Its been a while since I wrote anything, as we are in the process of updating the website, but wanted to share some thoughts. I read an article recently that talked about the authors view on the difference between Training and Exercise. Exercise in general, I believe, is moving your body, engaging your muscles, getting your heart rate up, being active. There are a lot of benefits to general exercise that range from mobility, to flexibility, weight loss, overall health, etc. These things include sports with your friends, like the pick up game of basketball, or football. It, to me, also encompasses a lot of what people do in the gym every day: getting on the elliptical trainer, or stationary bike, taking a variety of group fitness classes, or even generic, non-program specific weight training. All of these are good things! Training, however, is much more specific, it has a purpose. When you train for a marathon, youre running with the goal of completing, or improving on your time, in a 26 mile run. When you train for a competition in martial arts, you have to train for that specific competition: if youre doing forms, you train for flexibility, power, balance, and you do your forms over and over and over. If youre training for strength, youre lifting heavy weights in a variety of ways, depending on what exactly you want to be stronger at doing, like going for a personal best in dead lifts. When you want a specific body type, that requires training too. All of this amounts to the fact that you get what you work towards. So lets say you have some weight to lose just to be healthy and in shape, what do you do? Should you train for a marathon? Should you train for a competition? You can, but only if those things are specifically what you want to accomplish; if youre just looking for weight loss it can be a by-product of those things, but its not guaranteed. For generic weight loss, I believe generic exercise is best, but that doesnt mean it should be easy. Generic and easy are two different things. To lose weight you need to push into the anaerobic zone, and increase your Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) for an extended time. That causes your body to burn calories long after the workout. Whatever the workouts are that you enjoy, the classes that you love doing, if they get you to that pushed hard, sweaty mess state, youre on the way (as long as you match your nutrition to that as well!). What if you want to have a figure competitors phsyique? You have to train specifically for that. Can you start on that with 25, 45, 50 lbs to lose? Yes you can, and the weight will come off, but to get that specific end result you have to work toward the specific result. You cant train for a marathon and expect to come away looking like a fitness model; to look like a fitness model you have to train, and eat, like a fitness model. To compete in any type of competition you have to be specific, and stay on target. For me, targeted training works best because I am focus and goal oriented. I like to know exactly what Im working toward, and find that specific path. I like to be able to asses my progress based on what I am trying to achieve. But being that specific isnt for everyone. Some people want overall improvements, general functional levels of fitness and health, without specializing in one thing. Thats great too. Find the path that works for you, get on that path and dont stop moving. Every day you do that you are closer to your destination, regardless of how specified or general it is.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 08:35:06 +0000
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