Exercise & Fitness Articles

Our strength grows out of our weaknesses ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's human nature that all of us seem to gravitate toward the things we do well. Certainly there is nothing more validating than performing at your best. We all have our own skill set and its always fun to have a chance to "strut your stuff".

However, the greater challenge comes in pushing ourselves to do those things that we are less skilled at, to push ourselves in areas where we feel less than competent. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of exercise and fitness.

Runners run, flexible folks do yoga, strong people lift weights. And while its fine to work with your natural gifts, the problem is that it is usually the thing that we MOST need and LEAST want to do that will ultimately result in an injury.

Typically, it is the weakest link in our chain that will cause the injury...maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point in the future -- unless we address it.

I've known big muscular guys who can bench 300 lbs, but can't come close to touching their toes. Sure, it's unlikely that these he-men will injure themselves lifting up heavy packages, -- but they may end up blowing a disc in their backs just bending over to pick up a pencil. In this case, their weakest link isn't their strength its their flexibility.

It is important to keep in mind that all fitness programs require three basic components: muscular fitness, flexibility and cardiovascular/metabolic conditioning.

Muscular fitness is made up of two major categories. Muscular strength (how much weight you can lift) and muscular endurance (how many times you can lift a lesser weight before you get tired).

Those huge Olympic Power Lifters you see on TV are an extreme example of muscular strength. An example of muscular endurance would be doing as many sit-ups as you could before fatiguing.

Weight or "resistance training" with body weight, machines, free weights, tubing, bands, etc. can all be effective tools in enhancing this type of fitness.

Flexibility, on the other hand, is having a full "range of motion" around each of your joints. You want to have enough flexibility to move your body freely without restrictions in order to avoid injury. And yet too much flexibility (as in the case of my dancer friend) can also spell disaster. Stretching, yoga and Pilates are all exercise techniques which can improve this.

And there is also cardiovascular training which is sometimes termed "metabolic training". This is the kind of working out that makes you get good and sweaty -- and a little out of breath. You want to be working your heart, lungs and circulation at a higher rate than they work at rest to train them to get stronger. In this way, they work less hard when you are at rest because they get stronger to handle those heavier workloads. These workouts can be of a consistent intensity -- or they can be of varied intensity alternating periods of harder work with periods of lighter work which allows for "recovery". Walking, jogging, swimming, biking, rigorous tennis playing, cross country skiing (and many more activities) fall into this category.

These kinds of workouts are also effective for burning calories, both during the exercise and in the minutes (sometimes hours depending on the intensity) following exercise.

The point is MOST of us do not take an honest inventory of what our weakest link is...we focus on one of these three or perhaps two at most. We often avoid one of these entirely and ironically that is usually the thing we need MOST. Moreover, it is usually the thing that exposes us to injury or health issues because it isn't being addressed.

If you are a regular exerciser (and unfortunately only 1/3 of us are) try taking an honest inventory about your "weakest link".

What is it? What could you or should you do more of? What is the thing you like doing the least, because you aren't particularly good at it? What do you think would happen if you tried doing a bit more of it?

Here are some simple suggestions for adding in some things that might be missing in your fitness program:

Add 20 minutes of biking after your weight training routine for added cardiovascular conditioning

Try putting 5 minutes of stretching after your fitness walk.

Go through a quick 15 minutes weight training circuit with the machines at the gym after your spin class.

Add 20 minutes on the eliptical machine as a warm-up before your yoga class.

With fitness as with other things in life, a little does go a long way. By adding just a smattering of what's missing in your current workout you will reduce boredom, lessen your chance of injury and insure a more well-rounded level of physical conditioning.