Mapping Out Your Journey: 

 

What every fitness program should include

Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise--or aerobics, as it's sometimes called--is a central pillar in health and fitness programming.  Altogether, cardiovascular exercise encompasses the function of the heart, circulatory system, and lungs.  The goal behind cardiovascular training is to increase the body's ability to perform an activity on a sustained level for an endured length of time.  Training in this way helps in the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and blood, transporting enriched blood to organs, muscles, and other tissues without strain.  What does this mean in terms of measurable benefits?  Lots!  Reduced blood pressure, weight management, and lowered triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol) are just a few of the known potential benefits of consistent cardiovascular training.  But cardiovascular training has also been used in the treatment of diabetes, sleep disorders, depression, and pulmonary rehabilitation.  Furthermore, cardiovascular training can help boost the performance of activities not immediately associated with this mode of exercise, such as golf, dancing, and muscle sculpting.  Finally, effective, sound cardiovascular training can go a long way in reducing the risk of injury.

So what constitutes a cardiovascular exercise?  The activity should be low enough in intensity that you can perform it continuously for at least 15 minutes without excessive fatigue, yet high enough in intensity that it brings your heart rate up to an optimal training range.  This range will differ slightly based on your age and fitness level, but in general, the goal is between 60-80% of your age-predicted maximum heart rate.  To calculate your age-predicted maximum heart rate, subtract your age from the number 220.  To determine the percent range, multiply this new number by .6 and .8.  For example, a 30-year-old's maximum heart rate is 190 (220 minus 30 equals 190).  To determine the training heart rate range, you would then multiply 190 x .6 = 114; and 190 x .8 = 152.  Thus, a 30-year-old's target heart rate training range is 114-152 beats per minute (bpm).  Bear in mind that this number can be skewed if you are on certain types of medication; please check with your physician both for clearance to exercise and to find out how best to determine your personal heart rate training range.

Examples of cardiovascular exercise include walking, hiking, group aerobic classes, biking, swimming, rowing, jogging, stairclimbing, and racquetball.  Circuit-style training--in which you alternate between short bursts of strength training and aerobic exercise such as walking--can also satisfy a cardiovascular training component.

Examples of exercise that do not fall into cardiovascular training include weight training, calisthenics, yoga, Pilates, baseball, golf (particularly if you drive a cart!), and body sculpting.  While these activities can be great fitness activites--and in some cases, provide benefits that cardiovascular training cannot, they by themselves do not satisfy the criteria needed to be considered aerobic.

 

Strength Training

Strength training involves the training of target muscles and muscle groups to promote an increase in both strength and endurance.  Translation?  Toning!  While cardiovascular exercise can help a bit in this department, effective change of body shape can only come from targeted resistance training.  Types of strength training vary, but the primary goal is the same:  make a muscle fatigue within a certain quantity of repetitions.  When a muscle fatigues, it responds by increasing in tone.  Some of the more obvious benefits of strength training include improved physical appearance, positive shift in body composition (percentage of fat vs. lean mass), increased metabolism (due to the increase in lean muscle, which burns more energy), lowered risk of age-related obesity, and reduced risk of injury.

Types of exercise that can fall into the strength training category include free weight exercises, calisthenics, certain yoga postures and techniques, use of resistance elastic, stability ball, and other strengthening tools, and circuit machines.

Types of exercise that generally do not deliver adequate strength training benefits include walking, hiking, jogging, swimming, and biking.  A group aerobics class might provide a strength training element, but only if the class is designed to include resistance exercises; if you're active and dancing around throughout the entire class, then you need to seek outside strength training.

 

Flexibility Training

Ah, the most misunderstood and misused element of all....flexibility training.  It seems most of us who exercise fall drastically short in attending to adequate flexibility training for ourselves.  And this is a shame, because like the other categories, there are important benefits that stretching and stretching alone can deliver that the others cannot.  The most obvious of all, of course, is that of increased flexibility.  Duh.  But what does this mean for you?  Well, increased flexibility can have long-reaching preventative influences against injury.  This is true both in our everyday lives and in sport; when you increase your range of motion, you improve your performance.  Furthermore, enhanced flexibility can boost the effectiveness of your other fitness activities; this is based on the principle that a wider range of motion will demand more energy from the working muscle than a shorter range of motion.  This translates to faster fatigue, and thus a greater stimulus to tone a muscle.  Beyond this benefit, though, are many others.  A carefully executed stretch can help stimulate blood flow to the joints, providing much-needed oxygen and nutrients, and helping in joint lubrication.  This may help thwart the onset--or intensity--of osteoarthritis, which was once believed to be an inevitable part of the aging process, but now considered potentially preventable.  And because the correct method of stretching involves slow movement, long holds, and relaxing the target muscles, you'll reap the added benefit of promoting stress reduction.  Long-term stress management plays a role in lowering cortisol levels; this is important, as the hormone cortisol can be a risk factor in many diseases, including....get this...obesity!  The bottom line:  ya gotta stretch.

Flexibility training can encompass many activities and techniques, but one of the best ways to stretch is with yoga--that is, correctly applied yoga.  Power yoga, if done too quickly, is less effective than slower methods.  Yoga is ideal due to its fusion of physical, mental, and spiritual focus, which further enables each stretch to be maximally effective.  The pace helps deepen your reduction of stress and your muscles' ability to relax.  Other forms of stretching can be experienced through Pilates, and T'ai Chi.

Activities that don't fall under the flexibility training category include walking, jogging, group aerobic exercise (2 minutes at the tail end of class doesn't cut it), biking, power yoga that only runs at hyper-fast speeds, weight lifting, and most sporting activities.  In fact, many activities may actually decrease flexibility.  This is not to say you shouldn't necessary do them; it simply underlines the importance of counter-balancing their tightening effect on the muscles with an effective stretching program.