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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