Progress: Essential to greater health and fitness

Understanding the PROGRESSION Principle

It's shocking how many individuals lose up on a good fitness routine after a few weeks or months of hard work for no apparent benefit. This is not exactly inspiring.

Health and fitness

Many people start a health and fitness programme with the best of intentions, but they seldom see it through to completion. Regrettably, these people will never reap the full rewards of a healthful and active lifestyle.

Fitness programme: 

There are two types of people that volunteer to assess a health and fitness programme: those who maintain a log of their exercises and those who don't. Yet there is a common thread. Neither of them took the necessary measures to establish a future-oriented health and fitness programme.

Every time they go the gym, it's the same old routine. Yes, it's true that a workout is better than no workout at all, but I'm here to help you get the most out of your health and fitness routine.

Incredibly, the human body can change and adapt to its environment. All humans have a primitive form of this survival mechanism, some more developed than others. Calluses form on the hands with repeated usage of the hands for demanding tasks like working at a construction site or moving heavy objects.

The skin may even split apart the first time, exposing the underlying tissue. Gradually, the body's regulatory system works to prevent this from happening, so that the body never has to deal with this kind of disruption. That is to say, the body has built-in safety systems that can deal with these and other pressures, allowing it to keep operating normally despite them.

There is one crucial requirement for coercing adaption. In this context, "force" is the operative word. If the body isn't pushed, it won't change. Trust me, I tried hoping for an easier adaption and it didn't work.

It has to be subjected to stress on a scale that is only slightly higher than what it is used to. Only novel stressors will elicit a response from the body. It's as if it's saying, "Oh yeah, try hurting me again." Your body will start laughing at you if you keep subjecting it to the same stress you always have. Nothing will happen since it won't take you seriously. The strains exerted need to increase steadily over time.

Moreover, the body adapts best to stressors that are introduced gradually and are not too much higher than the ones it is used to. In this approach, the body can monitor shifts and respond appropriately throughout the necessary period to prevent the occurrence of any such problem.

The body is more able to adapt and undergo beneficial changes if stress is introduced gradually or in manageable doses.

If the tension exerted is not severe enough to cause substantial harm at first and you give your body enough time to fix itself before applying the stress again, like in the case of developing calluses on your hands, your body will adapt and repair itself.

I can guarantee that your skin will have a difficult time adjusting and developing stronger if you begin working today and break your skin very badly, and then continue working hard today, tomorrow, and the day after that without gloves or protective clothing. Without giving the body a chance to recover, you will keep causing harm to it. You've done more harm this time, so the body will strive to adapt even if you've hit it.

As unfortunate as it may be, many people resort to this tactic in an attempt to "force adaptation" during strength training. They believe that total annihilation of muscle will'shock' the body into producing more muscle. It's disheartening to watch a gym newbie perform a set of 10 hard repetitions with his equally eager and comparably developed (or undeveloped) friend helping him through seven of them.

Only dedicated individuals with years of training should attempt total destruction, and even then, only in limited doses.

Consider the benefits of cardio.

It's not enough to simply ride a bike for 20 minutes at 80 revolutions per minute if you want to become in shape; you'll need to push yourself to do more in the future. The target speed for your 20-minute bike ride should be 100 revolutions per minute. Another method of improvement might be cycling for 30 minutes at 80 revolutions per minute. The human body must adjust in any case.
Why? Because you've just put it under a strain it has never felt before.

Some clients come to me after six months of working out, perplexed as to why they haven't seen any significant improvement in their cardiovascular fitness. Your body is unprepared for the stress of your first workout after a long time of idleness.

Like, to the gym, on foot. You can train your body to adapt to almost anything by going from doing nothing to doing anything.

If you're serious about improving your health and fitness, you should practise progression after the first few sessions, which should focus on training the exercise habit. You need to aggressively pursue it.

It's the finest sign that you're making progress and on the right path. Remember that numerical evidence can never be deceived. Keep score and aim to get better at what you're doing.

You will not only improve your chances of success but also gain the satisfaction that comes from knowing you are physically capable of things like increasing your speed, stamina, and strength.

In subsequent pieces, I'll go through certain advancement methods in further depth.

Exercising with zeal and making steady improvement is the best way to get fit.