Kenneth Gardner
EXERCISING WORKSbest when you work out a plan. A plan helps you to make gradual, yet steady progress toward your goals.
Planning a programme includes assessing how fit you are now, determining where you want to be and choosing the correct activities to help you get there.
To assess your current level of fitness, you will need to evaluate your endurance, strength, flexibility and body composition. Your current level of physical activity will also be helpful in setting the goals that you hope to achieve. Your goals must be important to keep you motivated.
An ideal fitness programme combines a physically-active lifestyle with an exercise programme. For inactive persons, your goal is to start with moderately-intense physical activities, preferably every day, for about 30 minutes. These activities can include brisk walking, climbing the stairs more frequently and doing more manual work around the home. These activities need not be done very vigorously, but done so that you experience a moderate increase in your heart and breathing rates. Likewise, the activity time can be broken up into small intervals over the course of the day.
RELATED COMPONENTS OF FITNESS
For persons who are already active, the next level of a formal exercise programme includes activities to develop all the related components of fitness (endurance, muscle strength and flexibility). Endurance is developed by continuous rhythmic movements of large muscle groups in activities such as walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, aerobic exercises and playing games. Your endurance will develop better if your skill level is good enough to allow longer periods of continuous play with less frequent breaks.
Muscle strength and endurance can be developed through resistance training. Training with weights or performing exercises such as push-ups and sit-ups can develop both strength and endurance.
Flexibility is developed by stretching the major muscle groups regularly. A desirable body composition can be developed through a good diet and regular exercise. An exercise programme with an endurance component is the best way for reducing body fat while muscle mass will be developed through resistance exercises.
Fitness programmes can vary from one individual to the next, based on the time of day that you can do the activities. The programme should also be a reflection of the type of activity that you are interested in and the environment and/or the facilities that are available. Some of us may be able to practise football four to six afternoons each week while others may only be able to jog around the football field three times each week. The exercise routine could also be just a matter of practising the skills of the game or doing specific drills that can be used in any game.
Persons who are without facilities can develop an aerobic programme around exercises for the arms, abdomen, buttocks and legs. The activities could simply be contracting, stretching and relaxing the muscle groups.
Consistency is critical to improving your fitness. Fitness improvements are lost if too much time elapses between exercise sessions. Getting in shape should be a gradual process with the aim of maintaining it well into the future. It is important to rest between exercise sessions to recover enough to repeat the programme at the level that is required for improving your fitness. If the routine is irregular, there will be little or no progress. As important as physical fitness is, it is only part of a well-rounded life.
Kenneth Gardner is an exercise physiologist at the G. C. Foster College of Physical Education: email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
