Fitness Tips: Progress, why and how to achieve it...

by David Garred,
Club Manager Dusit Resort Sports Club.

Hello readers, I hope you had a good week. I’ve been going over our past articles and the time has come for a couple of things to be reviewed.
Both the reminders are about training and exercise for the sake of overall improvement.
The first is for the new exercisers out there, those of you who are just developing the exercise habit. My last article on this was approximately six weeks ago and it takes the body about two months to adjust. Keeping that in mind for the new starters then it is now time to start “STEPPING UP”- only slightly the exercise load that you put on your body.
“WHY”, I hear you all cry in anguish, well it is as simple as this; the muscles in the human body are really quite smart. They adjust to a load this is placed on them, if it is placed on them regularly, and after they adjust they simply stop growing. This applies to all muscles. I.E. Legs, arms, chest, back, etc. Heart, diaphragm and the muscles between your ribs.
So in case you are wondering, the adjustment rule applies to all muscles. Regardless of whether you wish to be Mrs. or Mr. Universe or like most of us you would simply like to be a little fitter and maybe reduce some of your body fat you MUST change the load on your muscles. Once again, if the muscles don’t need to adjust to a different load then they won’t change, and remember your heart and the system that controls your lungs are muscle tissue- these muscles are the primary muscles that are exercised in any true fat burning or fitness programme.
Now that we have discussed what and why, here is how.
“Load” is what you put on your muscles when you first started your exercise programme. Do you remember how you felt for the first week? It was hard work but you forced yourself to do it and after the end of the second week you felt much better for it. Now it is not even that difficult for you anymore. What happened here is your muscles were shocked for the first week of your new exercise programme. They were saying to you “What are you doing to us?” The second week they said to themselves “If this person intends to keep on treating us like this then we had better try to keep up with the demand.” By around the time the eighth week arrives they start or maybe are already saying to themselves “Ha, too easy.”
How do we go about increasing the “LOAD”? It’s really quite simple if your goal is to burn body fat or to be a little more fit. All you have to do is decide on one of two things. One - increase the time that you perform your exercise, whatever it may be. Or two - add another day of the same exercise to your week. Always allow for sufficient rest between your workouts, for it is during these rest periods that your muscles do their growing.
With respect to muscle growth, what I am talking about is on the microscopic level - single cells only being added to the muscle as a whole, to cope with the new load required of the muscle. Please don’t think that I am talking about huge gains in muscle mass, I am talking about very small changes; so small that it takes about 3 months of very hard training for any chance of you actually seeing a change in your body musculature (the shape/definition of muscles).
If your goal is actually muscle growth or general strength increase, then the same applies to you. You are on the way to your goal, but you must change the way you lift weights, once again about every two months. For strength/size trainers, variety in weight, repetitions, sets, speed, type and technique of lift are all crucial to maximal gains in both strength and size.
The more variety in your programme, the more that your muscle needs to adjust themselves to adapt to the new requirements. Also, with increased variety, the faster that you will get better at what you are trying to achieve, regardless of whether you want to be slim, fit, strong or even Mr. Universe size.
Now variety is more than the spice of life, it’s also the spice in your programme and what is your programme? It is the road map to reaching your fitness goal. What is your fitness goal - broadly speaking it is what you think you need to feel good about yourself. If you feel good about yourself then wouldn’t you say that life is full of spice?
The second tip is for the experienced and veteran exercisers who are reading this. The tip is really quite simple, your muscles are the same as the new exercisers. The only difference with you is that having been exercising for a long time the loads that you put on your muscles are proportionally greater. Your muscles still require variety in order to stimulate change, maybe all you need is exposure to some different training ideas to reinvigorate your existing exercise addiction.
The first idea is to re-read this and the previous articles, read other recognised industry magazine/journal articles or talk to Qualified Health and Fitness Industry Instructors at the very lowest level. Obviously, the higher the qualifications of the person that you talk to, ask questions of, the better the quality of the advice you will get.
Please be very careful about what you read and who you listen to for your own safety.
Now is the best time for adding variety - you will feel better for it.
Have a great week.
Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Fitness Tips