At a central New Jersey YMCA, the pool is busy each day with women swimming laps and taking water-aerobics classes, an all-in-one, moderate exercise package.
Wearing buoyancy belts, the women participate in a 30-minute-or-more workout that offers safe and simple movement supported by the water, but also the chance to socialize. With 1960s music playing in the background, the class could be called “Cooling Off with the Oldies.”
These women are part of a new breed of exercisers for whom the catchword is moderation. Their time in the Y pool provides physical benefits and emotional satisfaction with virtually no risk of injury or failure to keep up.
They also happen to be in tune with the first surgeon general’s report on physical activity issued last year. That report appeared to settle the long-simmering matter of health versus fitness.
Exercise is necessary, good for you, the report said, but you don’t have to run a marathon. In fact, you don’t have to exercise strenuously to achieve a sense of well-being and also lower the risk of heart disease. Instead, try something that is realistic, accessible, user-friendly.
This is a far cry from 20 years ago, when many women and men started running long distances and flocking to health clubs for serious training, seeking the fitness levels of competitive runners and cyclists–a performance goal based on target heart rates of 60 to 80 percent of maximum effort.
The message then was clear: If you didn’t sweat a puddle, you weren’t properly guarding against heart disease. At the time, medical authorities concurred. In 1978, the American College of Sports Medicine declared that 20 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercise such as running, bicycling or walking three to five days a week was necessary to be fit.
The trouble was, as one survey after another since then has made clear, most Americans ignored the message. Rates of heart disease and other ailments associated with inactivity remained high.
Last year’s surgeon general’s report was the third federal study in a three-year period to recommend a program that stressed moderate activity, for about 30 minutes a day, and promoted the benefits of, say, gardening or taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
The aim now, said Michael Pollock, the director of the Center for Exercise Science at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is “to get everybody out there doing something.”
In the new exercise prescription, “dose response” plays an important role. It means that every 5- or 10-minute dose of activity such as raking leaves, shooting baskets or walking in the park can help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and certain forms of cancer.
A recent study of 25,000 Norwegian women showed that those who accumulated at least four hours of exercise each week lowered their risk of developing breast cancer by 37 percent. Walking merely a mile in the course of a day has recently been found to reduce women’s chances of losing bone density as they age.
The dose response is especially good news when so many people have longer work weeks and more complex family responsibilities. “For most people, the overriding factor in exercise compliance is time,” said Dr. Mona Shangold, the director for the Center for Women’s Health and Sports Gynecology in Philadelphia. “Everybody’s busy. Exercise has to be efficient.”
Shangold advises her patients to perform 30 minutes of aerobic exercise daily. She also suggests that they lift light weights two or three days a week. “It’s important for bone strength and bone density, to prevent osteoporosis,” she said. “Weight training raises your metabolic rate so you’ll burn more calories even at rest.”
Shangold is a prototype for the new exercise mantra. A former marathon runner and a single parent who once logged as many as 40 miles a week, she jogs half an hour a day on a treadmill at home and also lifts weights.
For many, the answer is in the water. “Water is the new magic medium,” said Jane Katz, the author of “The New W.E.T. Workout,” and a physical education professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where she teaches water-aerobics classes. “The pool is beneficial to everyone as a workout–as therapy for injury, for pregnant women, as cross-training for runners.”
Doug Stern, who conducts water-running workouts at John Jay and other pools, said 75 percent of the 160 participants in his classes are women, generally because more women than men are drawn to moderate kinds of exercise.
Amy Bahrt, a 46-year-old New York fashion designer, is a water woman. “Running in water is great stimulation,” said Bahrt, who still runs on land. “Part of it is fitness, part of it is social.”
Bahrt has cut her mileage and training pace to guard against injury, seeking a gentler, more efficient workout. “I still have the passion to train,” she said, “but now that I have my own business, I don’t have the same kind of time.”
