Importance of Exercise

Why do we exercise?
The Benefits of Exercise
• Exercise increases energy levels
• Exercise improves muscle strength
• Exercise can help you to maintain a healthy weight
• Exercise improves brain function
• Exercise is good for your heart
• Staying active reduces the likelihood of developing some
degenerative bone diseases
• Improves your mood and gives you an improved sense of
well-being
• Exercise can help prevent and treat mental illnesses like
depression
• Keeping fit can reduce some of the effects of ageing
How Much Should you
Exercise?
 According to the American
College of Sports Medicine,
current guidelines suggest that to
stay healthy, adults between 19
and 64 should try to be active
daily and follow these
recommendations:
Cardiorespiratory Exercise
Cardiorespiratory exercise, often
abbreviated to 'cardio', is any exercise that
increases the heartbeat and breathing rate.

Such exercises include walking,

running, swimming, cycling, dancing and
team sports such as football, hockey,
basketball etc.
 You should get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity
exercise per week. These recommendations can be achieved
through:
• 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (five times a week)
• 20-60 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise (three times a week)
• a combination of both types.

 One continuous session combined with multiple shorter sessions

(of at least 10 minutes) is also acceptable.

 For those starting out, gradual progression of exercise time,

frequency and intensity is recommended. You are more likely to
stay on track and avoid injury if you start gently.

 Even if you can't reach these minimum targets you can still
benefit from some activity.
 Resistance Exercise
Resistance exercise is concerned
with working the bodies muscle groups
and building strength.

It is recommended that adults train

each major muscle group two or three
days each week using a variety of
exercises and equipment.
• Very light or light intensity resistance training is best for
older persons or previously sedentary adults new to exercise

• Two to four sets of each exercise will help adults improve

strength and power.

• For each exercise, 8-12 repetitions improve strength and

power, 10-15 repetitions improve strength in middle-age and
older persons starting exercise, while 15-20 repetitions
improve muscular endurance

• It is recommended that adults should wait at least 48 hours

between resistance training sessions.
Moderate vs Vigorous Intensity
There are a number of different ways to classify
the intensity of any exercise, some based on heart rate,
some on perceived exertion and some on how the
exercise affects your metabolic rate.

Generally Speaking...
Moderate-intensity activity should raise your heart rate, make
you breathe faster and make you feel warm enough to start to
sweat.
Vigorous intensity exercise will make you breathe hard, increase
your heart rate significantly and make you hot enough to sweat
profusely.
Examples of moderate intensity
exercise include:
· Brisk walking (100 steps/minute)
· Dancing
· Swimming or aqua aerobics
· Gentle cycling (5-9mph)
· Badminton or doubles tennis
· Volleyball
Examples of vigorous intensity exercise include:
· Running
· Power walking at 5mph or more, or walking uphill
briskly
· Cycling faster than 10mph
· Aerobics
· Martial arts
· Competitive sports (football, basketball, rugby etc.)
· Skipping/jump rope
· Rowing
Principles of Exercise
Overload
To increase strength and endurance, you need
to add new resistance or time/intensity to your
efforts.
This principle works in concert with
progression. To run a 10-kilometer race, athletes
need to build up distance over repeated sessions in
a reasonable manner in order to improve muscle
adaptation as well as improve soft tissue
strength/resiliency.
Any demanding exercise attempted too soon
risks injury. The same principle holds true for
strength and power exercises.
Specificity
Improving your ability in a sport is very
specific.
If you want to be a great pitcher, running laps
will help your overall conditioning but won’t develop
your skills at throwing or the power and muscular
endurance required to throw a fastball fifty times in
a game.
Swimming will help improve your aerobic
endurance but won’t develop tissue resiliency and
muscular endurance for your running legs.
Progression
To reach the roof of your ability, you have to
climb the first flight of stairs before you can exit the
20th floor and stare out over the landscape.
You can view this from both a technical skills
standpoint as well as from an effort/distance
standpoint.
In order to swim the 500 freestyle, you need to
be able to maintain your body position and breathing
pattern well enough to complete the distance.
In order to swim the 500 freestyle, you also
need to build your muscular endurance well enough
to repeat the necessary motions to finish.
Reversibility
If you discontinue application of a particular
exercise like running five miles or bench pressing 150
pounds 10 times, you will lose the ability to
successfully complete that exercise.
Your muscles will atrophy and the cellular
adaptations like increased capillaries (blood flow to
the muscles) and mitochondria density will reverse.
You can slow this rate of loss substantially by
conducting a maintenance/reduced program of
training during periods where life gets in the way, and
is why just about all sports coaches ask their athletes
to stay active in the off season.
Adaptation
Over time the body becomes
accustomed to exercising at a given level. This
adaptation results in improved efficiency, less
effort and less muscle breakdown at that level.
That is why the first time you ran two
miles you were sore after, but now it’s just a
warm up for your main workout.
This is why you need to change the
stimulus via higher intensity or longer duration
in order to continue improvements. The same
holds true for adapting to lesser amounts of
exercise.
Individuality
Everyone is different and responds
differently to training. Some people are
able to handle higher volumes of
training while others may respond better
to higher intensities.
This is based on a combination of
factors like genetic ability, predominance
of muscle fiber types, other factors in
your life, chronological or athletic age,
and mental state.
Secondary Principles
Recovery
The body cannot repair itself without rest and time to recover. Both
short periods like hours between multiple sessions in a day and
longer periods like days or weeks to recover from a long season
are necessary to ensure your body does not suffer from exhaustion
or overuse injuries.

Maintenance
It’s easier to keep fitness than to create it. Train as hard, stay
regular but shorten workouts to maintain a fitness component
Interference
When training several components at once (e.g. strength &
endurance) the stimuli may interfere with each other, thereby
slowing adaptation in one or both components

Ceiling
As fitness increases the relative & absolute improvements in fitness
will decrease, even with continual overload
FITT (FREQUENCY, INTENSITY, TIME, TYPE)

Each of the fitness components has an ideal training frequency

(how often), intensity (how hard), time (duration, rest intervals) and
type of exercise to be used.

In order to achieve the desired outcome the training must ‘FITT’

the component you wish to improve
Exercise Prescription
 If you're a new exerciser or
you're trying to get back into
exercise, knowing where to start is
a challenge. The right workout
schedule will depend on a variety
of factors like your age, fitness
level, goals, and any physical
restrictions you may have.
The Types of Exercise You Need
Whether your goal is to
lose weight, get healthy, get in
better shape, or all of the above,
there are three main components
to a good exercise program.
·
Cardio exercise: Cardio can be any activity that gets your
heart rate up, from walking or jogging to cycling or taking a
fitness class. Regardless of the exercise, it is always smart to
warm up with 5 to 10 minutes of light cardio.

· Weight training: You don't have to lift heavy weights or

even spend a lot of time on weight training at first, but you
do need to lift. Your muscles will get stronger and the more
muscle you have, the more calories you burn overall, which
helps with losing weight.

Flexibility training: You also need to have the flexibility to go

through a full range of motion for each exercise. Stretching
increases your flexibility and helps your body recover after
exercise.2 While some people like to set aside a day to focus
on flexibility, you don't need a separate workout
 If you're new to exercise think about these
things before you start:
• Ease into exercise. Start with a simple cardio
program and a total body strength training routine.
If that's too much, just start with cardio and let that
be enough.

• Be sure to rest and recover. You may need extra

recovery days to allow your body to rest and heal.
It's normal to be sore when you try new activities,
but if you can't move the next day, that means you
overdid it and may need to back off your next
workout.
• Make it work for you. A typical beginner program
will include about two to three days of cardio and
two days of strength training. These workouts can
also be combined if you do not have five days to
devote to exercise.

• Learn how to monitor your intensity. Most

beginners will start working out at a moderate
intensity. That means you're at about a Level 5 on
the perceived exertion scale (PES) or you can use
the talk test. If you can carry on a somewhat
breathy conversation while you're working out,
that's usually a moderate intensity.
Fitness Program:
5 Steps to Get
Started
 01 Assess your Fitness Level

You probably have some idea of how fit you are.

But assessing and recording baseline fitness scores can
give you benchmarks against which to measure your
progress. To assess your aerobic and muscular fitness,
flexibility, and body composition, consider recording:

• Your pulse rate before and immediately after walking 1

mile (1.6 kilometers)
• How long it takes to walk 1 mile, or how long it takes
to run 1.5 miles (2.41 kilometers)
• How many standard or modified pushups you can do
at a time
• How far you can reach forward while seated on the
floor with your legs in front of you
• Your waist circumference, just above your hipbones
• Your body mass index
02 Design your fitness program

It's easy to say that you'll exercise every day.

But you'll need a plan. As you design your fitness
program, keep these points in mind:

• Consider your fitness goals

• Create a balanced routine
• Start low and progress slowly
• Build activity into your daily routine
• Plan to include different activities
• Try high-interval intensity training
• Allow time for recovery
• Put it on paper
03 Assemble your equipment
You'll probably start with athletic shoes. Be
sure to pick shoes designed for the activity you
have in mind. For example, running shoes are
lighter in weight than cross-training shoes, which
are more supportive.

If you're planning to invest in exercise

equipment, choose something that's practical,
enjoyable and easy to use. You may want to try out
certain types of equipment at a fitness center
before investing in your own equipment.

You might consider using fitness apps for

smart devices or other activity tracking devices,
such as ones that can track your distance, track
calories burned or monitor your heart rate.
04 Get started

As you begin your fitness

program, keep these tips in mind:

Start slowly and build up gradually.

Break things up if you have to.
Be creative.
Listen to your body.
Be flexible.
 Monitor your progress
05
Retake your personal fitness
assessment six weeks after you start
your program and then again every
few months. You may notice that you
need to increase the amount of time
you exercise in order to continue
improving. Or you may be pleasantly
surprised to find that you're exercising
just the right amount to meet your
fitness goals.
Credits:
• 2011-2020, (c) Copyright. (n.d.). The Importance of
Exercise | SkillsYouNeed. Skills You Need - Helping You
Develop Life Skills. Retrieved October 8, 2020, from
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/exercise.html

• Fitness program: 5 steps to get started - Mayo Clinic.

(2019, October 24). Mayo Clinic.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-
depth/fitness/art-20048269

• Waehner, P. (2020, July 30). How to Set up a Complete

Exercise Program. Verywell Fit.
https://www.verywellfit.com/sample-workout-schedule-
1230758