I’m always looking in newspaper and magazine articles for good tips from experts to keep us healthy.

Here are 8 insider tips from nationally known personal trainers, coaches and exercise physiologists to help us get a little more oomph!

1) The minimum workout you need to stay healthy
Muscle strengthening exercises twice a week plus 2 1/2 hours a week of moderate activity like walking. Or 75 minutes a week of a more intense activity like jogging. Please ask your doctor before starting a new exercise routine.

2) Get fitter faster
A more intense workout burns more calories in less time, says Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of Fit to Live. “You can walk 3.1 mile race in 40 minutes, jog it in 30 minutes or run it in under 20 minutes. Either way, you’re burning the same amount of calories,” she says.

3) Short spurts are best
Alternate spurts of hard, high-speed activity with periods of slower activity to shorten a workout while improving fitness, says Ron Woods, a coach at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando Florida.

4) Stronger muscles in minutes
We lose muscle mass as we age, making us weaker. Two or three 30-minute weekly sessions using free weights or resistance bands will restore muscle and keep bones strong, says David Sandler, author of Fundamental Weight Training.

5) Upper and lower body moves
Alternating an upper body strength training exercise with a lower-body move is a time saver, says Gina Lombardi, author of Deadline Fitness, who has trained celebrities such as Andy Garcia. Alternate cardio moves, like rope jumping, with strength exercises such as lunges.

6) Say yes to yoga
A few minutes of yoga type stretches after a workout improves flexibility, range of motion and strength in a way that aerobic activities can’t, says Beryl Bender Birch, author of Boomer Yoga. An introductory class is best for beginners, since regular classes often last 90 minutes.

7) Buddy up
Exercising with others makes time fly. Dodo Stevens, 67, of Portland, Maine, meets 10 women and a trainer for a 45 minutes workout at a neighbor’s house. Cost: $11 per person. “I love working out with other people, “she says. “The whole thing is over before you know it.”

Mix it up
Exercise programs need variety. This is key. If you do the same thing all the time, your body adapts and you stop making progress, says Pamula Peeke, the fitness author. Look for classes that provide an introduction to Zumba, Bellyrobics or other new, fun activities.

Keep in mind what James Fries, M.D., said about exercise. He is an expert on aging at Stanford University. He says “If you had to pick one thing that came closest to the fountain of youth, it would have to be exercise.”

I admit that I sometimes have to drag myself to a yoga class (please don’t tell my yoga teacher mother), but I always feel better after the class and grateful that I made the choice.

It seems like there is always something I should be doing other than taking some yoga class. That is certainly not the feeling when I finish each class. Now there is a study for me and others to look at to keep us going back to those classes. Seems like a good downward facing dog pose can actually boost our frame of mind.

If fact, a study from Boston University School of Medicine found that yoga boosted mood more effectively than walking. This study was recently released in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Doing an hour of yoga three times a week for 12 weeks increased GABA levels by 13 percent, as measured in the study’s healthy participants right after a session. GABA, a neurotransmitter in the brain, is lower in people who are depressed. Levels rise with the use of meds. The walkers showed no significant increase in GABA levels.

Author of this study is Chris Streeter, MD. He says “This is the first study to find behavioral intervention. Yoga in this case. Yoga has an effect on brain chemistry similar to that of antidepressants”

Wow! I guess I won’t be so reluctant about going to a yoga classes anymore, no matter how busy I get.

“The Twist” Yoga Position from oomphTV on Vimeo.

“The Bridge” Yoga Position from oomphTV on Vimeo.

The Green Buddha from oomphTV on Vimeo.

It was a hot day in May 1996 when I found myself struggling to walk. Over the course of the previous month, I had been slowly losing feeling throughout my limbs and torso. With the heat, the tingling and numbness I had been experiencing spread to envelop my face and skull…I had lost feeling in my body from head to toe. It wasn’t just a pinched nerve as first suspected. Something was very wrong. After various medical texts, I was admitted to UCLA Medical Center where I was clinically diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. Lesions had been detected in my cervical spine, thoracic spine and on my brain.

As I have always been a physically active person and not one to accept the role of victim, I asked my then doctor’s recommendation for my physical protocol. He suggested swimming and yoga, as long as I don’t overheat the body.

The initial protocol of intravenous steroids helped to get my symptoms into remission but along with the other medications prescribed for MS management, they do not offer a cure. With a pocketful of meds, I was released from the hospital and decided to explore some yoga – Iyengar Yoga to be specific – as the Iyengar system employs props to help the practitioner gain access to the poses in order to glean their potential benefits. So I made some necessary dietary and lifestyle changes, started yoga and chose to forego the medications.

The daily practice of Iyengar Yoga has had a profound effect on my course of the condition. However, my journey has not been without setbacks, as anyone’s might be who deals with relapsing-remitting MS, whether or not they are on the medications. The symptoms I have experienced over the years include: loss of feeling throughout my body, numbness and a banding sensation in the torso and limbs, difficulty walking, compromised gait, loss of motor skills to the point where I could not use a pen or use a fork to feed myself, optic neuritis (loss of vision in my right eye and compromised vision in my left); bowel and urinary incontinence; the L’Hermitte’s symptom (a symptom where electrical charges are felt throughout the body when moving the head in a forward fashion); fatigue and depression.

When I had two severe exacerbations within months of one another in 2001 – loss of eyesight in January 2001 (which returned within a couple of months) and loss of feeling from the navel down in June 2001, fear and doubt crept in and I started with the weekly protocol of interferon beta 1-A. As no medications offer a cure for the MS, I found the ongoing side effects of my weekly injections to be more challenging than the condition! While I am not advocating that people with MS ignore the benefits of the pharmaceutical approach in managing their course of MS, I personally opted for the side effects of a daily practice of Iyengar Yoga over the meds. In January 2004, I chose to once again forego the medication.

My agreement with my neurologist is to have an annual MRI to monitor the lesions on my brain. The MRI reports over the last five have been promising, showing a reduction in size of the brain lesions as well as consistently showing no change in activity – which is really good news. I have been able to successfully overcome the symptoms listed above and remain symptom free, with the exception of fatigue and the residual loss of feeling in my right leg and foot which results in strength and balance challenges on my right side. I see my doctor (Dr. Hart Cohen, Director of Multiple Sclerosis Research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles) semi-annually to continually monitor my course of the condition.

With these results, I am hopeful and my outlook for the future is positive. Undaunted, I carry on with “courage and caution” as encouraged by Yoga master, BKS Iyengar.

We profile Garth McLean and his unconventional battle with Multiple Sclerosis through Iyengar Yoga. The title “Courage and Caution” refers to the advice Yogacharya BKS Iyengar offered Garth upon learning of the challenges he faces with MS.

Courage and Caution from oomphTV on Vimeo.