How much excercise? -- DietLowCarb.com

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Date Posted: 19:25:52 07/15/02 Mon
Author: Sherry
Subject: How much excercise?
In reply to: Zoe (Moody) 's message, "How much exercise is enough?" on 13:20:55 07/15/02 Mon

It depends on what your goals are. What is it that you want out of excercise? Aerobic type excercises serve two purposes, they burn fat, and they are good for your heart and lungs.

Weight training is muscle building and toning to various body parts. It has the added benefit of helping you to be able to burn more calories even while at rest. In addition when you stop excercising having built muscle continues to have a good effect for as much as a few years later. You may find that even if you aren't eating right or excercising right, once you have a certain amount of lean muscle mass to your body it is easy to continue to keep the weight off.

All excercise has the benefit of increasing your flexibility (obviously more the more body parts that are worked). Weight training also increases bone density.

So what do you want out of excercise? Do you just want to lose more weight? Do you want more flexibility? Do you want greater bone density? Do you want to be able to burn more calories even while at rest? Do you want to be able to maintain your weight during periods when you aren't being as good about diet or excercise?

So before you decide how much is enough, you need to know what you want from it.

For me, I like the way weight training makes me feel. I like the additional strength and flexibility I get from it, I like the endorphins that are released after a good solid workout. I like not having to worry about immediately gaining back all that I have lost when I follow a period of being good with being bad (about trying for my goals of a slimmer body).

So for me, I do mostly weight training. And I feel that every other day is "enough". Or an average of 3 times a week. With weight training you are supposed to allow a day of rest between workouts so that your muscles have a chance to heal and grow stronger. Of course really dedicated people work out different body parts on different days and work out every day.

Your body will get used to certain excercises and you will find that after awhile you won't get as much benefit from anything you do unless you vary it. With weight training you vary it by increasing repetitions, or increasing sets or increasing weight, or by working different body parts.

The benefit you get from most types of excercise are rather saw tooth shaped. They increase to a point, and then unless you do something to make it harder or change it somehow, the benefit levels off.

I don't know what Tae Bo involves. It sounds like some sort of martial arts thing, but I really don't have a clue as to what it is. If you found that at first it was nearly impossible to get through the whole routine and that now it is just way easy, you have probably reached the end of the benefit of it unless you change it somehow.

At the beginning of June I was lifting 50 pounds on my pull downs, and now I am up to 80. If I go back and lift 50 again if feels like NOTHING and when I first started it was difficult.

Two days ago I started a new excercise called a standing calf raise. You put your toes and the balls of your feet on a step about 2 to 3 inches higher than your heels. You lean forward and stretch out the backs of your legs. Then you shift your weight to your toes and stand on tippy toe. (then go back and do it again and again).

Kel told me to do one set pigeon toed (toes pointing inward) and another set with toes pointing outward. So I did three sets of 10 on Saturday. One straight, one toes in, one toes out.

My legs this morning were so sore I could barely walk. Didn't seem like much of an excercise but it was. Probably once I have done it awhile it won't feel like much either. That is when the benefit is gone, and I will either have to increase the height of the step, or perhaps do it with a little weight added.

If you prefer aerobic type excercises, you will have a different sort of benefit from them. How much is enough in that case, I'm not sure. Probably three days a week is plenty for heart health. For fat burning? Possibly the more the better. For flexibility? 2 or three days a week. For muscle strengthening? I would think that the same principal would apply, and doing it too often would prevent you from having time to heal the muscle in between workouts.

Muscle tears during excercise. (specifically weight training excercises, but possibly in others as well). It grows stronger by healing and creating "scar tissue" within the muscle. (which is why cattle that have been worked hard produce tough steaks). It needs healing time. Without the healing time you are just constantly breaking down the muscle and not benefiting from your excercise by growing stronger (and may be getting weaker).

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