Dr Anna Rolleston The Cardiac Clinic

Start your exercise slowly, especially if you haven't done any exercise for a while. Start with an easy 10 minute walk, bike ride or similar activity every other day. Increase the time by five minutes every week until you are exercising for 30-40minutes.

Huff and Puff

If you are a regular exerciser at low or moderate intensity, add a bit of ‘huff and puff' into your exercise. If you can talk while you are exercising you are probably not working hard enough to change your health. Consider the ‘walk-a-lamp-post, run-a-lamp-post' idea. After a good warm-up, commence intervals of jog/run and walking. These only need to be 30seconds to one minute long.

Progress and change

Your body is intelligent, it will learn from and adapt to the exercise you do. The more you vary your exercise the more learning and adapting your body does, and the healthier you become.

Resistance based exercise

Shifting a weight from one place to another is important in your exercise regime. You can perform resistance exercises at a gym or at home with a programme that utilises what you have. Muscular strength and endurance naturally decline with age, even a basic weight-based exercise programme can help to slow loss of strength and endurance. It is great for bone mineral density as well.

Aim to be active at least five days a week. In addition to the benefits of weight management and proper functioning of the heart, lungs and muscles, exercise can be helpful in the management of many conditions.