May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, as well as Exercise Is Medicine Month. Both observances are focused on getting people to move toward a healthier lifestyle – whether that’s through clinical exercise and/or sports and recreational activity or even increasing their daily activity levels.

To help you get started, Dave Speicher, supervisor of Aultman Orrville Sports & Wellness, shares tips for how you can meet yourself where you are on your fitness journey and begin moving more.

Work on ways to increase your physical activity.

• Check with your primary care provider first if you are concerned about health issues and increasing your physical activity.
• Walk more inside or outside.
• Start biking in your neighborhood or check out local trails.
• Change a physical activity to exercise by adding specific duration and pace. Then, progress slowly as the activity becomes more comfortable.
• Reintroduce recreational activities to increase your physical activity. Examples include golf (walking the course), pickleball or tennis.

Start or progress your strength training.

• Remember that with strength, if we don’t use it, we lose it. Engaging in strength training helps our joints to function better and improves our movement and functioning both on the job and in daily life. Strength training also helps boost our metabolism. In addition, it can aid in managing many health conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis and diabetes.
• For a healthy individual, strength training can be as simple as doing wall push-ups, chair squats and short walking lunges and using a weighted bag to do bent-over rows.
• Start off focused on consistency, then progress your intensity by increasing the weight and performing a move six to 10 times (reps) over two to three sets.

Seek advice from a professional, if needed.

If you have health conditions or physical limitations, there are options to increasing your physical activity and strength.

• Your first step is to seek out a professional, such as a degreed exercise specialist or a certified personal trainer with clinical exercise training, who can help you.
• Share your health history and describe the physical activity you can do. A degreed or certified trainer can guide you toward exercises that will be best for you and steer you away from moves you should avoid.
• The American College of Sports Medicine maintains RX for Health, a series of informational sheets by health condition that provides exercise guidelines.
• Managing a slow progression is vital and will move you in the right direction.

This month, make a commitment to moving more and progress toward a healthier you!