5-Step Guide to Fitness Training

It's Never Too Late to Start Exercise.

Researchers Find Great Rewards When Mild Exercise Programs Are Started Late In Life.
You know the benefits of exercise programs. And if you've been inactive, you may have also felt them -- with sore muscles and bruised motivation to continue. But a new study in women shows that the old adage is true -- it's never too late to start when it comes to exercise programs. So now what can you do to jump on the exercise bandwagon? WebMD got exercise tips from the experts.
"There certainly seems to be something here to suggest that women can start exercising later in life and still reap the rewards," lead researcher and CDC epidemiologist Edward W. Gregg, PhD, tells WebMD. His findings are published in the May 14 issue of TheJournal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers tracked 9,500 women for 12 years, starting when they were at least age 66. In that time, they found that those who went from doing little or nothing to walking just a mile a day slashed their risk of death from all causes and from cancer by nearly half. Their risk of heart disease also fell by more than a third. In fact, they enjoyed nearly as much protection as women who were physically active before the study began and remained so.
During the study, he and his colleagues surveyed the women on their exercise levels at the start of the trial and again up to six years later. Years later, the researchers tracked their rates of death and disease.
The new information we found is that older women who went from being sedentary or walking about two miles a week to walking eight miles a week between the two visits had significant life improvements, says another study researcher, Jane A. Cauley, DrPH, of the University of Pittsburgh.
"We're talking about women with an average age of 77 at the second visit," she tells WebMD. "And we're talking about their engaging in very mild exercise -- and not running marathons."
But if the only workout you've been getting lately involves the TV remote, here's how to avoid those walks around the block from making your body feel as if it just tackled Boston Marathon's infamous "Heartbreak Hill"