When approaching fitness is general, there is one specific question which comes in our mind at the very beginning: how much shall I train in order to see some results? The answer, as often happen, is “it depends”! It depends on your goal even before on the time you are willing to invest!
I was inspired by an article I read on Business Insider and of course by some questions I have got from friends and clients. I decided to clarify a bit about it so that you can decide based on your goal, how much time you want to invest in working out.
The first point which needs to be clarified is that not always “more is better”, not always training for hours and hours a day can bring positive results and drive you to reach your goal. In some cases, training so much that you have no time to recover, it can even lead to negative results and so it can bring you one or two steps behind in your fitness condition and progression towards your goal.
On the other hand, to be realistic, a non-professional athlete does not have hours a day to train therefore his or her fitness and nutrition program must be necessary developed in a SMART way and this is indeed the concept I embrace and promote during my counseling. It has to be tailored made and personalized enough to leave the client space for enjoying life and follow up daily duties including dedicating time to food preparation.
SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting. Typically used in Management, I apply it when developing Fitness and Nutritional programs. SMART stand for:
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound.
In this article I will not enter into specific of SMART application, instead I will shortly guide you towards a better plan of your training sessions depending on what you target to achieve.
If you target to be a bit more active without becoming an athlete or a marathon runner, you need to know that even only 10 minutes of run a day will make difference in your long term general health. This is according to a study performed by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. So no excuses to avoid that little amount of exercise! In general, any form of activity can be good for you: walking, taking stairs, biking, just try to be active! If you extend the time of physical activity (aerobic or anaerobic) to 30 minutes a day, you cut risk of chronic diseases and improve mental health.
For a mood boost, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise is enough to make a difference. So if you had a fight with someone, you are pissed off for anything, you feel depressed or sad, get your sport shoes on and go for a run, a walk, biking or swimming. Half and an hour will change your mood and way of seeing things. If you can, do it in the morning, before the daily routine starts so that you take everything with a positive feeling.
What happen when you are sitting the entire day almost every day? This situation causes gradual damage to your heart. Sitting for too long is also associated with weakening of the brain in areas associated with memory, increased risk for cancer and diabetes, and overall increased risk of an early death. The recommendations if you are sitting everyday more than 8 hours a day without a break are: stand up and move every half and an hour and practice physical activity for at least one hour a day. It's easy to feel like you've earned a reward if you just went out and ran 5k after being at your desk all day. But if then spend the rest of the day on the couch, you could still be doing a lot of harm: sitting for too long is a problem, even if you do exercise.
Moving to more specifics fitness target, whether you're trying to get stronger or build up aerobic fitness, you need to plan at least three session of 60 minutes training a week. For busy people a quick interval circuits like 10 minutes workout, it could be a solution but doing it a minimum of three to five times a week.
In general, people's muscles start to get stronger and better at contracting within a few weeks after starting a new program. Within a week of starting an exercise program, mitochondria, the energy factories for cells, start to multiply, which provides more fuel for your muscles. After two to four weeks your nervous system is much more efficient at being able to contract your muscles. Within 6-8 weeks, you may have 50% more mitochondria, which helps provide more endurance.
To significantly improve strength, endurance, or visible muscle definition, give yourself 12-16 weeks time. You will start to see results also before this time frame but to see significant change, you need to be constant and patient.
After the first 6 months of regular exercise, people are more likely to stick with a program. As your body adapts, you see results, and you grow to appreciate the mood boost that comes from exercise, it'll get harder and harder to skip a workout. So, before to give up with a new program, keep going till you reach 6 months training!
High intensity interval training is probably the fastest way to improve peak fitness, with 12-to-16 week HIIT programs often showing improvements equal to or better than those from traditional workouts. Various studies show these programs are an excellent way to improve the body's ability to use oxygen, often considered a benchmark for overall fitness. They also have strong effects on blood pressure and fat-burning capacity. For more details on HIIT training I copy here a link to one of my previous article https://valentinanolli5.wixsite.com/valenutricoach/post/i-train-for-hours-and-no-results-why?lang=it
If your goal is to get stronger, give yourself 6 weeks’ time of high intensity program to start to see some results. In a regular strength program, participants lift weights usually at 60-70% of max weight for more repetitions. In the high intensity program, participants lift 100% of max weight for fewer reps.
Nine months into cardio training, your body should be significantly more able to make use of oxygen. If you add an interval training a week, this result will be achieved even faster.
If you like me, passed already 30 years old, you need to know that muscle mass and bone density will be slowly decreasing. By building up strength, you can delay that and even reverse it. You need to ensure that you follow a strength program for at least a year in order to achieve that reversed trend.
Last year I have been reading a really useful, detailed and well written book related to Fitness and Nutrition. The book was written by Anita Bean, nutritionist, writer and athlete. Learn more about her at the link here https://anitabean.co.uk/about-me-2/
I would recommend anyone interested in fitness and nutrition tailored made for reaching specific fitness goals, to read this book. It is easy to read but technical enough for you to understand the reasons for certain choices in the kitchen targeting a better performance in sport or fitness condition. I applied what I learn on myself and also with people I am currently following and I must say, I do not regret to have chosen this book.
If you are interested in getting the book here the link to amazon:
Even if you are a very busy person, there is no reason why you should not take care of yourself and achieve your goals!
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