One of the most important things that you can do for yourself is to get back to your regular exercise habits. Before you were deployed physical fitness was largely a euphemism for “military readiness.” Exercise, often in the form of mandatory physical training, was a means to an end – obtaining a particular score on your annual physical fitness tests.

Now, you still have to pass the test, but it may be harder now. Maybe you’re no longer in the service, and you don’t have these requirements; regardless, regular exercise is a key factor in helping yourself to feel good and remain healthy.

How will regular exercise help me?

• Participating in a regular exercise program gives you a sense of control, over your body and over your environment.
  
  • This sense of control is important to help lessen the impact of things you may not control.
    
• Resuming your regular exercise program represents a positive healthy self-choice to return to your normal, non-deployed, life
  
• Regular exercise can help lessen the aches and pains you may be feeling, and can help you to have more restful sleep
  
• In combination, all of these things can contribute to your feeling more like yourself
  

To help you get back into the swing of things, it’s helpful to know a little bit about the physical activity spectrum. On the far left end of the spectrum are activities like lying in bed, reclining, watching television, and sitting at a computer. At the opposite end are vigorous activities: running, playing soccer, and boxing. In the middle are things like walking, playing softball, and mowing the lawn. An optimum “program” incorporates activities from across the entire spectrum.

Different activities represent different aspects of your life. Some activities, like yard work, are described as lifestyle physical activity. This refers to the physical actions that you perform as part of daily living: for instance, raking the yard, walking the dog, and walking around the base. Lifestyle physical activity is generally not planned, but rather it occurs as a consequence of working, raising children, traveling, and just plain living. These types of activities are just as important as more traditional exercise-type activities (running, weight lifting, swimming, etc.). Incorporating more of these types of activities into your day to day life will likely help you to feel more a part of the life around you.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), along with the Centers for Disease Control, and the Surgeon General’s Office of the United States have put out physical activity recommendations. The overwhelming consensus is to consider the physical activity spectrum and its dose-response relationship between the level of activity you do and the benefits you receive from doing it. That is, the more you do, the more you gain, up to a point.

GOAL = MORE ACTIVE THAN INACTIVE = more energy to devote to your family, your work, and of course, fun; and less pain and fatigue.

Some examples of lifestyle activity include:

• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator
  
• Walking up the escalator
  
• Parking further away from your destination and walking
  
• Raking the yard
  
• Getting up to talk to someone rather than using the telephone
  
• Hiding the remote and getting up to change the channel
  
• Playing active games with children
  

Each one of the above listed items may not seem like a lot, but the effects of both exercise and lifestyle physical activities are cumulative. In other words, it all adds up. Little snippets of activity throughout the day are better than no activity at all.
Traditional exercise activities (running and calisthenics, for example) are also important in helping you regain some normalcy in your life. The more structured regimen associated with traditional exercise provides a bit of stability and predictability to what otherwise might be a confusing time.

While most people are familiar with the typical effects of regular exercise training: improved fitness, better performance, and weight management, both lifestyle physical activity and traditional exercise activities can also contribute to overall improved health and wellness, a happier, more positive disposition, and improved family relationships.

Considerations/problems/thoughts you might have:

• I don’t have time to exercise.
  
• I get enough exercise at work.
  
• I’m too tired to exercise like I used to.
  
• I just don’t feel like exercising anymore.
  
• Exercise doesn’t give me the same satisfaction that it once used to.
  

Solution: The FITT Principle

F is for FREQUENCY, or how often
I is for INTENSITY, or how hard
T is for TIME, or how long
T is for TYPE, or kind
F is for FREQUENCY

How often should I be active?

Frequency is usually listed in terms of the number of days per week. Anywhere from 3 to 7 days per week is acceptable. There is a dose-response effect for exercise: the more you do, the greater the benefits. However, there is the caveat of “too much of a good thing.” Typically, programs of 3-6 days per week of mild to moderate exercise provide enough oomph to reap benefits, while minimizing risk of injury or illness. Increasing either the intensity or frequency, or both, too quickly (i.e. much greater than what you normally do) can do more harm than good. Conversely, not doing enough is of little benefit. Being physically active on most, if not all days of the week, is recommended for most people.

I is for INTENSITY

How hard should I work?

Figuring out how hard to work can be difficult. In the past you’ve had to work hard enough to pass your physical fitness tests. In other words, you had a set performance criteria that you had to attain, but that doesn’t necessarily tell you how hard to work out on a given day. One of the easiest ways to monitor the intensity of your activities (exercise and otherwise) is to think about how hard you feel like you are working, in other words, your rating of perceived exertion (or RPE).

Using RPE to guide your effort will ensure that you work hard enough to achieve your goals, but allows for flexibility depending upon how your feel on any given day.

Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE)

Think of how you feel during different activities – think about how difficult or strenuous the activity feels to you. Think about all sensations of physical stress, effort, and fatigue. Do not focus on any one factor such as leg pain or shortness of breath. Instead, concentrate on your total, inner feeling of exertion. Try to associate how you feel with the words and numbers listed on the scale below. Remember that it is your own feelings of effort that are important – do not worry how you think it compares to others, do not worry or think about the actual physical load.

Think of a forced 7-mile march. Now for that, you have to maintain a set performance level. Consider that you’re feeling pretty sluggish today – that 7 mile march, normally is easy, but today is quite difficult. Your perceived exertion for that activity changes based on your feelings of how hard and how strenuous the activity seems to you.

Metabolic Equivalents (METs)

Just what does it mean that exercise can be light, moderate and heavy? Laboratory studies have measured the amount of energy required to do a number of difference tasks from along the physical activity spectrum. One simple way of describing how “heavy” a particular activity might be is look at how many METs are required to perform the activity. Everyone (you, me, Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Bush) uses 1 MET at rest (lying quietly in bed). Each activity along the physical activity spectrum is associated with an energy requirement that is ‘x’ number of times greater than rest (average number of METs). For example, generally, light work is describes those activities requiring approximately 3 times the amount of energy as rest. Heavy work requires approximately 6-8 times the amount of energy used at rest. Below is a list of activities and their MET values to give you an idea of what activities are considered light, moderate and heavy.

It is important to remember that these values are just averages. Things like body weight, amount of muscle, skill level, and temperature can influence the actual number of METs required for a particular activity.

T is for TIME

How long should each exercise session or activity last?

The length of time that you devote to physical activity and exercise is individually designed to suit your abilities, symptoms, and lifestyle. Research shows that brief sessions of activity or exercise throughout the day can be equally as effective as one longer session. Five minutes of something is better than zero minutes of nothing.

T is for TYPE

What kind of activity or exercise should I do?

Exercise can be done in your home, in a gym, at work, in a mall, on vacation, outside on a track, along a bike trail, across a field, in a pool, with a friend, rain or shine, day or night, and all four seasons of the year. The type of exercise that you do depends on your goals. In terms of health and well-being, just about any physical activity, as long as you enjoy it is fair game. However, it’s important to realize that there is some specificity that goes along with exercise training. For instance, while walking 3 miles a day may help you to feel better, and may result in health and wellness benefits, it likely won’t help you to run faster on your physical fitness test. Likewise, only running won’t necessarily help you to perform more sit ups. If you are training for your physical fitness test, include some test-specific training. When choosing activities, remember, you don’t have to do the same thing everyday. Try to participate in exercises and activities that you enjoy as often as possible.

The bottom line? The best exercise session or program is one that is compatible with a lifelong active lifestyle, is safe for you and those sharing the experience with you, achieves your desired goals within your personal time an physical constraints, and finally, that is enjoyable to you.

back to top >

Reference List

1. United States Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon's General. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Humans Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; 1996.

2. American College of Sports Medicine, ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins; 2000.

3. Busch, A.; Schachter, C. L.; Peloso, P. M. Exercise for Treating Fibromyalgia Syndrome (Cochrane Review). In: The Cochrane Library [Issue 3]. 2002. Oxford: Update Software.
Ref Type: Generic

4. Donta, S. T., Clauw, D. J., Engel, C. C., and et al. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Aerobic Exercise for Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. JAMA 3-19-0003;289(11):1396-404.