You Need All 3

Hopefully you have begun to make daily exercise a regular part of your healthy living. I'm sure if you have accomplished the recommended one hour of exercise 6 days a week you are beginning to feel the many benefits that it brings. Sometimes I think about how previous generations lived: planting crops, carrying fire wood, milking cows, baling hay, making candles and soap etc. etc. It is amazing how much exercise they experienced as part of their normal daily routines. Because of the ease of our lives we need to make a more concerted and organized effort to make sure our body is getting what it needs on a daily basis.

We know that our bodies need

• a cardio workout to strengthen our heart and burns calories
• strength training routines to increase muscle, boosts metabolism and changes our shape
• stretching exercises to reduce our risk of injury and help keep our muscles supple and joints stable

For our bonus challenge for the upcoming week I would like you to scrutinize your daily exercise. Are you walking every day and ignoring strength training? Are you lifting weights but neglecting cardio? Have you continued the challenge to stretch daily or have you let it fall by the wayside in an effort to burn more calories in your limited time allotted for daily exercise?

For every day that you add in 10 minutes of what your work out has been lacking you can claim the daily bonus points of 5 points per day. (If you want the points on Sunday as well take a relaxing 10 minute stretch. That seems like an OK Sabbath activity to me!)

You can have this 10 minutes be part of your one hour of exercise or in addition to your one hour of exercise but please add something that you normally would have neglected that day.

Two Notes:

1. You do not have to have all 3 (cardio. stretching, strength training) every day but for your daily bonus points make sure to add in at least one thing that has been lacking in your work out routine.

2. You do not have to own weights or have a gym membership to do strength training. A google search will help you find many exercises that can be done to increase your core and muscle strength without owning hand weights or expensive machines.