If You’re Going to Workout, Don’t Half Ass It

"Any workout which does not involve a certain minimum of danger or responsibility does not improve the body – it just wears it out." ~ Norman Mailer

The truth of the matter, when it comes to working out, is that you need to push yourself to fatigue instead of maintaining a pace that you can continue indefinitely. The "danger" comes from knowing that your getting close to being unable to perform another rep or another lap. This means the weight you used or the pace you set was close to your limit.

Adaptation

One of the main concepts of training is that your body is highly adaptable to what you throw at it. If you train with heavy weights than you are going to build strength and muscle mass. If you run hard, you are going to build endurance. This also means you have to workout hard each and every time you train. Your body is going to adapt to the previous training session which means you’ll have to lift progressively heavier weights and try to run faster times to continue to progress.

Overuse

Overuse injuries occur when you perform the same exercises, repeatedly, over a long period of time. This is especially true if you are not used to working out for that extended period of time or workout for long periods of time over the course of several weeks or months without rest. This causes the ligaments and tendons in the joints to wear down and cause inflammation or other more severe injuries, like stress fractures or partial ligament tears.

While you may think working out for longer periods of time can be beneficial, research has repeatedly shown that higher intensity exercise is more beneficial for improving your body fat than extremely long duration activities at low intensities.

Recovery

It is important to remember that if you’re working out hard, then you need ample rest between your workouts. Usually, if you separate heavy lifting days or intense running days by 48 hours your body will have ample time to recovery. This means alternating heavy lifting days with heavy running days can be a highly effective way to train to get maximal improvements.

In addition to setting up your routines in this fashion, you need to take off a few extra days every couple of weeks in order for your body to get out any residual fatigue. This will allow your bones and small ligaments to optimally recover and can help prevent you from getting injured.

• To Your Continued Success
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• JJ Brawley N.C.P.T.
• San Diego’s Top Fitness and Weight Loss Expert
• Helping People Look Better Naked Since 2003
• Hard Body Boot Camp Program Coordinator
• San Diego’s Premier Boot Camp and Fitness Program
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Tags: San Diego Boot Camp, San Diego Fitness, San Diego Fitness Tips, San Diego Peronal Trainer

This entry was posted on January 27, 2012 at 3:16 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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