Fit with HIT

 

One of the most talked about, but seldom acted out, components of our lives is fitness.  The media is constantly bombarding our senses with advertisements that promise us that we could be 2 dress sizes smaller in a week, simply by following a magic diet plan. As a fitness professional, I am often left feeling frustrated by this type of misleading information. I call this the Magic Wand syndrome. Would it not be absolutely fabulous if the Princess Fairy Godmother could simply wave away all the years of lack of exercise and overeating! Women are under a tremendous amount of pressure to look great, succeed in business and raise well groomed, perfectly behaved children. Sometimes the end result is that women put themselves last on their to-do list.

The following is a scenario to which I am sure most women will relate to. You finally make it through the hectic holidays and you declare that “starting” in January you are going to join a gym and go on a diet.  Step one of your plan is to join a gym and start exercising. You join the gym and your first week or so you feel excited about the exercise. Then around week three some conflicts start to arise. You have to take mom to the doctor, your children have dentist’s appointments, the boss asks you to stay late and next thing you know an entire month has gone by and your fitness plan is in the gutter. The diet was going well until you had 3 birthday parties at work and that family barbeque. You are left feeling defeated and maybe you just give up “till things return to normal”. But, Normal never seems to come knocking and another year goes by and here it is January again and you are 10 pounds heavier and can barely breathe going up the steps! Your back is bothering you, your shoulder is stiff and your clothing now has built in forgiveness (also known as lycra). Holy-moley, who is that woman in the mirror?

The good news is that you do have the power to be the best you. It is easier than you think and does not require you to join a gym or sign up with a diet company. The four components to fitness are muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and cardiorespiratory. This article is going to focus on cardio and strength, these two components are vital to our health. Heart disease is the number one cause of death among women and osteoporosis is also a serious issue for women. By focusing on the cadiorespiratory system and strength training, we have the ability to empower our bodies for longevity and health.

There are some simple fitness plans that most women can manage and walking is the best place to start. Yes, I know that is so obvious, but I am not talking about strolling down the beach in your flip-flops! I am talking about walking at a pace that elevates you heart rate to at least 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. How do I do that you ask? Simple take 220-your age, no cheating ladies, and then multiply that number by 60 or 70%. So for me that is 220-47 (and proud of it) which equals 173 x .70 = 121. My target heart rate at 70% is 121. Taking your pulse at the wrist is the simplest method to obtaining your heart rate. Place the tips of your index and middle fingers (not the thumb) and place them over the artery of the wrist, which is located just below the thumb, at the point where your hand ends and the wrist begins! Count the number of thumps for 30 seconds and then multiply by 2. Viola! You have just succeeded in taking your pulse! If I counted 60 thumps in 30 seconds, then my heart rate would be 120. Exercising within your target heart rate is one way to determine if you are working your cardiovascular system within safe parameters. Exercising over your target heart rate (THR) places your heart at risk and working under your THR does not place enough stress on the cardiovascular system to obtain optimal benefit from the exercise.

FAST FORWARD ……

It seems almost surreal that I wrote this article almost 5 years ago, and nothing much has changed in the fitness world since then. Boot camps and P90X are probably responsible for introducing the concept of HIT training (High Intensity Training), and while this type of training was introduced years earlier under a different set of letters…EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) the relevancy remains an important component of fitness. However, it is my belief that when you take a person who has done zero exercise and plop them into this type of intense training you will end up with injuries and disappointment. My clients know I am not a big fan of boot camps…we are not at war with our bodies. War implies a struggle and a win/lose mentality. Feeling like you are going to “toss your cookies” does not mean you had a great workout, it means you went past your bodies ability to physiologically handle what you just forced it to do. In the real world boot camps are for bodies under 30, I’d like to see the armed services conduct a boot camp for sedentary 50 year olds.  I think what draws people to this type of training is that it’s fun, you don’t have to be doing some boring chest presses at the gym while sitting on your butt. Who can argue with that? So to all my readers involved in some type of HIT training I commend you for getting off your butt and offer these words of wisdom that I am stealing from an aerobic instructor who says at the start of her class “ It’s your body, you’re the one who has to walk around in it tomorrow not me”. In other words…be mindful of when things start to feel like tomorrow your going to be thinking about a knee replacement or shoulder repair.

If you are thinking about starting a exercise program but have done nothing since gym class 20 years ago, do your body a favor and take it for a walk first before you enter it into the race. The concepts of HIT can be applied to any exercise, just up the intensity and volume of what your doing. Add in 30 second clips of speed walking if you’re on a fitness walk or even on an elliptical. In the above article I talked about strength and cardio, but I left out the component of power. Power is what we need when you have to pull open a stuck door or jump over a ravine. This is why boot camps are so great…as ravine jumping is a needed skill in Florida…as is climbing a rocky mountain.  Practice some push ups, squats and lunges at home before taking a class that is going to demand 100 of them in 2 minutes, give your body a heads up, it’s only fair.  For those of you considering starting your fitness career with a boot camp, please use caution and common sense otherwise you’ll be injured and discouraged very quickly. My advise is do not get stuck with one form of exercise, mix it up. Walk, take a dance class, play tennis, lift some weights, paddle a kayak or hit an imaginary volleyball on X-Box Kinetic. If you pick something and it sucks…move on to something else. Please don’t quit, your life depends on it.

 

About PT

Patricia Tremblay B.S., NSCA-CPT owner/ operator of Physiques By PT a personal training and consulting company. My focus is functional training that is compatible with your life and goals for a healthy active life, and a little fun tossed in for good measure.
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