Friday, September 12, 2008

Exercising At Home

My last post on the heart walk got me thinking about how I started exercising after my friend Afee had his heart attack. I was hearing about a lot of acquaintances dying or having health issues and many of them were about my age! Plus, I had a few blood donations where my BP was around 135/86, which was borderline hypertension. So I started hitting that equipment that we have in our house.

I do the Hoist V-4 home gym every other day, takes me about an hour. I just follow the wall chart that came with it. The wall chart has 4 different workouts on it, so I can rotate around and not get stuck in a rut.

On the other days, I do either the Vision Fitness T9250 treadmill or the Vision Quest X6000 elliptical for just 30 minutes. The elliptical surely seems to be more work, but when I got a twinge in my knees from the home gym I started using it because its less pounding on the joints. Plus, I burn about 425 calories in 30 minutes, don't think I'm coming near that on the treadmill. The cool thing is, you can swap these two if you get tired of one or the other (and I can see a TV from either one!).

The reason I finally stuck with this workout plan was mainly because I cut back on the time involved and limited it to 1 hour (weights) or 1/2 hour (treadmill, elliptical). I look at that time as an investment in myself, so I don't wind up seeing old age turn me fat and soft. So far its working - I got my BP down to 110/64 last time I had it checked! About the only thing I don't understand yet is why my pulse stays over 70 bpm -- but I'm not too worried about that one!

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