Josh Perez Fitness

Measuring your fitness level is multi-dimensional. Endurance athletes have excellent cardiovascular health, but they’re all legs and lungs, and they won’t have a lot of strength or flexibility. By the same measure, someone who is overweight and aerobically fit is healthier than someone who is in the normal weight range but doesn’t exercise. Your overall physical fitness level is said to consist of five different components:

• Aerobic or cardiovascular endurance
• Body composition
• Flexibility
• Muscular endurance
• Muscular strength

Thorough fitness evaluations include exercises and activities that specifically measure your ability to participate in aerobic, or cardiovascular, exercise as well as your muscular strength, endurance, and joint flexibility. Special tools are also used to determine your body composition or percentage of total body fat.

Working to optimize each of these five components of fitness is crucial to enhancing your overall fitness, general health, and potentially reaching your desired bodyfat percentage. If you have specific health problems or medical limitations, check with your doctor or personal trainer before implementing a routine to bolster your fitness. Once your doctor or personal trainer gives you the green light, you have no more EXCUSES!

Starting out I suggest follow to U.S. guidelines for the minimum amount of exercise. That means exercising at a moderate intensity level for at least 3.5 hours spread over most days each week. At least twice a week, supplement aerobic exercise with weight-bearing activities that target all major muscle groups (glutes, back, chest, legs, etc). Avoid inactivity – some exercise at any level of intensity is better than none while you’re building up your endurance.

Walking is the easiest way to get started: Get motivated by enlisting a friend to join you and adding variety to your routine. Walking is simple and manageable for pretty much anyone – wear a pedometer from day one or the Nike +, it has a great tracking system that goes straight to your iPod/iPhone. Think of walking in three parts – a five-minute warm-up of walking slowly, followed by a fast walk, then a five-minute cool-down of comfortable walking .

Compete only against yourself: No matter what activity you choose for getting fit, never compare your progress to someone else’s. Do set goals, and if you are out of shape and hate exercise, start low and go slow – Do not compare yourself with your best friend who weighs 75 pounds less and just finished her 20th triathlon. Even if the same group of women walked at the same pace every morning, they would not all show the same levels of fitness measures.

Avoid overexertion: One highly recommended preventive step is to check your resting heart rate before getting out of bed every morning and making a chart so you can see a consistent, but gradual, decrease over time. If your resting heart rate begins to increase, you may be overdoing it. Another indicator of overexertion is muscle soreness that doesn’t go away after a couple days. People generally will not push themselves enough but the worst offenders are those who think they can jump in where they left off. For example, take a bunch of 40-year-old guys who think they are still on the high school football team and start running multiple laps, but end up gassing out or throwing up – know your limits.

As you work on improving your fitness, take it slow and steady to avoid injury or burnout. Above all, remember that consistency is key — if you keep at it, your hard work will pay off and most important of all, you will see results!

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1. Jessica Powe Says:
   June 22nd, 2010 at 8:56 pm

   I love it!!