Exercising 101

Exercise is another aspect to this whole getting fit thing. It is equally important to understand the way your body, “the machine”, looks at exercise. You also want to keep in mind what you have learned so far as it relates to your exercise routine. For example, you don't want to go out for a 2 hour run, burn 1000 calories and then not eat for the rest of the night. As we talked about earlier, if your body feels as though it may starve after workouts it is going to learn to store fat for your body to feed on after your workouts. As mentioned previously, gear your eating to your workout for before and after. Some trainers don't recommend eating right after, but the consensus does recommend having some sort of protein intake before and after from the perspective of giving your body enough energy to not feel like quitting your workout for lack of protein.

Step number one, drink plenty of water. I haven't mentioned it yet, but water is obviously your key hydrator. Drinking plenty of it will aid you through many aspects of the whole process. Try and make it your primary drink throughout your day. Now let's focus on your exercise remembering to mix it up and gear it to fit your goals. Hmm, guess we have to take a step back and discuss your goals. This getting fit is hard work isn't it, and we haven't even broken a sweat yet.

I am just going to break your goals down into two sections, are you looking to build muscle or just slim down and tone your whole body. Building muscle will help in your overall daily calorie burn. Muscles burn more calories so the more muscle mass you have the more calories your body will burn during its everyday function of just keeping you alive. Therefore, if you are just beginning, you may want to start with some muscle building exercises and progress them into muscle maintenance with total body toning down the line.

In muscle building, you have always heard of "no pain, no gain". There is truth and myth in this statement depending on who you talk to, but I am going to explain it a bit more basically than that. You don't want to drive yourself to injury. Keep in mind that not properly stretching prior and after exercise can cause injury when you aren't performing exercises correctly. Once you have mastered your exercise routine, stretching can become more of a warm-up exercise and less of an injury prevention necessity.

On the other side, muscle does not grow unless they have been broken down. That is where the pain comes in. When you work your muscles to their exhaustion, the tiny fibers making up the muscle actually tear. (Note: please don’t go to the gym and pick up a 100 lb weight and tear your muscles in half and think this was the advice. These are micro tears that simply occur from the muscle working extremely hard to the max of their current capability. All of these tiny fibers are what comprise the muscle tissue. Imagine them as stress fractures like you see in wood or concrete, just with the ability to fill them in and grow bigger.)

When the body repairs the torn muscle fibers, the muscle grows bigger. Again, since your body is a machine, it is reacting accordingly to the new pressure you have put onto it. Knowing it may sometimes be forced into strain and absolute muscle exhaustion, it knows and adapts to be able to handle increased strain by building bigger muscles. If you never take your muscles to this point, it will know its current size suffices, and therefore won't need to grow. No pain, no gain. Got it?

I am going to qualify exercise here as a scheduled interval whereby you are making concentrated effort to follow a plan with detailed goals - walking to the mailbox does not count for this part. In other words, 3 times a week minimum for 30 minutes. The American Heart Association is now recommending an hour, but 30 minutes is the key for a reason. It has been shown that it takes approximately 20 minutes of elevated heart activity for your body to start burning extra calories - calories above and beyond keeping you alive. Consider these the calories that are shedding off of your love handles. The longer you are able to workout after these 20 minutes, keeping an elevated heart rate, the more calories you are shedding.

Link to this article:
<a href="http://www.fitnessandhealthstore.com/Exercising 101.php" target="_blank">Health and Fitness Tips</a>