Life-Time Fitness

Fitness

The condition of being physically fit and healthy. Being physically fit decreases the chances of injury or bodily harm. Most importantly it can improve your quality of life.

Strength Training: Getting Started

"Please don't limit yourself to thinking that lifting weights, expensive machines, or gym membership is the only way to do strength training," says Tuttle. "Pushups, jump squats, lunges, and mountain climbing are all examples of exercises that provide strength training."

Lactic Acid

A colorless syrupy organic acid, produced in the muscle tissues during strenuous anaerobic exercise. Lactic acid build-up is what creates soreness in the body due to overload.

Circuit Training

A workout technique involving a series of exercises performed in a rotation with minimal rest, often using different pieces of equipment. (An exercise "circuit" is one completion of all prescribed exercises in the program. When one circuit is complete, you begin the first exercise again for the next circuit.)

Strength training protects bone health and muscle mass.

After puberty, whether you are a man or a woman, you begin to lose about 1 percent of your bone and muscle strength every year. "One of the best ways to stop, prevent, and even reverse bone and muscle loss is to add strength training to your workouts," advises Troy Tuttle, MS, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston."

Anaerobic

Anaerobic means "without oxygen" and refers to the fact that, unlike aerobic activity, it forces your muscles to work in a state of oxygen deprivation. Doing push-ups or weightlifting are examples of anaerobic exercise. However, these exercises don't raise your heart rate for any length of time. Running or swimming sprints, or a vigorous game of tennis, will raise your heart rate. Anaerobic exercise strengthens your muscles and bones.

Aerobic

Any sustained physical activity that elevates your heart rate and breathing can be aerobic exercise. It must be steady and continuous, but may be done at a comfortable pace. The longer your aerobic exercise lasts, the greater the benefits. Penn State's Recreational Sports Fitness program recommends a duration of at least 12 minutes. Aerobic exercise increases stamina, helps you manage weight and strengthens the heart. Examples of aerobic activities include walking or jogging, swimming and cycling.

Type

Clearly defined (i.e., what exactly you will be doing). a. Type or specificity, refers to the specific physical activity chosen to improve a component of health-related fitness. b. For example, an individual wishing to increase arm strength must exercise the triceps and biceps, while an individual wishing to increase aerobic endurance needs to jog, run, swim or perform some other aerobically challenging activity.

Anaerobic Exercise

During anaerobic or non-oxygen conditions (higher intensity exercise), muscle cells must rely on other reactions that do not require oxygen to fuel muscle contraction. This anaerobic metabolism in the cells produces waste molecules (lactic acid) that can impair muscle contractions. We call this deterioration in performance "fatigue."

Dynamic Stretching

Dynamic stretches use movement; static stretches don't. It is best done pre-workout. Dynamic stretching involves movement - usually of more than one muscle group. Think of arm circles, hip circles, twisted lunges, leg swings, high kicks, and moving quad or hamstring stretches. These stretches take the body through a near-full range of motion that mimics the same movements you go through while exercising.

How to calculate fitness zone?

Find a heart rate between 60%-80% of your MHR or exercise and talk, check to see if you are breathing deeply and speaking mildly.

Anaerobic Zone

For exercises like running sprints, your heart-rate zone to achieve the strength-building benefits of anaerobic exercise is 80 to 90 percent of your MHR. At this level your body burns short term energy reserves and only about 15 percent of your energy comes from fat. Lactic acid builds up in your muscles and you will quickly become winded. Consequently, you can only do anaerobic exercise for short intervals. However, your body will recover in a few minutes, so you can repeat the exercise several times during a single workout.

Fitness Zones

If you are just beginning a fitness program, or if you are warming up, your heart rate should be 50 to 60 percent of your MHR. Once you achieve a measure of physical fitness, you should increase your pace until your heart rate is in the 60 to 70 percent of MHR range. At these levels of aerobic exercise intensity, about 85 percent of the calories you burn come from fat and you gain significant cardiovascular benefits.

Training Zone

If you goals include more strenuous activities, such as running a marathon, you'll need to move your aerobic exercise up to the 70 to 80 percent of MHR range. In this "training zone" you burn more calories, although only 50 percent come from fat. You build your endurance and level of cardiovascular fitness.

Lean Body Mass (Tissue)

Lean body mass is comprised of everything in your body besides body fat. This includes, but is not limited to: muscle, bone, water & organs.

Aerobic Exercise

Most of our cells prefer to get their energy by using oxygen as fuel. During aerobic exercise (lower intensity exercise), with adequate fuel and oxygen, muscle cells can contract repeatedly without fatigue.

Benefits of Strength Training

Protects bone health and muscle mass, makes you stronger and fitter, helps develop better body mechanics, plays a role in disease prevention, boosts energy levels and improves mood, and more calories burned,

Static Stetching

Static means stationary, so static stretches isolate one muscle group at a time and hold a position rather than moving through a range of motion; it is best done post-workout. Static stretching is likely what comes to mind when you think of stretching in general - calf stretches, toe touches, sitting hamstring stretches, and many yoga poses. Hold each static stretch for 10 to 30 seconds each and repeat until you've spent a full minute in each move.

Strength training helps you develop better body mechanics.

Strength training has benefits that go well beyond the appearance of nicely toned muscles. Your balance and coordination will improve, as will your posture. More importantly, if you have poor flexibility and balance, strength training can reduce your risk of falling by as much as 40 percent, a crucial benefit, especially as you get older.

Strength training makes you stronger and fitter

Strength training is also called resistance training because it involves strengthening and toning your muscles by contracting them against a resisting force. There are two types of resistance training: • Isometric resistance involves contracting your muscles against a non-moving object. • Isotonic strength training involves contracting your muscles through a range of motion as in weight lifting. Both make you stronger and can get you into better shape. Remember that with strength training your muscles need time to recover, so it should only be done on alternate days. Always take some time to warm up before and cool down after strength training.

Strength training boosts energy levels and improves your mood.

Strength training will elevate your level of endorphins (natural opiates produced by the brain), which will make you feel great. As if that isn't enough to convince you, strength training has also been shown to be a great antidepressant, to help you sleep better, and to improve your overall quality of life.

Strength training plays a role in disease prevention.

Studies have documented the many wellness benefits of strength training. If you have arthritis, strength training can be as effective as medication in decreasing arthritis pain. Strength training can help post-menopausal women increase their bone density and reduce the risk of bone fractures. And for the 14 million Americans with type-2 diabetes, strength training along with other healthy lifestyle changes can help improve glucose control.

How to calculate MHR:

Subtract your age from 226 if you are a female

The F.I.T.T. Principle

The FITT Principle describes how to safely apply the principles of overload and progression: F = Frequency I = Intensity T = Time T = Type (specificity)

Flexibility

The ability of a muscle or muscle group to perform repeated movement with a sub-maximal force for extended periods of times. o The amount of force produced by a muscle over a period of time. o This is also if the muscles are doing something over and over and over. o Muscular endurance is also closely related to cardiovascular endurance. Why? Because in order to perform aerobic exercises long enough (at least 15 minutes) to benefit the heart and lungs, you need muscular endurance to be able to exercise continuously for this long. o We improve muscular endurance by using lighter weight and do the exercise at least 15 times (about 8-12 times to work on both strength and endurance).

Muscular Endurance

The ability of a muscle or muscle group to perform repeated movement with a sub-maximal force for extended periods of times. o The amount of force produced by a muscle over a period of time. o This is also if the muscles are doing something over and over and over. o Muscular endurance is also closely related to cardiovascular endurance. Why? Because in order to perform aerobic exercises long enough (at least 15 minutes) to benefit the heart and lungs, you need muscular endurance to be able to exercise continuously for this long. o We improve muscular endurance by using lighter weight and do the exercise at least 15 times (about 8-12 times to work on both strength and endurance).

Cardiovascular Endurance

The efficiency with which the body delivers oxygen and nutrients needed for muscular activity and transports waste products from the cells. o The most important part of fitness! o Having conditioned heart and lungs that can supply the body with oxygen without stress to the heart. o We develop it by doing aerobic exercise. o In order to improve cardiovascular endurance, aerobic exercise should be performed at least 3 times per week, 15-20 minutes each day. o Examples of aerobic exercise: swimming, jogging, biking, shoveling snow and raking leaves.

Muscular Strength

The greatest amount of force a muscle or muscle group can exert in a single effort o The amount of force produced by a muscle. Needed for activities that require above normal effort. o Having poor muscular strength will increase the chance of getting hurt when doing activities that require above normal effort. o To increase your muscular strength, you would perform exercises using heavier weight and do the exercise 3-6 times (see F.I.T.T. Principle). o The muscles get stronger when they keep working past the point of fatigue. This forces the body to adapt (muscles get used to doing something, what was hard is now easy for the muscle). o Remember it takes time to allow your body to adapt!

Overload

The human body is involved in a constant process of adapting to stresses or lack of stresses placed upon it. When you stress the body in a manner it's unaccustomed to (overload), the body will react by causing physiological changes (adaptation) to be able to handle that stress in a better way the next time it occurs.

Time

The indefinite continued progress of existence (i.e. how long you will exercise). a. Time is the length of the physical activity. b. As with the other aspects of the FITT principle, time varies depending on the health-related fitness component targeted. c. For example, flexibility or stretching may take 10-30 seconds for each stretch, while the minimum time for performing aerobic activity is 20 minutes of continuous activity.

Body Composition

The percentage of body fat a person has in comparison to his or her total body mass. o Lean body mass (tissue) is: muscle, bone, water & organs. o An approximate healthy fat percentage for men is 10-20% . o An approximate healthy fat percentage for women is 15-25% . o Scale weight means nothing unless you know your percent body fat; do not be mislead by height/weight charts, as they may be misleading.

Intensity

The quality of being intense (i.e. how hard you are working). a. Intensity is how hard a person exercises during a physical activity period. b. Intensity can be measured in different ways, depending on the related health-related component. For example, monitoring heart rate is one way to gauge intensity during aerobic endurance activities, but gives no indication of intensity during flexibility activities.

Frequency

The rate at which something occurs or is repeated over a particular period of time. a. Frequency is how often a person performs the targeted health-related physical activity. b. For each component of health-related fitness, a safe frequency is three to five times a week.

Strength training translates to more calories burned. Ms. Martin's other favorite reason!

You burn calories during strength training, and your body continues to burn calories after strength training, a process called "physiologic homework." More calories are used to make and maintain muscle than fat, and in fact strength training can boost your metabolism by 15 percent — that can really jumpstart a weight loss plan.

5 components of health related fitness

cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, body composition