Synergy Sports

Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category

There are numerous definitions of fitness today but one that has stood the test of time was that proposed by Aristotle around about 2,500 years ago. He put it quite simply when he said that something that is well suited to its purpose is fit. If we look at the human body and examine its skeleton, muscles, lungs, cardiovascular system and endocrine system I think it is fair to say that it is suited to its purpose.

However, while the human body may be well suited to its purpose and therefore fit, it will only stay that way with regular exercise for each and every one of its component parts.

For example, physical activity causes your heart to work harder, increasing blood flow which both floods the body with fresh oxygen and removes waste products.

Similarly, exercise increases your lung capacity so that it can draw in extra oxygen to bathe the tissues and help power the heart. Greater lung capacity also means greater exhalation to remove harmful carbon dioxide, which is a waste product of certain chemical reactions within the body.

Regular, exercise helps to increase High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (which is one ‘good’ form of cholesterol. It also helps to regulate blood sugar levels and converts stored fat into sugars that are used to provide energy. This process helps to prevent obesity and is important in the control of such conditions as diabetes.

All of these benefits, while very real, are also largely unseen but other benefits of a regular fitness program are more obvious and include an increased muscle mass, toned legs, arms, stomach, buttocks, and a generally healthier looking skin. At the same time exercise provides greater strength, improved balance, higher endurance and, more often than not, a better mental outlook on life.

Of course different forms of exercise routine will concentrate on different areas of the body. Aerobic routines will help the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems, weight training builds muscle tone and mass, pilates and yoga aid balance, flexibility and muscular control. But, while each of these may focus on particular areas, they all help to improve fitness throughout the body, since the various systems of the body are all inter-connected.

Best of all, these benefits, at least to some extent, can be achieved with a minimum of daily effort. Moderately intense activity for as little as 20 to 30 minutes each day, five days a week, will go a long way toward improving your overall fitness.

A number of simple activities which provide excellent exercise can be performed without the need for any special training or equipment. These might include a brisk walk, a short daily jog or even simply taking the stairs rather than the elevator.

More vigorous activity such as playing tennis, a few laps in the swimming pool, an hour on the treadmill or exercise bike, or any of a dozen other activities, can increase your fitness considerably with only a small investment of time and money.

For those who are really committed to achieving a high level of fitness then there are numerous gym available and just about every kind of home fitness equipment imaginable can be purchased today at prices to fit all budgets.

Anaerobic fitness is the force component of fitness in general, which also contains at least two other essential components: aerobic fitness (the part of cardio-vascular resistance) and joint mobility. Speed and skill are native qualities and they are not very relevant for the health state – which is the main concern in mass fitness, the one meant to keep the body in good shape. The purpose of anaerobic training programs is developing the force, the fortifying of the body or the muscular mass. There are situations when only force or muscle fortifying is intended. The typical example for these situations is given by the sports organized in categories, in which physical force (with the interdiction of going over a certain limit of weight) is tested.

Growth of muscular mass determines increase of force and fortifying of the skeletal muscles. In this case, the fitness programs are very similar to body building trainings, without being followed by the spectacular, yet dangerous changes, specific to body building. The purpose of anaerobic fitness is uniform, balanced and harmonious development of all the muscles, without ignoring their functionality. This last idea is important for making a clear difference between fitness and the tendencies, many times narcissistic, manifested by body building practitioners. The sportsman who takes up fitness wants to be able to and is able to do something with his muscles, more than showing them in contests or in different other occasions and places (disco, swimming pool, clubs, etc.). One of the important characteristics of anaerobic fitness trainings is the use of general programs, during which all or almost all the muscles are worked out in one training session.

In body building the programs are divided and trainings are focused every time on one, two or at most three groups of muscles; while in fitness one training can be focused on a certain area, but it does not exclude the other muscles, which will benefit, directly or indirectly, of at most one exercise for each group of muscles. This way, the programs are not excessively long; they take an average of one hour and fifteen minutes; thus the catabolic faze is avoided; this usually appears in very long training sessions (two hours or even more). Another modality of reducing the time of training is doing super-series whose object is to train two antagonistic groups of muscles (chest and back or biceps and triceps, etc.). Thus, for each group of muscles must be performed a series of exercises, without a break in between; the break is taken only at the end of this double effort.

The programs can also contain triple series or even giant-series (more than three exercises one after the other). The intensity of the training can be considerably increased: many muscles can be trained in a short time. The weekly frequency of the training remains the same (three sessions); so the aerobic phase can be covered in the free days. If only three or even two weekly sessions are possible, mixed programs can be adopted: after the anaerobic fitness, always done at the beginning of the session, 15-20 minutes of aerobic fitness are added for balancing the two phases (anaerobic and aerobic). In this case, also, training must not take longer than one hour and a half; otherwise the phase of catabolic processes is initiated – a phase in which muscles ‘self-cannibalize’. Anaerobic fitness is recommended to all somatic types, with specific differences of modality of training.

In the cases of ectomorphic and mezomorphic types, all the series (3 or 4) performed on the same machine must be finished, and then the machine and the group of muscles which is trained must be changed at the same time. This system is also called ‘workshop training’. In the case of the endomorphic type (the overweight), circuit training is preferred: the group of muscles trained is changed after every series and the whole circuit must be repeated three or four times. This type of training consumes more calories because an aerobic component is introduced by not having breaks between series and slightly increasing the cardiac frequency. Growth of muscular mass through fitness programs can’t exceed one weight category (5-6 kg), but they do not misbalance the other motion parameters.

If asked, “what does fitness mean to you?”, the variety of answers received would be quite large to say the least.

This is because fitness is specific (hence the importance of being specific in fitness) to each individual and can not effectively be grouped into categories.

You’ve got your powerlifters, marathon runners, bodybuilders, etc. but even within each of those groups lies concepts and methods specific to each person working toward their own “idea” of what fitness means to them.

The easiest way to narrow down what specific fitness concept you are related to is to simply step back and ask yourself, “What do I really want to achieve or how would I like to use the results of my efforts?”.

For example, do you really want to get better at playing soccer? Do you think to yourself, “I know if I had more stamina I could easily keep up with the other team.” Just by thinking of that very simple idea you have almost instantly narrowed down what type of fitness is specific to you. You most likely should be focusing on cardio to become lean and build more stamina.

Now I understand it isn’t always this straightforward, many times people want to have their cake and eat it too. For example, perhaps the person in the soccer example above wants to build the stamina but doesn’t want to lose the muscle? What does he or she do?

The good thing about this situation is that there is always an option that is, again, fitness specific to cater to each individual; it just takes some time and patience to get into this habit.

Out of curiosity, I took a survey of 50 random college students (male and female) to find out what fitness meant to them.

Of all the males surveyed (34 males) 73.5% of them said fitness or being fit was being “ripped”. Now is this true for all guys? Obviously not, because the other 26.5% had a different idea of what fitness was all about.

Same rule applied with the 16 girls surveyed on in the opposite direction. 94% determined their level of specific fitness was being lean and slender. While only 6% had thoughts otherwise.

The important thing to remember here is the fact that this was a survey of only 50 college students. When the sample size is larger you can only imagine the variety of answers you would receive.

My point is this, whether you are physically active already or thinking about become physically active now or in the future, always make sure you are aiming towards a fitness goal that is specific to you and your needs.

If you would like to read more about this idea of “Specific Fitness”, feel free to drop by http://specificfitness.blogspot.com where I will be posting new information, recipes, workout routines, and more. Comments and questions always welcome!