The Principles of Exercise
Introduction:
Physical activity is one of the most important contributors to good health, happiness, and positive self-esteem.
Our ever increasingly sedentary lives mean we spend hours every day in the same hunched up positions, leading to a host of physical and health issues.
We do our best to fight against this unnatural and unhealthy lifestyle by exercising. That exercise can be an activity, a sport, going to the gym - anything that gets our muscles working and our hearts pumping.
However, without the right understanding, we end up wasting a lot of time, money, and effort doing things that are useless at best, and detrimental at worst. There is a whole industry built around trying to sell you advice and equipment, and some of it is bad.
At AKLEF, we want to help you reach your physical goals, but ultimately it has to come from you. Selling you a product is part of what we do. We also want to sell you an idea, a concept, a belief.
On this page we have outlined the Principles of Exercise, which we hope will help you reach your goals.The science behind health and fitness is vast, and there is an impressive amount of literature on these subject. This page is meant to provide principles that are guidelines. It gets much more complicated the more you dive in to it.
Physical fitness is a life long journey - we hope to be with you every step of the way.
Physical:
1 - Overload is key - Rate of Perceived Effort (RPE)
Your muscles adapt to stresses. For your muscles to be stressed, you must be doing something on the edge of physical failure.
For example: If you can curl 10lbs for 15 reps, and you do that, you will not improve. Why? That is because your body can already do it. When you push beyond, and go for those additional reps where you are really challenging yourself, that is when you signal to your body that it must grow.
It's really the last few reps or moments of effort during exercise that are what cause you to grow. Growth requires effort.
2 - Weight Loss is all about calories
We eat because food fuels our bodies. The measurement we use for this is known as calories. Your body requires calories to function. The absolute minimum amount of calories your body needs, at rest, on a daily basis, is known as the Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR). Increasing muscle mass increases BMR.
If your body uses less calories than it consumes, the excess is stored in your body as fat (weight gain).
If your body uses more calories than it consumes, it will consume itself, which may mean cannibalizing fat and/or muscle (weight loss).
If your body needs exactly the calories it has consumed, there will be no gain or loss of mass.
Harsh reality: There is no way around this. No amount of exercise or activity can beat your eating habits. Weight loss, gain, or maintenance is about what and how much you eat. To reach your weight goals, your eating habits must become a lifestyle.
3 - Growth doesn't come from physical activity
It comes from recovery. Physical activity stresses your body. This signals your body for growth. Without adequate nutrition (building blocks) and sleep (recovery process), your body is unable to enable this growth.
4 - Rep ranges are less important than you think
ExoHinge:
The ExoHinge is a full body