Hello fellow YMCA fitness members and greater fitness community! Once again, I’m excited to be here to discuss exercise, fitness, and the results that come from a structured exercise program. I hope you all have been tuning in on my posts and that the information here has been helpful to you. You know… many of you will hear me or have already heard me mention several times the term, “exercise” or “fitness” program. But simply put, if you have made exercise a part of your life at least three times per week, then the good news is that this is considered a structural exercise program. Which brings me to discuss with you today about what is actually considered exercise, and 4 components to consider in order to substantiate the difference between exercise and activity.
First and foremost, there is actually a legitimate difference between activity and exercise. Just keep in mind, exercise is activity, but activity is not always considered exercise. For instance, a leisure in the park (though peaceful and heart healthy, and often called ‘exercise’) is not considered exercise unless it causes an increase in resting heart to rise to at least 100 beats a minute. So walking in the park may be for some of us, “exercise” but for others, simply “activity”– depending upon our level of fitness. I’ve had several people tell me that their exercise program involves running their children around all week long and getting them to and from all of their daily activities. Though commendable to say the least, this is very much so, “activity”, but certainly does not fall into the category of what is considered “exercise”. Why is knowing the difference so important? Is activity never appropriated so as long as we are doing an exercise program? Glad you asked! Obviously, we would never get anything done throughout our daily lives if we simply excluded activity altogether; even our leisure activity would suffer with just exercise alone. It is important to understand that activities such as leisure walks, going to a ball game, out to eat, bowling, bingo, or even attending birthday parties are a very important part of a healthy life, however, does not inhibit the necessary components to yield the same benefits that a structured exercise program would. These benefits include a decrease in resting heart rate, greater cardiovascular strength and endurance, a decrease in stress levels, and promotes overall health and well-being. So by knowing the difference, those of you who intend to exercise in order to yield benefits and results that come from structured “exercise”, will indeed be exercising, and not simply being active.
The 4 components I mentioned earlier that must be present to define a structured exercise program is Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type (FITT). Some of you may have heard of the FITT principle. The FITT principle implies that in order to yield the benefit and results of exercise, one must consider and apply these 4 principles to every workout session. The frequency of your workout sessions is important and must be consistent, so that the body has an opportunity to adapt and get proficient through each workout. Exercising at 3-4 days per week on a 7 day week is necessary so that the body responds in a positive way to what your asking it to do. The second principle to take into consideration is the intensity of your workout, or in other words, how hard you work within a given period of time. I would suggest working out slightly above a level your body is used to in order for strength and growth to occur, otherwise chances are that you will only maintain current strength levels; you won’t decrease in ability and likely maintain your current strength level, but on the other hand, strength will also not improve. I will note that workout intensity should be measured according to your current fitness and strength levels and increased over time in a linear way, meaning slightly build the intensity of your workouts as according to the demands of your body. The third FITT principle is the length of time, or duration of each bout (within a workout) and of the total workout session as a whole. Length of bouts along with the total length of your workouts will ultimately depend upon ‘how many’ exercises one performs within a given workout, and ‘how many’ times each exercise is performed. By designating a set amount of time for each exercise this will ensure that whatever system or part of the body you are targeting, will receive the necessary attention for those desired results. Lastly, is the the type of workouts and exercises you will be doing. Understandably, we all have different motives for exercising that for each of us would generally be centered around what we feel our needs are, whether it be strength, muscular development, cardiovascular endurance, toning, or overall health and well-being. So each one of these desired qualities consists of exercises that are designed to target and promote that particular need. For example, if I wanted to improve my cardiovascular health, I would choose exercises that would increase my heart rate for a given period of time. I wouldn’t spend an entire session doing machine weights, right? Likewise, if I really wanted to go in that day and work overall muscular strength, I would need to choose exercises that involved putting resistance on a particular area of the body or muscle group, and not do treadmill running.
Once again, thank you very much for reading all my posts. I realize that some of the information may seem weighty or become overwhelming, but if so, by all means ask questions and I’ll be sure to answering them accordingly. For most of us, if not all (of us) exercise to yield a result or the fruit of our labor, (if you will). Therefore I try to be as accurate as possible to ensure that exercisers here at the YMCA are getting most out of their workouts. My initial goal is to get good information to Y members and the greater community, then over time, begin to speak brief and specific to each activity that the YMCA offers, such as fitness classes, personal training, swimming, youth sport, etc. and to what benefit(s) each activity entails. Until then, thank you again for tuning in. God bless, Happy Thanksgiving, and happy workouts!