Exercise: PACE® = Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Execution

Want a Lean Body by Spring?  by Al Sears, M.D.

Here’s How without Leaving Your House

When it’s cold outside, you might be tempted to trade in your workout towel for the comfort of a warm fire. Yet with holiday feasts and pumpkin pies headed straight for your love handles, this is the worst time to surrender. With freezing weather cramping outdoor exercise and the season’s parties and trips keeping you away from the gym, you’ve got to find ways to winterize your fitness routine: Just like brain function, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

So this month I’ll tell you how I’ve coached patients to stay in shape indoors. It’s a systematic approach to strengthen your heart, lungs, blood vessels, muscles, bones, and immune system-in just minutes a day.  It’s easy to fit into a busy schedule. It will give you the energy you need to enjoy the holidays to their fullest. And, you can do it in any indoor space-even away from home.

Quality Counts More Than Quantity

In the 80s, the experts led us to believe that harder isn’t better when it comes to exercise. They said that less intense, longer workouts would reduce injury risk and burn a higher percentage of fat.1  But now we know that prolonged cardio exercise actually increases the risk of injuries. And… the skyrocketing obesity rates in this country make it easy enough to see that this approach didn’t help anyone lose weight or become fitter.

Extended exercise puts you at risk for repetitive motion injuries. It robs you of critical respiratory capacity. And it compromises your immune system. Continuous training also causes your testosterone and growth hormone to plummet, and destructive cortisone levels to rise.

In addition to all that, it forces your heart and lungs to downsize in order to be more efficient for a long-duration activity. Your heart and lungs will shrink to accommodate extended exercise. But when your smaller respiratory and cardiac system has to handle a sudden load (such as a sprint through the airport to catch a flight), you push it dangerously close to maximum output. This is why seemingly fit runners keel over with heart attacks in the middle of their workouts.

But if you work out in short bursts of more intense exercise your body burns the energy stored in muscle tissue rather than energy stored as fat. This teaches your body to store more energy in the muscles-not as fat-so it’s available for quick bursts of energy.

It’s a simple change to make. You simply turn up the intensity and shorten the duration of your exercise. The key is to work harder, not longer. You go faster or add resistance-gradually and in a controlled manner. This way you’ll increase your exercise capacity without feeling additional strain.

Replace endurance cardio exercise with my program I call PACE (more on what this means later) and you’ll grow your heart to meet the demands you put on it each day. You’ll burn more fat-and you’ll burn it faster. You’ll protect your muscles and joints from injury.

And, as an incentive to get you started today, this program will not only cut your workout time in half, and produce fast, visible results, but it’s also ideal for indoor workouts.

Get Healthy and Get Lean

In addition to those benefits, PACE offers you a number of other advantages that are particularly important in winter:

First of all, PACE pumps up your testosterone, which tends to decline in winter. But lots of “regular” cardio exercise won’t help: In fact, men who do endurance training for more than eight hours a week actually show significant reductions in testosterone-up to a 54 percent decline. On the other hand, with training that’s focused on intensity and resistance, testosterone increases.

PACE also increases human growth hormone (HGH), which stimulates the creation of protein, and making fats more available to burn as fuel in the blood stream. Blood levels of HGH increase significantly during and immediately after PACE. This does not happen with continuous training.2

Many men make their heart function worse during the winter by not working out. But even 20 minutes a day of PACE significantly helps strengthen the heart muscle walls and increase size and blood pumping capacity of your heart chambers. The improved pumping power and larger chambers means that with every heartbeat, you deliver more blood to your system at rest as well as during exercise.3

And last, but certainly not least, PACE boosts your immunity. A study of 60-year old men showed that older men who vigorously exercised at least twice a week had the immune strength of men half their age.4 Researchers found significantly higher counts of immune cells after just two rounds of interval biking.5

You can Change Your Body and Your Health In 8 Weeks 

I’ve worked with thousands of patients at my clinic and at the Wellness Research Foundation now.  You may know of my effective advancement heart and lung-strengthening program. I’ve named this program Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Execution or PACE®.

The objective of the program is to build a strong heart that can effectively handle the demands of everyday life-along with the unexpected strains that come our way.

You can use PACE® to transform your heart strength and your physique in the next eight weeks-even during the cold and busy winter season. Even if you’ve already read about it several times in these pages, it’s worth a brief reminder this time of year, when working out can seem like, well-work. PACE® makes it easy to stick with an exercise program because it doesn’t require a lot of time, or an expensive gym membership. You can achieve new fitness levels in 10 to 20 minutes, three times a week, right at home.

A Simple Way to Start PACE® At Home 

If you’re a PACE® newcomer, you can start with 20 minutes of exercise every other day.When you can exercise comfortably for 20 minutes at a time, you then divide your workout into two 10-minute exertion periods with a rest between. Over time, work on boosting the intensity during your exertion sets by increasing your pace or resistance.

As you get in better shape, you cut your exercise time down to two nine-minute sets with three-minute rest. Progress as you feel comfortable. Eventually, you’ll progress to three six-minute sets with one-minute rests. Then try to go the same distance in five-minute sets. Later, change to four sets of four minutes each, and so on.

Save money and time by skipping the gym Health club membership rosters are full of people who are certain they will show up frequently-but don’t. A study by two economists reviewed three years of records on 7,978 members of three health clubs in Boston to measure the costs associated with people overestimating how much they’ll use the gym. The clubs offered several membership options: An $850 yearly contract that could be renewed, an $85 monthly contract that automatically renewed unless it was canceled, and two pay-per-visit plans-$100 for a 10-visit pass or $12 for an individual visit. Most members chose the monthly contract at a higher cost than the yearly contract, which essentially offered two months free. Members on monthly contracts showed up, on average, 4.8 times a month, for a price per visit of $17-nearly twice what they would have paid for a 10-visit pass. Only 20 percent of monthly contract users paid an average of less than $10 per visit. The point in all this is that you can save yourself quite a bit of money-and time-by exercising on your own, at home or while traveling. Use the resources you already have at home and get all the exercise you need for fitness in just 20 minutes a day with the routine outlined in the accompanying article.

When you rest, don’t come to a complete stop. Try to keep going at an easy pace. This keeps your blood circulating to replenish the energy in your muscles. It also prevents lactic acid from building up in your muscles, which makes them sore and stiff. During the high-intensity intervals, you should not be able to talk except to answer yes or no. During the rest periods, you should be able to carry on a conversation.

Every two weeks or so increase your intensity a little more. This is what boosts your heart capacity and increases the power and size of your lungs.

If it’s too Cold Outside…Bring it Inside

When it’s too cold to use PACE® for your

favorite outdoor exercises, you can easily bring it indoors and still enjoy the same health benefits. Of course, there are exercise machines you can buy, and they’re great options. But there are ways around shelling out the extra money for all that equipment that will still allow you to get the same benefits. Instead of using a treadmill, you can run in place in your living room. You can also bike inside-and you don’t even need to buy a separate stationary bike. Instead, you can bring your regular outdoor bike inside, and set it up on one of the stationary stands that are available at bike and sporting goods stores. And instead of a stair-stepping machine, you can use the stairs in your home.

You should add strength-training exercises to winter home workout too. The best way to do that is with good old-fashioned calisthenics. Unlike bodybuilding exercises calisthenics train your muscles to provide power in useful movements.  And you can easily make them part of your PACE® program.

Calisthenics are the perfect winter exercise. You don’t need any equipment. With 10 minutes of a few simple moves, you can work multiple muscle groups and build your physique with a purpose of power. You can fit calisthenics into your schedule whether you’re traveling for the holidays, entertaining at home, or catching up on office work.

Listed below are some of my favorite conditioners when you are stuck indoors. 

Legs and lower body exercises: Your lower body is more important for functional strength than your upper body. These muscles are bigger and meant to be stronger, but are commonly neglected, especially by novice weight lifters. Your three biggest muscles are your quadriceps (on the front of your thighs), your hamstrings (on the back of your thighs), and your gluteus muscles (in the buttocks). The best ways to work them are with the following three exercises:

• Squats-With feet almost together and arms at sides, head straight and level, bend your knees to lower your body. When thighs are parallel to the floor, rise up on your toes, while simultaneously swinging your arms forward. They will be straight out in front of you, parallel, with your fingers together and palms facing down. Once you’ve lowered your body, reverse the motion without stopping, and return to original starting position. Repeat.
• Instep touches-Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, toes slightly pointing outwards, arms at your sides, head straight and level. Bend forward at your waist, turn upper body, and bring fingers of one hand to instep of opposite foot. Keep arms and legs straight but not locked.  Simultaneously, raise your other arm to ceiling. Repeat.
• Jump squats-With body crouched, feet together, arms at sides, head straight and level, quickly straighten legs and jump upward as high as you can. Simultaneously, extend arms and reach overhead. After landing, quickly return to original position, without losing your balance.

Abdomen and lower back exercises: To prevent pain and injury in the lower back, you must have strong abdominal muscles. Building powerful core muscle groups to improve your breath, posture, and mechanics of motion supports functional strength. These exercises alone won’t eliminate that spare tire-you’ll need to improve your diet to go along with your new exercise program to do that-but they will improve your body and lengthen your life.

Here are four of the best indoor exercises for concentrating on your waist:

• Crunches/sit-ups-Lie on your back, raise your head and feet slightly, hold, relax. Repeat.
• Leg levers-Lie on your back, legs six inches off the ground. Lift legs another foot higher, return to starting position. Repeat.
• Flutter kicks-Lie on your back, and alternate each leg 2-3 feet off ground.  Repeat.
• Scissors-Lie on your back, raise legs a few inches off ground. Spread legs apart and then bring them together. Repeat.

Upper body exercises: Challenge your upper body by using your own body weight. Everyday activities, like lifting heavy packages or moving furniture, will be easier as your muscles build useful strength. To prevent injury, don’t make the common mistake of overtraining your arms and shoulders while neglecting your back. I’ve seen more shoulder injuries occur from this imbalance than I care to recall. Think back strength even while working your chest and shoulders and avoid isolated, fixed-position bench and shoulder presses altogether. The best indoor exercises for building functional upper body strength include:

• Pushups-Combine this exercise with jump squats and you have a complete whole-body winter program you can do anywhere. Lie face down. Place hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Straighten your back and place feet together. Lower yourself until you almost touch the ground. (Keep knees on the ground and feet in the air if this is too difficult for you at first.)
• Arm haulers-Lie on your stomach. Stretch your arms in front of you. Raise arms and legs off floor and sweep arms back to your thighs (similar to a breaststroke.) Return arms to starting position. Repeat.
• Pull-ups-You’ll need a bar for these. You can get one that attaches to an indoor doorjamb of your home. Your palms face away from you on the bar for a traditional pull-up to strengthen your back muscles.  Palms face toward you to do a chin-up, which focuses more on your biceps.
• Dips-Use parallel bars, two chairs, or two desks. Lift your feet off ground, while putting one hand on each object. Slowly lower yourself until elbows are at 90-degree angles. Pause.  Slowly raise yourself. Repeat. 

As with any exercise, begin slowly. You’ll need to build up your stamina by starting easy and steadily increasing your fitness. If you feel any dizziness, shortness of breath or pain during any of the calisthenics described above, slow down. Do not over-exert yourself. If done effectively, you will transform your body through the power of calisthenics. By doing a regular calisthenics routine, you’ll see improvements in your stamina and appearance.

You will See Results in Just 3 Weeks 

Most people think you have to work at a very high intensity to get such fast results on the PACE® program. While you will focus on intensity levels during exercise, you will not work at uncomfortable levels to get results.

Begin your PACE® program at a level that’s comfortable for you. As your body responds to the challenge, turn the level of activity up a notch-without feeling an uncomfortable or painful level of exertion, and without working longer.

I’ve included a chart that shows my favorite workout to get you started. You may also want to get a couple of books from the library to learn some other exercises. This will keep your workouts fresh and interesting.

Spend a few minutes, three times a week with PACE® this winter, and come spring you’ll emerge with a chiseled body and a powerful heart.

YOUR TOTAL WINTER WORKOUT PROGRAM
Monday	PACE
Tuesday	Bodyweight Exercise for Legs
Wednesday	Rest
Thursday	PACE
Friday	Bodyweight Exercises for Upper Body
Saturday	PACE
Sunday	Rest

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1 “Interval Training: Alternating Periods of High-and Low-Intensity Exercises for Maximum Benefit,” American Fitness, 8/97
2 “Take It Up a Notch: Maximize Your Workout With Interval Training,” American Fitness, 12/02
3 ibid.
4 “Exercise May Preserve Immune Response In Older Men,” Reuters Health News, 8/30/04
5 “Intermittant Aerobic Training, Part 1-Tech. Brief,” American Fitness, 4/02
6 “Fitness Ambition is Costly,” The Courier Journal, 8/7/03