
WHAT IS EXERCISE?
For practical purposes, our understanding of productive exercise is precise but simple: Productive exercise is defined as planned physical activity performed in a specific manner in order to produce a specific response. In addition, productive exercise can be defined as that course of mechanical work specifically designed to initiate particular metabolic responses intended to enhance physiologic and physical performance capacities. Simply stated, real exercise consists of movements performed to produce changes in the body’s shape and function.
HOW MUCH EXERCISE IS ENOUGH?
A concept, which many people unfamiliar with proper exercise principles find difficult to understand, is the fact that exercise, to be efficient & productive, must be brief and infrequent for the level of intensity specified as beneficial. It is unfortunate that people have been led to believe that more is better, that executing more sets of more exercises more often is the key to increased muscular strength and size, as this has resulted in nothing but hundreds and thousands of wasted hours for such people, and the frustration of having achieved no meaningful level of progress. The three biggest mistakes people make with their exercise programs are to do too much, too often, and not nearly as hard as they should.
DOES TO MUCH EXERCISE PREVENT RESULTS?
Doing more exercise will not produce better results, can prevent results from being produced and, if taken far enough, will cause a loss of muscular strength and size. The erroneous belief that more is better is primarily based on a misunderstanding of what exercise is, and what it can do. If you perform an exercise correctly the first time, you will not be capable of performing a second set, much less a third or fourth. That said, it is understandable that extra sets are added (especially for the beginner) as achieving complete muscular fiber recruitment is enormously difficult and takes many years of training to accomplish. However, the better condition you are in, the more intense your workout should be in order to continue to see progress. If one is capable of performing a high volume of work, it is because they are not training with a meaningful level of intensity that would reduce their time in the gym in which case they are not stimulating their body to produce any significant improvements without outside aides. Even if the body were stimulated to produce some slight improvement, it would be left with very little adaptive energy and resources to do so. Unless one goes to the gym for the sake of entertainment, and has no interest in improving one’s physical condition, this is a complete waste of time. Such people are not exercising; they are merely playing with the equipment. Level of intensity is directly proportional to muscle fiber recruitment therefore; whenever the higher strata (Fast Twitch) muscles fibers are working, the lower strata (Slow Twitch) fibers MUST be working as hard as they can or else the stronger fibers wouldn’t be recruited or called upon.
IN A NUTSHELL
WHENEVER YOU ARE EXERCISING INTENSELY YOU ARE USING FAT AND SUGAR FOR FUEL!
Productive exercise is not a hobby or a diversion. It is ESSENTIAL for reasonable health and function for all people of ALL ages. All our physiological systems are arranged in such a way that they thrive on considerable physical stimuli in the form of muscle activity. Exercise should be considered a prescription for good health. As with the case of any potent medicine the dosage must be specifically determined and precisely administered.