The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has finally changed its 2009 guidelines for resistance training. They now offer a workable path to improved muscle tone, strength, and physical function that can be adopted by virtually everyone.

Whatever your age, your fitness level, or your goals, the new outline will help you get started and achieve what you're aiming for. Here are the new guidelines:

1. ACSM now acknowledges that even a small amount of resistance training twice weekly improves muscles, gait, balance, and well-being, and your goal should be to do whatever you can sustain. (Your ability to do more reps and/or use more resistance will increase over time, but you should start out with exercises and intensity you can stick with today.)

2. People who aren't doing any resistance exercises see profound benefits from starting a regular routine, even at a low level.

3. You don't need to go to the gym to do resistance exercises. Using your body weight, resistance bands, hand weights, or barbells produces measurable improvements in strength, muscle size, and function.

I'm also a fan of jumping, stair climbing, wall-sits, wall pushups, lunges, planks, and repeatedly rising from a chair.

The ACSM says resistance training improves your ability to do those activities, but because they all involve overcoming resistance, make them part of your routine, not a benefit that you may or may not incidentally achieve.

For more info on creating and preserving muscle strength, tone, and agility, check out my book "The RealAge Workout."