Positive Life NSW

We have plenty of questions this time. I hope the exercises I suggested for home in the last issue have been used by some of you.

Question one:

Is there a best time of day to exercise?
It is slightly better to exercise in the morning, because you are less likely to be distracted from your training session. You will very rarely get a better offer first thing in the morning. The main thing to consider is when you have the most energy, and can fit training in around other commitments like eating, medication, side effects and your own busy schedule. The time of day which makes you most likely to exercise regularly is the best time of day to train. Many people find it hard to exercise first thing when they get up, but try it for a while. You may find you actually can get used to it and that it fits into your schedule well. If you feel crap for the first few hours of the day because of medication side effects etc then exercising once you have had breakfast and let that settle for an hour or two, such as in the early afternoon, may be better.

Question two:

Are there any vitamins which are good to take to help me improve my fitness or help me train?
A dietician or nutritionist will know more than me, but vitamin C is generally good for boosting the immune system and helping you recover from hard training quicker. Vitamin B is also good for boosting energy and helping you recover from hard work. In general with vitamins it is the antioxidants you need to increase to help with training. Remember it is not just vitamins you may need to supplement your diet with.It can be worthwhile consulting with a variety of health care professionals to make sure you are getting the most from your body when you train. To get the results you want from exercise think about giving your system maximum nutrition from the food you eat and drink and from supplements (vitamins, minerals, herbs etc).

Question three:

Can exercise help my cholesterol?
It sure can, though it does do it indirectly. When you exercise you use fat as an energy source for some of the exercise do. This helps lower the bad cholesterol in your system and thus increases the ratio of good cholesterol in your blood. The more good cholesterol you have, the easier it is for your body to process the bad cholesterol, and thus lower your cholesterol overall. The exercise which uses fat as fuel for your muscles is moderate exercise stuff where your heart rate is probably only between 70 -130 beats per minute. So any little bit of extra activity is good for burning fat and lowering cholesterol.

Question four:

How important is it to stretch before exercising? Are there any good stretches you can recommend?
It is not important to stretch before working out, but it is important to keep flexible. Many postural problems come from a certain muscle group being tighter on one side of a joint, compared to the muscle group on the opposite side. A good example of this is lower back pain that often results from the muscles of your hip flexors being too tight for your lower back muscles to hold your pelvis in a stable position.

The most common muscles that are tight in people are their chest, hamstrings, calf and hip flexor muscles. Next Talkabout issue I will show photos of stretches for these muscle groups.

Before you exercise or stretch it is very important to warm up. This prepares the muscles for effort by increasing blood flow to the area and increasing temperature within the target muscles. The easiest way to warm up before exercising is to do some light reps of the exercise you are about to do. If you start your chest workout with incline dumbbell presses at 15kg for 10 reps then do a warm up set at 7kg for 10 reps. Another easy way to warm up would be, if you were training legs and back in a training session then five minutes on the rowing machine at about 50% effort.

Ingrid Cullen is a gym instructor with many years’ experience working with HIV positive people. Do you have any fitness questions for Ingrid? Email them to: editor@positivelife.org.au