It's starting to get colder, which means it's also the time of year to start training for running events (such as the City to Surf and the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival) or pre-season skiing and snow-boarding fitness regime.

Getting Fit For The Snow

Skiing and snow-boarding are high aerobic activities and require flexibility, strength, endurance, speed and quick reflexes. It is strongly recommended that if you're going to the alps, you'll need to prepare well in advance in some sort of pre-season fitness program to get fit to go skiing or snow-boarding.

By being fitter you will be able to ski or board longer and better and also reduce the chance of injury. Tips for a fitness program include:

• Start your training well before the ski season or your trip.

• Always warm up before an exercise session.

• Training sessions must be regular and frequent – at least three times per week.

• Focus on four prime areas: cardiovascular conditioning, muscle strength, balance and flexibility.

Cardiovascular endurance keeps your heart fit, which is the key to supplying your muscles with oxygen-rich blood. Another benefit of cardiovascular training is that it helps you acclimate to the change in altitude.

You should strengthen your whole body even though skiing/boarding is predominantly a lower body sport. Strength training will minimise soreness and reduces the chance of injury on the slopes.

Improving balance and core strength also minimises the risks of injury. Agility training, especially on unstable environment, can be added to work on the quick movements and changes of direction that you need on the skies/board. Any time you're on an unstable mechanism like skis, you have to have that core strength.

Most of us forget about flexibility. Flexibility helps your body handle all the twisting and turning and also enhances your range of motion. These help protect the knees and back.

So basically, the more physically prepared you are, the less effect altitude will have on you.

Generation Risk

A report (titled "Generation Risk") released by Access Economics last month found 77% of people over 55 (now representing 25% of the Australian population) were inactive, 71% are either overweight or obese, 51% had hypertension, 58% have high cholesterol, 26% had diabetes and 10% continue to smoke - all risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). More than 1.1 million people are at Extreme risk of a CVD event (heart attack, stroke or death) in the next 5 years. And a further 1.5 million people are at High, Very High or Severe CVD risk. Smoking as a risk factor is declining, but there are still areas such as physical inactivity, being overweight or obese and increasing levels of diabetes which are of great concern.

An alarming finding was that 80% of people prescribed medication to reduce the risk of a heart attack and stroke stopped taking their medication within 30 months.

The key message from this report is get into preventative health - get physically active and stay on the medication that your doctor has prescribed. Without that medication and lifestyle changes, the numbers of fatal heart attacks and strokes will increase.

Alcohol & Exercise

If you're wondering why you don't seem to be shedding the extra kilos, the answer is most probably related to the amount of alcohol you drink each week. Below is a table showing the amount of energy in each drink and the approximate amount of time you need to run (at a speed of 8km/hour) to burn the drink off.

For example, if you weigh 80kg it will take about 26 minutes (running at 8km/hour) to burn off half a bottle of wine.

For beer drinkers, you have to option of low carb or low alcohol beers to reduce the amount of calories you're putting into your body. And for the wine connoisseurs, lower (as opposed to low) alcohol wines (therefore lower calories) are becoming more popular. So if you're finding it hard to say NO to alcohol, try the "healthier" options.

Nothing contained in this newsletter is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.