• causes the metabolism to rise, meaning you can more easily burn body fat and alter your body composition even further in favour of beneficial muscle tissue.
• increases your aerobic capacity-and the health of your whole cardiovascular system-because you have more working muscles -consuming oxygen.
• triggers muscle to use more insulin, thus greatly reducing the chances you’ll ever develop diabetes.
• helps maintain higher levels of the beneficial HDL-cholesterol in your blood.

So how do you get better bones and muscles.

1. Simple exercise – walking is free but invaluable – you don’t need to join a gym and we can all do it
   • cyclic loading of bones is a key antidote to osteoporosis
   • eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables (note not cooked) for calcium
2. Simple strength training with small weights – can of beans is a good place to start
   • sit in a chair watching television and just do simple arm raises – holing the bean can and doing it slowly
   • again sitting – raise the leg horizontal and hold for a count of 5 and gently lower – repeat 10 times
   • remember it is not the size of the weights that’s important but the number of times you repeat it

Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge , Louisiana , reported findings from a study involving 464 women who weren’t exercisers. After six months, a group who walked an average of 72 minutes a week at two to three mph that’s about 10 minutes of mall-pace striding a day had significantly improved heart strength and general fitness, nearly matching the efforts of women exercising almost twice as long.

“Your body responds very positively, very quickly to even small amounts of exercise,” says lead study author Tim Church, MD, PhD. “If you’re sedentary, you’ll see a lot of your greatest gains going from zero to 10 minutes a day.”

More exercise is definitely better, but based on Church’s findings and the studies below, there’s evidence you can take your time easing into those longer workouts.

Why 10 Minutes is Better Than None

Build Muscle
A seven-week study of 22 couch potatoes found that those who did just one set of 10 repetitions of seven strength-training moves (about 10 minutes of lifting) three days a week gained as much strength as those who did a 30-minute, three-set routine.

Boost your mood
In a recent study of 48 men and women, spinning on a bike for 10 minutes led to a mood lift and drop in depression and fatigue similar to what they’d get riding three times as long.

Protect your joints
After tracking nearly 4,000 women in their 70s for three years, researchers found that those who reported of having arthritis pain needed only 75 minutes a week of moderate exercise like brisk walking to reduce the frequency of symptoms by nearly 30 percent.

Manage your weight
Both Church’s study and a larger study of 13,711 men and women reveal that just 70 to 75 minutes of brisk walking or about 40 minutes of jogging a week is enough to begin shrinking your waistline. And targeting the waist is important because belly fat is directly tied to heart disease, diabetes, and early death.

Quell stress
“We’ve seen significant changes in the autonomic nervous system fewer incidences of the fight-or-flight stress reflex being triggered with even 70 to 75 minutes a week of exercise,” says Church. “A little exercise can do much more than people think, so there’s no excuse for not getting up and just doing something.”

Wait for Weights

Maximize the calorie-burning benefits of your workout by tackling cardiovascular exercise before strength training.

Doing cardio first can help you exercise longer, and thus burn more calories, than you would if you were tired out by weight training first. And finishing your workout with weights helps boost post-workout metabolism — the rate at which your body burns calories after you’re done. The result may be an overall better calorie burn, according to a small study.

Although all types of exercise — cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility — help you burn calories, cardio workouts result in the greatest calorie burn. Because of this, it may be best to do your cardio exercises first while you are fresh. You’re likely to spend more time on aerobic exercise and work out harder if you haven’t tired yourself out by doing other kinds of exercises first.

On the other hand, strength training results in the greatest boost in post-exercise calorie burning. It boosts your metabolism for a longer period of time, helping your body burn more calories after your workout is done.

Ultimately, this means that doing your cardio workout first can help ensure that you achieve the maximum calorie burn from it, and ending your workout with a strength-training session helps ensure your post-exercise metabolism stays high.

Source: www.real-age.com

• Increased bone density: This reduces the risk and impact of osteoporosis.
• Reduced risk of falling: Strength training contributes to better balance, coordination and agility.
• Maintenance of a healthy weight: Pound for pound, muscle burns three times more calories than fat. Increased muscle mass enables your body to burn calories more quickly and efficiently.
• Alleviating back pain: People often experience less pain after strengthening their back and abdominal muscles.
• Making everyday tasks easier: Housework, mowing the lawn or carrying groceries takes less effort. Strong muscles mean you’re less likely to injure muscles, tendons or ligaments.

TIP: For an easy way to add some strength and flexibility to your routine check out the You on a Diet Workout DVD (by Michael Roizen, Mehmet Oz, Joel Harper). This DVD is a really easy way to add in strength and flexibility components to your exercise regime. You don’t need any equipment and there are 3 different 20 minutes workouts (Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced). It is reasonably priced on Amazon (www.amazon.com) or you can find free downloads online.