Video Transcript: Fitness Fundamentals: The Duke Health & Fitness Center
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Published: 12/03/2007
Updated: 12/06/2007
Maria Nardini: Fitness is really important as you age. Although we have the ability to live much longer lives because of improvements in health and medicine, the point is, are you living a quality life as you age?
There are primarily three areas of fitness when we talk about fitness, and those are cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility. Each of those components is very important onto itself, but they all reinforce each other to make you overall fit and healthy.
Probably the most common excuse we hear from people -- the reason for their not exercising -- is they don’t have time. You know, it’s just like anything else in your life. If it’s a priority, you will make time for it. If it’s not a priority, you’re going to find the excuse that time is not available.
We do have a wide variety of cardio equipment. These are examples of elliptical machines that also engage the upper body as well as the lower body. They would be typically used for someone just looking for another way to get cardiovascular exercise.
These are recumbent bikes, again just allowing you to have another opportunity, so if weight bearing is an issue for you, this is an opportunity to get the same cardiovascular benefit without having to be on your feet.
The Airdyne® bikes, again, allow you to use upper body as well as lower body in a classic biking situation. And then the new steps are another piece of equipment that is very popular at our facility. Again, you can choose to do upper body, lower body, or combine both of them.
This is another piece of cardio equipment called the upper-body ergometer. It is strictly for the upper body, but it still allows you to get a cardiovascular workout if for some reason you want to not involve the lower body in your activity.
We’re seeing additional treadmills and ellipticals. We’re seeing a wide variety of equipment so people don’t have to wait and spend time waiting for a piece of equipment to become available. Again, rowing machine is yet another way to get a cardiovascular workout that allows a lot more upper-body involvement, and allows you to get a variety of movement rather than just a standard running or walking that people associate with cardiovascular activity.
We’re coming to the strength training area. We have two distinct areas of strength training equipment. We have the free weight area, which you see here. We also have a strength training area here of what’s called selectorized equipment. Each piece of equipment works one or possibly two major muscle groups. These machines put someone more into the proper posture so that they don’t have to think about it themselves -- they simply sit into the equipment and it utilizes specific muscle groups.
Some of the important things to consider when you’re looking to join a fitness club are, first of all, the staff and the qualifications and competencies of the staff. One of the things we have here at the Duke Health & Fitness Center that you don’t often find at other locations is, all of our staff are required to have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in exercise science or exercise physiology.
Really, what you want to do is look at the big picture. You want to think about, as I age, what is important to me? And certainly there should be a shift to make sure you are performing exercises and activity that make you more functional, so as you age you can continue to be active and do the things that you like.
We are definitely a wellness center, but we are also hospital based. We originated from a cardiac rehab program, which was successful. We grew from there to learn to encompass a much larger population and have a much broader mission in making people healthier and have a healthy lifestyle.
Our facility is actually pretty large -- we’re about 30,000 square feet. We have a lot of options for people, so they’re not tied into one activity. We have an indoor pool, we have an indoor and outdoor track, we have a huge and diverse selection of cardiovascular equipment, and we have quite a bit of strength equipment. So it allows us to provide people with the variety that they often don’t find at other facilities.
What we often find is that when people come into the facility and begin to establish a routine, or even start to do just minor activity -- you know, five minutes here, 10 minutes there -- it tends to be a motivation in and of itself. They start to feel better, they start to feel better about themselves, they feel stronger, and they feel more capable of doing things. That alone helps perpetuate that exercise routine.
From a cardiovascular standpoint, you can do as little as 20 minutes. You can do the stretching portion in five minutes after your cardio is over, and strength training in and of itself only needs to happen a couple times a week -- two to three times is the recommendation.
We are not your ordinary gym. We are a medically based wellness facility that’s open to the community, but we also offer a lot of expertise that most facilities don’t offer. So if you’ve been trying to reach a fitness goal or a health goal, I am confident that we can do that for you. We look forward to helping you here.
There are primarily three areas of fitness when we talk about fitness, and those are cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility. Each of those components is very important onto itself, but they all reinforce each other to make you overall fit and healthy.
Probably the most common excuse we hear from people -- the reason for their not exercising -- is they don’t have time. You know, it’s just like anything else in your life. If it’s a priority, you will make time for it. If it’s not a priority, you’re going to find the excuse that time is not available.
We do have a wide variety of cardio equipment. These are examples of elliptical machines that also engage the upper body as well as the lower body. They would be typically used for someone just looking for another way to get cardiovascular exercise.
These are recumbent bikes, again just allowing you to have another opportunity, so if weight bearing is an issue for you, this is an opportunity to get the same cardiovascular benefit without having to be on your feet.
The Airdyne® bikes, again, allow you to use upper body as well as lower body in a classic biking situation. And then the new steps are another piece of equipment that is very popular at our facility. Again, you can choose to do upper body, lower body, or combine both of them.
This is another piece of cardio equipment called the upper-body ergometer. It is strictly for the upper body, but it still allows you to get a cardiovascular workout if for some reason you want to not involve the lower body in your activity.
We’re seeing additional treadmills and ellipticals. We’re seeing a wide variety of equipment so people don’t have to wait and spend time waiting for a piece of equipment to become available. Again, rowing machine is yet another way to get a cardiovascular workout that allows a lot more upper-body involvement, and allows you to get a variety of movement rather than just a standard running or walking that people associate with cardiovascular activity.
We’re coming to the strength training area. We have two distinct areas of strength training equipment. We have the free weight area, which you see here. We also have a strength training area here of what’s called selectorized equipment. Each piece of equipment works one or possibly two major muscle groups. These machines put someone more into the proper posture so that they don’t have to think about it themselves -- they simply sit into the equipment and it utilizes specific muscle groups.
Some of the important things to consider when you’re looking to join a fitness club are, first of all, the staff and the qualifications and competencies of the staff. One of the things we have here at the Duke Health & Fitness Center that you don’t often find at other locations is, all of our staff are required to have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in exercise science or exercise physiology.
Really, what you want to do is look at the big picture. You want to think about, as I age, what is important to me? And certainly there should be a shift to make sure you are performing exercises and activity that make you more functional, so as you age you can continue to be active and do the things that you like.
We are definitely a wellness center, but we are also hospital based. We originated from a cardiac rehab program, which was successful. We grew from there to learn to encompass a much larger population and have a much broader mission in making people healthier and have a healthy lifestyle.
Our facility is actually pretty large -- we’re about 30,000 square feet. We have a lot of options for people, so they’re not tied into one activity. We have an indoor pool, we have an indoor and outdoor track, we have a huge and diverse selection of cardiovascular equipment, and we have quite a bit of strength equipment. So it allows us to provide people with the variety that they often don’t find at other facilities.
What we often find is that when people come into the facility and begin to establish a routine, or even start to do just minor activity -- you know, five minutes here, 10 minutes there -- it tends to be a motivation in and of itself. They start to feel better, they start to feel better about themselves, they feel stronger, and they feel more capable of doing things. That alone helps perpetuate that exercise routine.
From a cardiovascular standpoint, you can do as little as 20 minutes. You can do the stretching portion in five minutes after your cardio is over, and strength training in and of itself only needs to happen a couple times a week -- two to three times is the recommendation.
We are not your ordinary gym. We are a medically based wellness facility that’s open to the community, but we also offer a lot of expertise that most facilities don’t offer. So if you’ve been trying to reach a fitness goal or a health goal, I am confident that we can do that for you. We look forward to helping you here.
