Commit to Get Fit
By Matt Church
You drive a car every day. Bit by bit the air creeps out of your tyres
and the handling of your vehicle gets worse. The changes in the cars
performance are small and they creep up on you so it's not until you
actually put air back in to the tyres that you realise how bad things had
become - or maybe how good things could be. Frequent exercise has the same
effect. The positive improvements you get in energy levels and the general
feel good as a result of working out come on slowly, they also take a
while to disappear once you stop exercising. In a way this 'creeping'
effect plus the separation from the act of exercise and it's benefits are
key factors that explain why people struggle to 'commit to get fit'.
We often exercise for the direct benefits of fat loss and while we know
that of the four factors affecting weight loss include exercise we also
know that the number one factor is reducing the amount of fat you eat.
Exercise alone will not cause significant fat reduction, primarily you
need to cut out the fat's in your diet, move more often and eat smaller
meals more often. Exercise however can do much more than help you lose
weight.
Exercise comes in so many forms it's worth clarifying what we are
talking about. Resistance training with weights is fantastic for a number
of benefits including increasing your metabolism, improving mobility and
increasing self-esteem - but not what this articles focus is on. Movement,
incidental exercise or what the experts are now calling 'Spontaneous
Physical Activity' is also crucial to a modern lifestyle plan. I read
recently that we are moving a staggering 9 kilometers less each day when
compared to our counterparts of 10 years ago, however this is also a
subject for another time. Long slow rhythmic exercise with an average
heart rate of 120 beats per minute for longer than 50 minutes is great for
immediate fat loss but also not what this article is focussing on. It's
the tough huff and puff workouts that deserve some attention.
There is a well known exercise prescription that the 'Norm' and 'Life
be in it' campaign pushed which said that if we simply get out and move 3
times a week for 20 minutes we would be doing enough exercise. From a
general health perspective this is true. Cholesterol levels, the risk of
heart disease and basic circulation all improves as a result of moderate
movement. But what about the tough exercise, what about the sweaty hard
hitting gutsy exercise? What about the 30 minutes of running, stair
climbing, cycling or rowing that leaves you red in the face and sweating
for hours? Where does this fit in? Why should we do it in this age of
moderation, weight loss and balance? The answer lies in the phrase 'peak
performance'.
To be a peak performer you need to be on 80% of the time and up when
life demands it! It is here that the tough workouts pay off. Investing in
2-4 workouts a week that cause you a challenge will build up your energy
reserves and capacity for handling pressure.
We all have a point where our lungs can't extract more oxygen out of
the air we breathe, this is called your anaerobic threshold. We can
improve this only through tough exercise. If you ever get a chance to
physically watch a marathon being run you will be staggered by the speed
of the runners, television doesn't do this speed justice. As you stand on
the sideline Marathon runners appear to be sprinting past you and they
keep it up for hours. They have improved their anaerobic threshold to the
point where they can maintain an intensity of exercise that would for the
average person cause them to run out of steam in minutes. You improve your
anaerobic threshold by training at the point where you are just out of
breath. The benefit of this kind of training lies in the fact that
everyday activities, which may have previously caused you to be out of
breath, will become easy and fall under your threshold. You will have more
energy, be able to handle situations that demand high amounts of energy,
recover more quickly from stress and strenuous activity and generally feel
more capable during the day.
We also find that the tough exercise causes your body to adapt in more
ways than simply how well your body utilizes oxygen. People who improve
their fitness also affect the enzymes that regulate how a fat cell
operates. Fitter people have more of the fat releasing enzyme Hormone
Sensitive Lypase (HSL). HSL is responsible for the removal of fat from the
fat cell into the blood so that fat can become your predominant fuel
source. Women who typically have less of this enzyme are able through
tough exercises to turn their fat releasing chemistry on in a positive
manner.
A final benefit of the tough huff puff stuff is the effect that it has
on many of our stress chemicals, which exhaust people under pressure. When
under stress our body produces various chemicals designed to make you
immune to pain and give you the rush of energy you need to get things done
in crisis. Sometimes these chemical are expressed through your system as
in the case of waking up while driving and noticing that you had nodded
off, at other times they trickle through your system slowly building up
over time. These stress chemicals if allowed to build up unchecked may
cause heart disease and affect the quality of your relationships. Stress
has been linked to cancer, diabetes, depression and other debilitating
illnesses. A short list of these chemicals includes cortisol, adrenaline,
dopamine and epinephrine. Tough exercise burns off excess levels of these
chemicals.
Exercise becomes a stress management tool for people under
high-pressure environments. The downside of this kind of stress management
is that you never address the environmental issues that caused the stress
you simply buy your self time. A day or so after the exercise your levels
of these chemicals have creeped back up causing you to need another fix of
tough exercise. You become addicted to exercise and unable to feel good
without it. Of course there are worse things to be addicted to - yet
people who do become addicted to exercise will exercise when they have the
flu or sore knee rather than being able to rest for a day or so and give
the body the time it requires to heel itself.
Most press at the moment regarding the benefits of exercise seems to be
focussing on the benefits of moderate activity rather than the tough huff
puff stuff. Certainly if our goal is to make exercise accessible to all
then this is a good PR campaign. At the same time we don't want to
discount the significant benefits of pushing your self when you
exercise.
Note: A vigorous exercise program should always be preceded by a
medical check up.
About the author: Matt Church is a speaker and
trainer who travels over 100 days a year delivering seminars to
corporations helping their employees lay the foundations for success. If
you would like to help your employees get their priorities right or would
like to find out more about a seminar run by Matt Church then visit his
website at www.mattchurch.com.au
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