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Exercise (Products) Exercise (Information) Exercise (Books, Audios & Videos) Other Pages : Benefits Of Different Types Of Exercise : Exercise Reduces Cancer Risk :
The Ideal Balance Of Exercise
Your ideal balance of exercise for health should include -
- Cardio/Aerobic endurance exercise to lower blood pressure
- Interval training that includes short bursts of intense activity to build muscle
- Stretching and mobility exercises to strengthen joints and keep your body supple
Exercise And Weight Loss
Most people use exercise to lose weight, and most people get it wrong. About 80% of your weight is determined by your diet, yet most people think that spending hours in the gym doing low intensity exercises on bikes, treadmills, ellipticals and running is the way to do this. While this can help, it is an inefficient way to achieve fat loss because the calories burned are small compared with those you use in the rest of the day, and your can easily consume these calories by just a few dietary indiscretions. So a few biscuits and a slice of cake can put you right back where you started. However healthy eating combined with exercise is the best way to lose weight and to keep to a healthy weight.
Interval and strength training is the best way to use your exercise time. These help to build muscle, and ladies, before you say that you don't want muscles, think again, you don't have the testosterone to build big muscles, but you do need to turn fat into muscle for a defined shape that doesn't wobble. Proper muscle building exercises for women give a wonderfully toned and trim figure, andthe same muscle building exercises for men give a trim masculine shape with more defined muscles. It's all down to hormones.
Building muscle has further advantages. Muscle is metabolically active and burns calories all the time. Also interval and strength training primes muscles to keep on burning calories for up to 24 hours afterwards, in fact most calories are burned after the exercise itself. This compares with cardio or aerobics which only burns calories during the exercise itself. More muiscle and less fat is healthy for women and men, and is more important than either weight or body fat composition alone.
Your Body Adapts To Regular Exercise
If you exercise regularly your body adapts to that exercise. Now this is good because you get fitter. However, there is a problem. If you just use one form of exercise then your body adapts by getting you fit for that type of exercise. This isn't what you want, because there are several different kinds of fitness that you need to be truely fit. This applies to everyone, and not just to athletes.
Cardio or Aerobic Exercise
Cardio (Short for cardio-vascular) exercise is the new name for aerobics. Aerobic exercise is moderate intensity where you never get out of breath, and was once the most fashionable form of exercise. Starting with Jane Fonda in the early 80's just about every celebrity had their own aerobic exercise video. Jogging and distance running are similar, and have a similar effect on the body. The idea is to use continuous, moderate level movements to get your heart rate up, breathe faster and sweat a little, and keep this up for at least 20 minutes.
By itself, cardio should not be your only form of exercise. It can be a great way of easing yourself into exercising, however, with a regular routine your heart and body will adapt to this regular level of exercise, and the benefit you get will soon plateau, to the detriment of being able to cope with sudden bursts of energy, which is not good. Varying the type and intensity of the exercise is a good idea.
Typical cardio exercises are walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, aerobics classes, or using gym equipment such as treadmills, cross-country-skiing machines, elliptical trainers, stepping machines, and rowing machines.
Using a heart rate monitor to measure your heart's performance during cardio exercise lets you maximise the benefits of this type of exercise by varying the intensity of the exercise to make your heart work at the optimum rate. This means that as your fitness improves you can increase the intensity of your exercise, so that your heart and body fitness continually improves.
Chunky Aerobics Instructor Syndrome is a term coined by Charles Poliquin, a world renown strength and conditioning coach, when he noticed that many aerobics instructors became quite chubby and had a higher level of body fat than would be expected. This was also happening with elite athletes, and was found to be due to the body structurally adapting to a regular level of exercise. There were also a number of well publicised deaths from heart attacks of people who were regarded as really healthy exercise addicts who just used this one form of exercise by itself.
Interval Training
Interval training is where you have short bouts of high intensity exercise, where you really get out of breath, with short rest periods in between. Interval training has been found to offer some health benefits that aerobic exercise doesn't give, including greater protection against heart attacks. It is especially effective at burning fat. Interval training has also been shown to improve the body's endurance fitness better than aerobic exercises.
Time efficiency is a big advantage of high intensity interval training. In our busy lives it is important to be able to fit exercise into our weekly schedules. The important question is how can I get the most benefit from the minimum time, because I have a life to lead, a job to do, and a family to run. Interval training offers a lot of return for a small time investment. Ten minutes of exercise done on most days can have a huge effect if done well.
You can exercise against a weight, either your own body weight or extra weights. This type of training increases muscle mass, and it is important to maintain muscle mass throughout your life, because as you get older there is a tendency to lose muscle mass and gain fat, so that even if you maintain the same weight your body composition changes. Maintaining muscle mass is one of the secrets of healthy aging, and is why exercise is especially important in later life. In training against weights it is more important to do the exercises properly than to ignore the technique and concentrate on increasing the weight or the repetitions.
Core Strength is the natural balance of muscles in the back and spine. It is important to health, but is neglected if exercise is concentrated on individual muscle groups, which can easily happen with a gym routine. Core strength is the ability to recover if you slip or fall, without hurting yourself, or to be able to bend and stretch while decorating or doing the garden without hurting your back. It is an important part of overall fitness and certain exercises improve core strength.
Stretching
Stretching and mobility exercises are important to maintain full function in your muscles and joints, especially as you get older, and it can help with joint problems. Yoga and Tai Chi are good examples of stretching and mobility exercises to keep your body supple.
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written by Jonathon Dunrobin, June 29, 2011
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