Fitness Fanatics

By: Dr. Andrew Smith

By Andrew Smith, Webmaster at UsanaInHealth.com

In my opinion, exercise is vital for anyone, regardless of personal goals and targets relating to health. Exercise is not just for sports people or individuals aiming to reduce weight or gain muscle, it is vital for everyone. If you feel that you do not need to exercise because you look well as you are then it is possible that the inside of your body may tell a different story!

When I recommend physical activity I do not always mean formal exercises in a gym or fitness club setting. I am referring to any activity that gets you moving and pushes your body outside of its usual sedentary or rested state. This is a principle known as OVERLOAD. You overload a muscle when you encourage it to work harder than it normally would and this also applies to your heart muscle!

I am not going to overwhelm you with all the reasons why you should exercise, but I am confident that you are reading this because you want to improve or maintain your health. Health and vitality starts with your capacity and committment to use and improve your physical body.

I am sure that there will still be people reading this, believing that they don’ have time to exercise, or don’t really believe that they need to, but this may be because a part of the brain is attempting to sabotage their efforts to improve their health! This is the same part of the brain that tells you that your exercise plan can wait until Monday, or that one more biscuit wont make any difference! We all have coping strategies of some sort and look to rationalise choices we make, even though we know through standard logic that what we are telling ourselves isn’t necessarily the case! The trick is to learn to recognise when you are making excuses and to learn to not listen to the voice of negativity! This is a hugely important element to making positive changes in any area of your life.

So let me just outline 3 areas to consider for your own personal exercise plan. You must include cardiovascular exercise (elevating your heart rate), muscular exercise (strengthening and toning your muscles) and flexibility exercises (improving your posture and range of motion around your joints). Each of these areas are equally important and should be included in your exercise programme.

Cardiovascular Exercise

In this article I will be detailing cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise is necessary for a number of reasons: Firstly, it improves the efficiency of your heart and lungs and enables your body to uptake and circulate greater quantities of oxygen. If your body is able to absorb and pump more oxygen then you are less likely to get out of breath as easily. You will be able to continue exercising for longer periods of time and your heart and lungs will generally be healthier. This is known as cardiovascular fitness.

If we overlook the obvious then there are more advantages to working at greater intensities. If we use a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is too easy and 10 is almost impossible then you should try to exercise at a minimum of 7. At 7 it should be hard and you will sweat, but you should be able to maintain the intensity for at least 20 minutes. When you exercise at this level, changes begin to happen in your body. Your body lays down more mitochondria in the muscles and the mitochondria are responsible for absorbing oxygen. To cut a long story short, your body can only burn fat in the presence of oxygen, so the higher your body’s capability to absorb oxygen, the greater your capacity to burn fat!

There is another school of thought that implies you should exercise at an intensity of 6 out of 10, as this is the ‘fat burning zone’. Let me just clarify this: you DO NOT burn more fat working at an intensity of 6 out of 10 than you do at an intensity of 7 out of 10! PERIOD! However, if you cannot sustain at least 20 minutes at higher intensity then you should reduce your level of difficulty to achieve the duration. In my opinion this is the only time you should exercise at a lower intensity (other than warm ups and cool downs). Working at 6 out of 10 will NOT encourage your body to undergo change and become a fat burning machine!

That said, only work up to greater difficulties as your fitness develops. You should be in this for the long haul, so don’t over do it in the first few days! Start with what you are able to do and aim to progress over time. Also, seek advice from your physician if you have any health conditions or concerns.

In my next post, I will be outlining a strategy for managing and improving your cardiovascular exercise and fitness. This will provide a workable guide for any person who is ready to begin exercising TODAY, or who has been exercising and wishes to develop further.

Please be advised that when you exercise your body uses more oxygen and as a byproduct more free radicals are created within your body. Free radicals are volatile molecules, which attack and damage healthy cells in a process called oxidation (or free-radical damage). It is widely believed that we must ensure that we take in sufficient quantities of antioxidants (i.e. vitamins) to neutralise free radicals and protect our bodies against degenerative diseases.

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About the Author: Andrew Smith is an Independent Associate for Usana Health Sciences and is the webmaster of www.usanainhealth.com. Check out his health blog at www.usanainhealth.com/products and business blog at www.usanainhealth.com/business