Doctor Buddies: A healthy regimen of exercise is important

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Welcome to our first edition of our Doctor Buddies column. Let’s start with introductions. We are the PeaceHealth Woodland Clinic providers Dr. Timothy Horrocks and Philip Ross, PA-C.

You will find us in The Reflector each month where we will share our thoughts about common medical concerns that we are frequently asked about. If you aren’t familiar with us, we practice in a small primary care clinic at 527 2nd St. in Woodland across from the Sproos Tap House.

We provide a wide array of family medicine services from treating blood pressure to minor surgical procedures. We take all insurance and cash pay patients. We do not turn people away and we see all ages. We also have a clinical pharmacist onsite once a week as an expert resource to help with medication and dietary management.

The clinic has an upgraded modern small-town country feel and our staff includes Kim, Emily and Amanda, who will be happy to see you. For our inaugural column, we thought with the weather changing and all of us itching to get outside our homes, we would focus on exercise.

A healthy regimen of exercise

Today, we wanted to briefly cover what we, as medical providers, consider a healthy regimen of exercise. We acknowledge that this may seem like common knowledge, but you might be surprised what passes for common these days.

When we ask people if they exercise the usual answer is “yes, I weed my garden twice a week” or “yes, I do things around the yard.” While these activities are excellent first steps in a program to get moving, they are not considered true exercise.

We consider exercise as an activity that makes you hot, sweaty and out of breath for at least 30 minutes per day. Exercise is an action that you purposefully go out of your way to do. Running, jogging, power walking, biking, swimming, hiking, weightlifting, dancing and rowing are examples, and there are many other activities not on this list that also count.



Gardening can be considered exercise if it involves strenuous labor causing you to become hot, sweaty and out of breath. High intensity interval training (HIIT) can be one of the best exercise regiments to try.

Some exercise is better
than no exercise

If this list of exercises is too discouraging, please don’t give up before you even get started. Instead, give some realistic thought to activities that will get you up and moving — that will push you beyond your current activity level without defeating you.

This may include walking up and down stairs instead of taking the elevator, seeing how many pushups you can do, or parking your car at the farthest end of the parking lot. After a few days you will likely be surprised to find that what was difficult on Monday seems much easier by Friday.

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Timothy Horrocks, MD, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Utah and his medical degree from St. Louis University Medical School in Missouri. He completed his family medicine residency at PeaceHealth Southwest Family Medicine Residency in Vancouver. He is married with three children, two dogs, two ducks and a cockatiel. He loves soccer, cooking and gardening. He is also fluent in Spanish.

Philip Ross, PA-C, is originally from Clatskanie, Oregon. He served four years in the United States Navy as a gunner’s mate. He then received his undergraduate degree from Portland State University and his medical degree from Heritage University in Washington state. He is married with his first child on the way. Ross also has a dog named Rusty and two cats. He loves to spend his leisure time engaged in outdoor activities like hunting, fishing, hiking, traveling and boating. He also loves to play music on drums and guitar.