Regular aerobic exercise can decrease your heart rate, which can increase your life expectancy. In fact, a recent study in the British Medical Journal shows that cardiac survivors who exercise cut their risk of having a fatal heart attack by 35 percent and are readmitted to the hospital for coronary problems 28 percent less often. Lower your blood pressure and control cholesterol. Researchers found that men who exercised with weights three days a week lowered their blood-pressure readings by 8 points, enough to reduce the risk of stroke by 40 percent. Also, studies show that walking for just 30 minutes a day can lower blood pressure and improve HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels. Reduce your risk of diabetes. Exercise keeps your blood sugar in check. Be Happier. Dozens of studies have shown that exercise works as well as anti-depressant medications in treating depression, reducing stress and elevating mood. Lengthen Your Life. It’s estimated that you can add an average of 14 years to your life if you exercise regularly and follow other healthy habits like eating lots of fruits and vegetables, drinking in moderation and avoiding cigarettes, compared with people who don’t follow these habits. So what are you waiting for? Get moving! Exercising doesn’t have to involve an impossible workout regimen. It’s about building more activity into your daily routine. And that’s as easy as taking the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator, or walking instead of taking the bus. Any activity you do burns calories and gets your heart pumping. Five minutes is better than nothing; 10 minutes is even better. But when you exercise for at least 20 minutes, you’ll burn more calories, stifle your appetite and reap many of the benefits listed above. For a workout that really burns belly flab, get up and move your feet. Studies show that walking is one of the best ways to shed belly fat in less time than you think. Researchers reviewed 40 years of studies on exercise and belly fat and found that just 20 minutes of brisk walking every day can shrink your belly by about an inch in four weeks. Why does walking work so well? Because it appears to help reduce deep belly fat called visceral fat, the fat that surrounds your organs. “If you exercise enough to lose 10 percent of your body fat, you may actually reduce visceral fat by 30 percent,” says Tim Church, M.D., Ph.D., of Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University. Walking doesn’t require any equipment except a comfortable and supportive pair of shoes or sneakers. But there is some technique involved to get the most benefits. Try this workout on for size. Do it six or seven times a week. Warm up (3 minutes): Start walking at a pace of about 3 miles per hour for 3 minutes. That’s easy to determine on a treadmill, but if you are walking on the street or in a park, gauge your speed by your effort level. At an easy warm-up or cooldown pace, you should be able to chat with a friend with ease. Use a scale of 1 to 10 to gauge your speed, 1 being very easy and 10 being all-out effort. Brisk pace (3 minutes): Pick up your speed to level 4 or 5 (about 3.5 to 3.8 mph) for 3 minutes. Your breathing is harder. You can still talk, but with pauses. Push pace (3 minutes): Increase walking speed to level 6 or 7 (4 mph) for 3 minutes. You are doing some huffing and puffing. One- or two-word replies. Power pace (2 minutes): For this interval, boost your effort to level 8 or 9 (4.2 to 4.5 mph or uphill at 3.5 mph). No talking is possible. Try to keep this up for 2 minutes. Next, reverse the ladder. Push pace: 3 minutes Brisk pace: 3 minutes Cooldown:3 minutes Walk/Run Interval When your fitness improves, you may want to try adding a running component to your walks. Try this walk/run interval three times a week. In both the beginner and advanced programs, take walk breaks as you need them. They’ll help you avoid soreness, injury and exhaustion, which means you’ll be more likely to stick with the program. Maintaining muscle mass and strength is very important as you age so you can continue to do the activities of daily life, such as carrying groceries and lifting grandchildren. You begin losing skeletal muscle in your 30s, and by the time you’re about 50, you have approximately 10 percent less muscle mass. The loss grows to about 2 percent per year after that. The best way to combat this loss is to do resistance exercises. LeBron James’s preseason training workout incorporates many classic muscle-building exercises that you can do at home, using some light dumbbells or even canned vegetables for resistance. We pulled a few of his favorite exercises for you to try. (Safety note: Get your doctor’s okay before beginning any rigorous exercise regimen.) Warm up Five minutes of rope-jumping is an excellent warm-up. But you can also get the blood flowing to your muscles by walking several flights of stairs, jogging in place or doing some jumping jacks. Push-up Assume the classic push-up position, with legs straight, hands beneath your shoulders. Keeping your body rigid, bend your arms to lower yourself until your chest is just off the floor. Push back up until your arms are extended. Do as many repetitions as you can with good form. If these are too difficult, try them with your knees on the ground. Dumbbell Squat Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and hold a pair of dumbbells or soup cans at your sides. (You can also do this exercise using only your body weight for resistance.) Keeping your back naturally arched, bend at the hips and knees and lower your body until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor. Push back up. Try to do 8 to 12 repetitions. Dumbbell Calf Raise Hold a dumbbell or soup can in your left hand and stand on your left foot. Rest the instep of your right foot across the back of your left ankle. Hold on to a wall for balance. Rise onto your toes as high as you can. Do 10 repetitions with one leg before repeating with the other leg. Dumbbell Single-Arm Overhead Press Stand holding a dumbbell at shoulder height with your palm facing toward your body (as shown). Press the weight straight up and then slowly lower it. Do 6 to 8 repetitions before repeating the exercise with the other arm. Dumbbell Single-Arm Row Hold a dumbbell or can in your right hand, arm straight, and place your left hand and left knee on a bench. Use your upper-back muscles to pull the dumbbell up and back. Pause, and then slowly lower the weight. Do 10 repetitions with each arm. Dumbbell Snatch Assume an athletic position (knees bent, hips back), holding a dumbbell in one hand below your knees. In one movement, jump as you thrust the weight overhead, keeping the weight close to your body. Land softly. Aim for 5 reps with each arm. FOR MORE ON JAMES’S WORKOUT, PLUS A CANDID INTERVIEW WITH THE NBA STAR, VISIT MensHealth.com/James Download A Printer Friendly Version Of This Section including Workout Tips