Everyone is looking for ways to decrease the amount of stress in their lives. Why not decrease the amount of stress in your exercise routine as well and find a new way to have fun. Aerobic exercise has been shown to decrease stress, increase blood flow and improve your psychological disposition. While repetitive, pounding aerobic workouts such as running, jumping, competitive contact sports or plyometric training can be stressful on your joints, there are many other ways to get a satisfying exercise session in without your body paying for it later.

Ups and Downs of High Impact Exercise

High Impact exercise doesn’t always have to take the shape of plyometrics and hard, pounding landings. The most basic definition of high impact exercise is any type of exercise where there is a “flight phase” or a period of time when both feet leave the ground. Examples of this type of exercise: running, jumping rope, jumping jacks or tennis.

• Bone Health: High impact exercises have been shown to improve bone health, but walking and weight training or resistance training also produce similar effects. Bones need a certain amount of loading on a daily basis to maintain structural strength and proper composition. High impact exercise is not a good idea if you have already been diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia (more info on these bone loss conditions).
• Other Benefits:High impact exercise can improve coordination, agility, balance, and endurance.
• From the Surgeon General: The Surgeon General’s high impact activity recommendation for a healthy population is 50 three-inch jumps per day. In my experience, doing 50 tiny hops takes about 30 to 40 seconds. It takes the same amount or more time to take a daily vitamin– pouring a cup of water, opening the bottle, and swallowing a multivitamin can take about 45 seconds just for one pill! Just 30 seconds per day may increase your chances of having healthier bones.
• Some Downers:Repetitive high impact activities can wear out joint cartilage, create stress fractures and put you at risk for other musculoskeletal injury.
• Precautions: If you have a cardiac condition, an autoimmune disorder, any joint problems, or other medical conditions, consulting your physician before staring a high impact exercise routine should also be considered the first step. If you do not qualify for high impact exercise, you may want to consider a fun alternative.

Low Impact Exercise

Low impact exercise can improve your physical fitness without stressing out your joints and body structures. Starting with light stretching and basic walking, taking the stairs, gardening, or biking, low impact exercise can be fun and really simple. In addition to your typical work out routine at the gym or otherwise, try these fun and different exercise options.

• Rock climbing. This is one of my favorites. Try indoor climbing in a gym setting with soft padded floors and guided climbing routes. An instructor can show you the ropes, literally. Rock climbing is fun, safe and a great full body workout routine. It is definitely an exercise method that allows you to work on upper extremity and lower extremity strength, coordination and balance at any level.
• Yoga/ Pilates. Another way to approach awesome core strength, balance, and channeled breathing is through yoga or pilates. While bringing focus to your day, yoga can really be great for your bones as there is a significant amount of weight bearing through the shoulders and upper extremities. Inversion poses bring new perspective to the mind and facilitate increased circulation.
• Start Dancing. This can be done anywhere, anytime, or in a more structured class. Dancing promotes fluid movements of the whole body that involve a variety of speeds and dynamic changes in posture. The literature highly endorses an array of dancing and dance classes to improve joint health as a low impact option for exercise. So, bust a move!
• Swimming & Water Aerobics. As an athletic trainer and someone who sees many orthopedic and a variety of other musculoskeletal injuries, I cannot promote water exercises enough. There are so many ways to effectively use the pool to achieve a great maximal workout and not just find yourself swimming wind-sprint laps. Water provides a wonderful resistance medium to train individually or with a group. Many athletes post injury or surgery enjoy aquatic therapy as a means to train to predetermined effort level without impacting healing body tissues.
• Rowing. Performed at the gym or out on the water, individually or with a team, rowing is a great alternative exercise that promotes fitness. Development of core oblique strength is a given in this exercise forum. While the most repetitive of the low impact exercises suggested, if you are an avid runner that craves the escape found through constant work output, rowing is a great way to go.