Redefining Physical Fitness
Rev-Up and Rebalance
Redefining Physical Fitness:
Physical fitness is having the energy and strength you need to do all the things you want to do or believe you should do. The Totally Fit Life program is aimed at helping you become stronger, and have more energy, and see improvement in your overall health.
The Good News For You Today Is:
- You can be healthier by this time next year than you are today.
- You can be stronger, more flexible, and have greater “endurance” by this time next year than you are today.
- You can have more energy by this time next year than you have today.
- You can see some appreciable and measurable objective differences in ten weeks!
HEALTH:
To be healthy means to be free of disease and factors that contribute to disease.
STRENGTH:
Strength refers to your ability to work, lift weights, or finish a task in the short-term, but also to your “endurance” over a longer period. The stronger a person’s muscles, the greater the person’s ability to complete both short-term and long-term tasks.
What you do to exercise other muscles of the body is also beneficial to your entire cardiovascular system: heart, lungs, and blood vessels. If you want one muscle to be strong–with enduring strength–it’s the heart muscle!
Your body is a complex and interrelated system. Lifting weights, walking around a track, or using various pieces of exercise equipment have great benefit in helping you become stronger–but these exercises are beneficial in relation and in proportion to the health of your overall body.
There are two types of exercise that build up strength.
First, Aerobic Exercises are those that increase the flow of oxygen in the cardiovascular system. Aerobic exercises are especially beneficial for the heart and lungs. They make the heart muscle stronger.
Examples of aerobic exercises are walking, jogging, running, aerobic dancing, synchronized swimming exercises, swimming laps, cycling, and so forth.
Second, Strength-Training Exercises are exercises that build up specific muscle groups. These are also called resistance exercises.
Some benefits of Strength-Training Exercises: Strength-Training tones your muscles which looks great and raises your metabolism…which causes you to burn more calories 24 hours- a-day. Strength-Training can *reverse* the natural decline in your metabolism which begins around age 30. Strength-Training energizes you. Strength-Training has a positive effect on almost all of your 650+ muscles. Strength-Training reduces your risk of developing osteoporosis. Strength-Training improves your muscular endurance. Strength-Training will NOT develop big muscles on women….just toned muscles!
FLEXIBILITY.
As a person ages, he tends to become less flexible, and in some cases, less “mobile.” Much of this is owing to the fact that as people age they tend to take on jobs and tasks that are more and more sedentary. Flexibility exercises are best combined with aerobic or weight-training programs–do your stretching after your muscles are warmed up a little. For example, walk for several minutes before stretching leg muscles.
ENERGY.
Contrary to what many people think, exercise does not deplete energy. It adds to energy!
Exercise especially seems to boost energy levels if it is done in the early morning–before the first meal of the day.
Sustaining a Physical Fitness Program.
Especially when it comes to exercise, people often have difficult sustaining an exercise program.
Four basic issues:
VARIETY. Put variety into your program. You may want to walk for a couple of months, then swim for a few months, then bicycle for a few months. Variety makes work-out more fun, and when people have fun at exercising, they tend to stick with exercising! The more variety you have in a work-out, the less “burn out.”
DAILY. Do something six days a week. Exercise needs to be done daily, but not every type of exercise needs to be done every day.
GROUPS. Your exercise “group” may be your Team of 3. It may be a group exercise class at a local pool or gym. Working out with a group of people has great benefit. Not only will you enjoy the social camaraderie–again, if the exercise is more fun, you’ll exercise more–but you’ll get good exercise tips from other people in the program and you’ll be more motivated to continue with the program.
CHARTS and LOGS. Keep track of your progress in a graphic way by means of an exercise log, chart, graph, or some other means that give you a quick visual overview of what you are doing and what results you are achieving. If you can “see” progress, you’ll feel satisfaction and motivation simultaneously.
Physical-Fitness Goals for a Ten-Week Cycle.
- Be realistic
- Seek gradual improvement
- Establish rewards
Physical Fitness and Your Team of 3.
Your foremost responsibility to your Team of 3 members is to:
- Set goals–I recommend a minimal goal of six days a week of exercise.
- Report daily to your Team partners.
- Be a fountain of encouragement.
As an encourager, keep in mind that people often experience a tremendous “barrier” after they’ve been exercising for a few weeks–especially if they haven’t exercised in a while and are just resuming a new physical-fitness program. If you are with Team partners who are “newcomers” or “recent returnees” to physical fitness, be especially encouraging!
General Background:
As a Team of 3 your accountability to one another depends on the fact that you ARE active–generally on a good, fair, none scale. You can define “good active” and “fair active” among yourselves in any way you like. “Good active” might be thirty or more minutes of aerobics exercise, doing a full-set of weight-training exercises, doing flexibility exercises along with aerobics and weight-training, or participation in an exercise class. “Fair active” might mean going to the gym for ANY form of exercise, or doing less than thirty minutes of aerobics.
Journal:
In the journal provided on the Team of 3 site you should report to your Team of 3 members what kind of exercise you did. If you reach a milestone accomplishment–such as “I walked a full two miles for the first time today,” or “I walked a mile in under twelve minutes today,” or “I swam eighteen laps of the pool today–my first quarter mile”…feel free to share that achievement.
If you actually meet to exercise with your Team of 3 partners, set both “ultimate” goals and incremental goals. You might want to consider establishing a “group reward” if you make your goal–perhaps going to a movie or concert together. (Do NOT invest in concession-stand foods while you are there!)
Feel free to share with your Team of 3 members various tips that you acquire about exercise, exercise equipment, or about overall health factors.
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