10.3: Increase both Physical Activity and Physical Fitness
Increase Physical Activity: Move More, Sit Less
How much of your typical day do you spend sitting, reclining, or lying down? Are you considered a sedentary person?
Activity: Your daily movement patterns
Keep a journal and record your movement throughout the day. It is best to record a regular work day and also a weekend day.
Track the time you spend sitting, laying down, doing low intensity activities of daily living, and purposeful exercise.
Writing down a diary can help you to clearly see your active and inactive patterns in your life to help you identify opportunities for increasing physical activity.
A person who is described as sedentary means that they are sitting, reclining, or lying down. Most desk-based office work, driving a car, and watching television are examples of sedentary behaviors. It is important to limit the amount of time spent being sedentary. Replacing sedentary time with physical activity of any intensity (including light intensity) provides health benefits. If you are a sedentary person, the first thing you should do is identify opportunities throughout your day to move more and sit less.
Remember:
- Some physical activity is better than none.
- Everything counts! Move more!
Examples of strategies to increase activity throughout your day [5] :
- Walk instead of drive, whenever you can
- Walk your children to school
- Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator
- Take a family walk after dinner
- Replace a Sunday drive with a Sunday walk
- Go for a half-hour walk instead of watching TV
- Get off the bus a stop early, and walk
- Park farther from the store and walk
- Make a Saturday morning walk a family habit
- Walk briskly in the mall
- Take the dog on longer walks
- Go up hills instead of around them
- Garden, or make home repairs
- Do yard work. Get your children to help rake, weed, or plant
- Work around the house. Ask your children to help with active chores
- Wash the car by hand
- Use a rake instead of a leaf blower
- Avoid labor-saving devices, such as a remote control or electric mixers
- Do sit-ups in front of the TV. Have a sit-up competition with your children/friends
Some possible ways that fitness and health outcomes may relate to physical activity are:
- Physical activity leads to improvements in physical fitness, and physical fitness causes improvements in health outcomes;
- Physical fitness may modify the amount of the effect that physical activity has on health outcomes; or
- Physical activity can lead to improved physical fitness as a health outcome.