| Hello Everyone,
If you are new to strength exercise, please read this! If you have done strength work before and are able to get up and down off the floor, please go to the Intermediate/Advanced workouts.
Monday March 2nd is the first day of the 12 week Fitness Challenge! As a reminder, each week you can earn 0-2 points. You get 0 points if you exercise for less than 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours), but good job getting some exercise in! You get 1 point if you do ANY exercise for 150 minutes during the week. This includes low intensity things like walking. To score 2 points for the week, that exercise needs to be either moderate cardio (you could talk while doing it, but not sing a song) and include some strength training. If you do vigorous cardio, you can count every minute of that as double minutes! You do not have to do any of my workouts to earn points. Please do whatever you want that would be considered strength or moderate cardio, and I trust you to keep track of your time.
At the END of the challenge (ie after May 22nd), please email ndavies@losgatosdoctors.com with your point total for the 12 week challenge. I will remind you when the time comes, of course.
As I mentioned in the last email, I have made 5 videos which show me doing a 15 minute workout routine that is only strength for 4 of the days and one cardio day. This routine will make sure that you cover most of the major muscle groups. If you are new to doing any strength exercises, don’t feel comfortable getting down on the floor, or are injured or elderly, please start with these 5 videos for beginners. The set of videos for the harder workouts will almost always have an exercise where you get down on the floor. If you aren’t sure, it is best to start here and then move on to the more challenging version once you feel confident and strong with these exercises.
General info about the workouts:
1. I do not play any music so that you can choose whatever music you like to workout to.
2. Bring a water and, in general, make sure to stay hydrated. The more you workout, the more you will need to increase your water intake.
3. All of these exercises can be done without weights, but some of you might find them too easy after a while. Invest in some weights!
4. Due to these being packed 15 minute videos, I did not include any stretching before or after. If you have time, you will have less chance of injury and feel better if you can do both!
5. If you look at the description of the workout on the YouTube page, it tells you what you will be doing. I also will try to include a list on another day.
If you are still reading this, then you are interested in trying out the beginner workout. Hooray! Disclaimer! I am not a professional trainer! I have tried very hard to make these into a routine that I think will be safe for nearly everyone, but all exercise is done at your own risk. If you are not sure if you should be doing this, please talk to me first. If you have had any serious cardiac issues, you might want to talk to me or your Cardiologist to see if you should be careful about how high your heart rate goes. I also made a video with some tips for people with injuries, particularly back issues. Please watch this first.
Tips for people with back and shoulder issues
For the workouts you will need a chair that does not have wheels and preferably has arms (especially if you need to use the arms when you get out of the chair), and either no weights or a set of light to moderate weights. There are a couple of leg exercises that you can make more challenging if needed by adding ankle weights if you have them. I imagine that many of you will start with no weights and then over time might be able to add 1-3 lbs for the light weight exercises and 5-8 lbs for the moderate weight exercises. If you can do heavier weights than this, I recommend you try the harder workout classes, and I imagine you can get off the floor when you get down on it. Day three is all cardio. Start by going easy, and then as you feel confident in your balance and with the exercises, you can start to push yourself a bit more.
If these exercises are too hard for you, send me a message. We could refer you for one on one physical therapy to get you started. If you really have never done any strength training you can search in YouTube for each of the exercises and watch a quick video where a professional walks you through all the important aspects of doing the move properly. I tried to say a lot of this during the videos, but I might have missed something. I’m also happy to show you in the office.
15 Min Beginner Workouts
Day 1: Beginner – core/biceps/chair squat/triceps. Need – chair and light or moderate weight.
Day 2: Beginner workout – core/chest/butt and back. Need – chair and mod to heavier weight.
Day 3: Beginner Workout- Low impact high intensity cardio. Need – nothing!
Day 4: Beginner workout – shoulders/deltoid/legs and inner thighs. Need – chair and light weights.
Day 5: Beginner workout – core/hamstrings. Need – chair and ankle weights.
If you do these 5 workouts you still need to do one session of 30 minutes, and one session of 45 minutes on the last two days in order to meet the challenge for the week. Ideally you do each of the arm/leg exercises one more time so you do them twice a week. I already have you doing core 3-4 times, so you don’t need to do that again over the weekend (but you could do core every day and it wouldn’t be wrong!). I’m guessing you could do the strength exercises without the core in about 45 minutes, and that would then leave a 30 minute moderate cardio to do (brisk walk, hike, bike ride etc).
You also could do something like this:
Mon – do day 1 followed by day 2 workout (30 min total)
Tues – do day 4 followed by day 5 workout (30 min total)
Wed – day 3 workout (15 min high intensity cardio)
Thurs – repeat day 1 and 2 workout
Fri – repeat day 4 and 5 workout
Sat/Sun – one day of rest and one day of moderate cardio for 30+ min.
You are more likely to be able to get stronger if you do each strength exercise twice a week.
What happens with these points? Every point counts as a virtual raffle ticket. Once all points have been accounted for we, will hold a drawing, and the winner will get the prize. The prize this year is going to be $500 worth of fitness equipment from the store of your choice. You can add more weights to your gym, or it can go toward a bigger purchase like a stationary bike.
Good luck! You’ve got this! Please let me know if you need any help. Thank you for partnering with me to keep you healthy!
Sincerely,
Tiffany Davies, M.D.
T (408) 378-1101 |
