Get Off the Couch and Rediscover Fitness

It's the month after (you made all those New Year's resolutions) and the morning after (you broke most of them while sitting on a couch consuming thousands of calories while watching other people play a sport that would probably kill you).

Adults of a certain age, especially, could use a little inspiration today.

Vonda Wright is happy to oblige. Wright is an orthopedic surgeon who advises and studies aging athletes, including competitors in the Senior Olympics. She also runs a program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that gets aging couch potatoes on their feet and into a 5K walk or run in 12 weeks. She's the author of a new book, "Fitness After 40: How to Stay Strong at Any Age."

Q: Are some sports -- football, for example -- just a bad idea for older adults?

A: I do hope people sitting on the couch and watching football will be inspired and will want to go out and rediscover the athlete they once were. For a 40-, 50- or 60-year-old, I'm not opposed to flag football or a good game of touch football. But to really tackle each other, well, there's a price to pay.

Q: Inspiration can sometimes be a dangerous thing. Tell me what you saw in your office during the Beijing Olympics.

A: There was a surge of the weekend-warrior types: middle-age people who hadn't exercised in a while or who had been exercising but took it to the next level too rapidly. We saw lots of knee pain.

Q: You say one of the greatest barriers to exercise in folks over 40 is "couch addiction." What's the cure for that?

A: There are several. But here's one idea: Instead of every night lying down on the couch after dinner with a full belly and watching the news, how about we put a few resistance bands in our TV room and, while we're watching the news, we do an upper-body workout? Or lean up against a living room wall and do some squats. Just turn that place you love into a gym.

Q: Two other big barriers are injuries and osteoarthritis. Don't some people with these problems just have to give up their favorite sports or fitness routines?

A: Modify, modify, modify. I have a patient who is an ultra- marathoner who has arthritis and he was skiing and he tore his (knee ligament). Another doctor told him he would have to give up the ultra-marathons. But we found new ways for him to train, and he's continuing. Now, there are cases where people have to stop a sport, but I encourage them to find an alternative. If you can't do cardiac by running, you can do cardiac by rowing.

Q: What's the biggest mistake older exercisers make?

A: It's the terrible toos: too much, too soon, too often. The biggest mistake is not to investigate a safer way to exercise. And No. 2 is not having a well-rounded program.

Q: Do most people need help to get started -- or can most, as the Nike ads say, "just do it?"

A: If most people could just do it, they would just do it. Most need a little bit of hand-holding -- whether it comes in the form of grabbing a neighbor as an exercise partner, joining a group like mine or hiring an athletic or personal trainer.

Q: You also work with elite aging athletes. Do these people have some special quality?

A: Incredible mental fortitude. They will tell you that the best years of their lives are the second 40 or 50. They can't wait to get up in the morning.