Everybody knows that getting regular exercise is important to improve your health. What most people don’t know is that how you exercise can have a tremendous impact on what that benefit is and how great a benefit you will get.
Overall Health
Using your body on a daily basis and getting oxygen-rich blood flowing through you is the foundation for better health. Without getting some form of regular exercise, the body will generally start a slow, steady decline – hence the ‘use it or lose it’ idea.
From most of the data that is available, ‘regular’ exercise means getting at least 30 minutes of exercise at least 3-5 times/week. Taking a stroll round the block, jogging, biking at a leisurely pace and just about anything else that elevates your heart rate but still allows you to carry on a conversation is enough to satisfy this requirement. However, this provides only the foundation for better health; and foundations are meant to be built upon.
Weight loss
In order to lose weight effectively, most research shows that a person needs to increase their heart rate to 75-85% of their maximum heart rate (maximum heart rate generally = 220 – your age) for periods of time during your workout. This is often referred to as ‘interval training’ and if you get your heart rate up enough times it’s often referred to as ‘high intensity interval training’. Getting the heart rate up is the key to prolonged and sustained weight loss and incorporating resistance/strength training into this mix at least 3x/week get super-charge weight loss efforts. Workout like Cross Fit ®and Insanity® are based on these principles, but you can just as easily make up your own routines with the help of a personal trainer.
For maximum weight loss, a person generally needs at least 2-3 20-40 minute sessions of resistance training per week as well as 2-3 30-45 minute sessions of aerobic training involving intervals. To learn more about why this is necessary and why this type of training is far more effective than aerobic training alone, click here.
Aerobic endurance
In order to increase your cardiovascular health and improve your aerobic capacity, you need to log in more time engaging in aerobic activity. This leads many people to put in hours and hours of time focusing on their given sport, which makes intuitive sense. However, it may not be the best approach.
Doing the same activity over and over again also puts one at risk for over-use injuries and can create any number of structural imbalances. Research has shown for several decades that incorporating cross-training as well as high-intensity interval training can not only cut down on injuries, they can improve overall aerobic capacity while simultaneously decreasing the amount of time a person needs to engage in their chosen activity to achieve a given level of endurance.
It appears that the energy systems of the body overlap more than we think and that revving up the high-intensity machinery can help improve aerobic endurance, which is a huge benefit for those with limited time to work out.
Bottom line: it’s important to get your body moving pretty much every day. If you have specific health goals in mind, be sure and tailor your workouts to maximize your time spent getting a good sweat on!
