Introduction to fitness - Part 2

In part 1 of Introduction to Fitness, we covered the basics and the importance of nutrition.  Now it's time to get to work and get the sweat flowing.

Exercise 101

Tell me if this is familiar. You see that person at the gym on the seated stationary bike reading a novel. Or two ladies that carry their water bottles around the track at the pace you’d see women shopping during a great sale. What is most likely the case is that you don’t see these women making a lot of progress in changing their body. That’s because they are not pushing themselves hard enough and getting their heart rates up, and they’re not lifting weights.

Now, it’s important to state that cardio is important. It’s important for your cardiovascular system, it’s important to strengthen your heart and numerous other benefits. But for the purpose of losing bodyfat and toning your body, weight lifting should make up the priority of your work.

As we stated earlier, exercise 101 means that muscle mass requires your body to work harder to and burn more calories. Thus, having muscle will give you a speedy metabolism, which as you remember, is our main goal. So a key principle of the introduction to fitness means you should remember one thing:

Lifting weights = fat loss

Now, this doesn’t mean lifting with 5 pound weights, doing ten reps of arm curls. If that worked, the people that stock shelves at the grocery store would have fabulous figures. This means lifting heavy weights, doing multi-joint exercises like squats, bench press, shoulder press, deadlifts, etc. Essentially, ‘training like a man’ as some people would say. To realize the muscle on your body that will result in fat loss comes through pushing yourself and lifting heavy. Of course, wait until you’ve eased your way into lifting weights and become comfortable with it before lifting at a weight where you risk injury. Safety comes first always.

Now, it’s possible to get a good ‘cardio’ weight lifting workout that will increase your heart rate and get your lungs burning. This can be done simply by limiting your rest between your sets. In saying that, if you plan on working out 3-4 times per week, it’s suggested that you lift weights 3 of those days, and do cardio on one day. If you workout 3 times a week, lift twice and do cardio once.

You’ll find a lot of information on this site and others about the types of workouts you can do. It’s important to remember to prevent injuries and enhance your performance, be sure to warm up and cool down with each workout for about 5 minutes. This could be with using the elliptical, treadmill or stationary bike.

Rest

Now, working your muscles requires them to rebuild the fibers you’ve broken down. This is a good thing, assuming that you rest your body and allow them to rebuild. If you put yourself through a very intense workout every day, there’s a chance that you could ‘over train’ and this can hinder your results. Now, you have to be working pretty hard on a near daily basis to over train, but it can happen to anyone. Here are some signs that you’re over training.

The bottom line is to be sure to get your rest, including at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

Now, as stated in part one of this article, every body responds differently to nutrition, exercise and rest. What’s been provided in this article is a base from which to start. The important point to remember is to pay attention to what is working and what isn’t working for you. The best way to do this is to look in the mirror and assess how you feel. You will need to tweak and experiment with elements of the information that’s been provided, but it’s a great place to start.

Just remember that this is about the journey, not the destination. There is no end date to this program or ‘diet’, because it’s a lifestyle. The cool thing is that you’re going to have the body you want at some time during this journey, and the mental and physical benefits that go with that is priceless.