Aerobic activity
What it is: Anything that increases your breathing and heart rate.
What it does: Aerobic exercise strengthens your heart, lungs, and circulatory system. It can help lower your risk of heart disease, obesity, and certain cancers, and may make you feel better, sleep better, and be less stressed.
Real-life example: Dancing. A great moderate-intensity activity. It burns calories and raises your breathing and heart rate, and provides an opportunity for socializing. If you can't go dancing every night, you can always supplement it with walking or swimming. For beginner dance classes near you-and classes for walking and swimming, for that matter-check with the local Y.
Balance activity
What it is: Any activity that improves balance, including flexibility, aerobic, and strength activities.
What it does: Decreases your risk of falling, which is a major cause of broken hips and other injuries that lead to loss of independence as you age.
Real-life example: Standing on one foot. With a chair close by to grab if you lose your balance, stand on one foot for up to 2 minutes, then switch to the other foot. To progress to something a little harder, try doing this with one eye closed.
Flexibility activity
What it is: In essence, it's stretching.
What it does: Keeps you limber by lengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments. It may also decrease your risk of injury, and help you recover faster from injuries.
Real-life example: Upper body twist. You can do this standing or sitting. If sitting, sit tall, with your feet flat on the floor and shoulder-width apart. Place your hands behind your head with elbows pointing out to the sides. Twist your body to one side so your shoulders are parallel to the side wall, or as far as you can turn. Your head should follow your trunk. Slowly switch to the other side. Repeat 6 to 8 times on each side.
Strength building
What it is: Working with weights, doing calisthenics (sit-ups, push-ups, etc), or any other resistance exercise.
What it does: Makes you stronger, and may boost metabolism, which helps with weight and blood-sugar control. Helps keep bones stronger, and can help you in everyday activities as you age.
Real-life example: Two simple dumbbell exercises. Keep a set of dumbbells at home. While sitting or standing (in front of the TV if you like), with a dumbbell in each hand to start, press the dumbbells straight up until your arms are locked, then lower to shoulder height. Repeat 10 to 15 times. That's 1 set. Pause a minute or 2 between sets.
What to aim for each week
Once your doctor gives you the go-ahead, you can start with a program your body can tolerate—as little as 5 minutes of physical activity at a time—and slowly build up from there. This is especially important if you haven't been active for a long time.
With your doctor's advice, your goal could be to build up to at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most or all days of the week. You can choose to do your whole 30 minutes at once—or break up your sessions into three 10-minute chunks, as long as they total 30 minutes by the end of the day.
If you're already doing 30 to 45 minutes of physical activity most days, you might consider trying to do a little more. The Surgeon General suggests that people who are already physically active will benefit even more by increasing the intensity or duration of their activity under their doctor's supervision.