DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have read and heard that walking 10,000 steps a day is enough exercise to get you in shape, lose weight and keep your heart healthy. Is this real? Can plain walking be sufficient to do all those things? And are you supposed to count all your steps every day? That would drive me crazy. – M.M.
ANSWER: Walking can be an adequate stimulus to lower blood pressure, strengthen the heart, keep arteries clog-free, lose weight and restore pep.
How much walking and how rigorous the pace are matters of dispute.
The 10,000-step-a-day goal is not realistic for everyone. Most of us are not terribly active. The average person takes only about 5,000 steps a day, and sedentary people take less than 3,000.
If people increase the number of steps taken daily by 2,000, real health gains can be realized. That number of steps translates into about a mile and takes roughly 2.5 hours a week – a distance that almost everyone can reach. And this amount of exercise makes the blood unlikely to form clots in a heart or brain artery (heart attack and stroke preventions), lowers blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and pares weight off the body.
You don’t have to drive yourself crazy by counting your steps. You can buy a pedometer at a sporting-goods store. The prices range from $10 to hundreds of dollars, depending on the number of functions the pedometer has. Some not only count steps but give distance walked and calories burned. The pedometer is worn on a belt or clipped to the hip or waist.
The booklet on aerobics gives details on how to best go about exercise and how to devise a program that suits an individual’s needs. Readers can obtain a copy by writing: Dr. Donohue – No. 1301, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.50 U.S./$6.50 Can. with the recipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have flab under my arms from the elbow to the armpit. Can you give me an exercise I can do at home to get rid of the flab? – M.W.
ANSWER: I can give you an exercise that bulks the muscle on the back of your arms. That muscle is the triceps, and the exercise is done with a dumbbell.
Hold the dumbbell behind your upper back. Your elbow is pointed straight forward, and the dumbbell is on a level with your shoulder.
Straighten your elbow to bring the dumbbell to an overhead position. Then lower and repeat the drill.
Start with a weight you can lift eight times in a row. Do a total of three sets of eight lifts, with a two-minute break between each set.
When you can lift the weight 12 consecutive times, add two more pounds to it.
Honesty compels me to tell you that exercise, by itself, is not going to make a huge difference in filling the flab with muscle or losing fat from the flab. If this is a matter of great concern, talk to a surgeon about removing it.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Can you suggest any safe exercises for breast reduction – ones that are not too strenuous? – N.Y.
ANSWER: If the breasts are large because of fat, then exercise along with dieting might be able to reduce their size. The exercise can be any kind of aerobic exercise – like jogging, walking, bike riding or swimming. No exercise can target a specific body area for weight loss. Weight comes off all fat depots.
Realistically, breast-reduction surgery is the way most women ever achieve satisfactory decrease in breast size. When large breasts cause neck and back pain, as they can, many insurers cover the cost of such surgery. Check first.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My daughter-in-law has what her doctor calls a frozen shoulder. She fell on it, and she ended up with the frozen shoulder. It is quite painful. Should she keep it still or exercise it? – E.H.
ANSWER: The top part of the upper arm bone is shaped like a ball. The ball fits into a hollow – a socket – that nature has fashioned in the shoulder blade. The result is the shoulder joint – the body’s most versatile joint, one that can move in more directions than any other joint.
To keep the ball firmly positioned in the socket, tough tissue wraps around the joint. That tissue is the joint capsule. Inflammation of the capsule goes by the official name of “adhesive capsulitis”; the unofficial name is “frozen shoulder.”
A shoulder injury can result in a frozen shoulder. Not only is the capsule inflamed, but it sprouts strands of scar tissue that lock the shoulder in place. Pain on slight motion is great, and slight motion is the limit of the shoulder’s mobility.
Most frozen shoulders get better, but it can take a year or more for them to thaw.
Anti-inflammatory medicines, such as aspirin, Motrin, Advil, Aleve and many more, can quiet capsule inflammation and speed healing. An injection of a cortisone drug is another way to lessen pain and increase mobility. Moist heat helps.
Exercise is all-important, but a professional ought to be the one who teaches people with frozen shoulders which exercises are best and how they are done. A physiatrist (fizz-EYE-uh-tryst or FIZZ-ee-AT-wrist) is a doctor who specializes in rehabilitation of conditions like this. The doctor is aided by physical and occupational therapists. You can find such a team in just about every hospital.
Dr. Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475.
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