Call for your Health

As people attain a level of fitness that meets their needs and further improvement is not desired, the program switches from developing fitness to maintaining it. At this point the principles of overload and progression may be set aside, but both are necessary for the improvement phase of fitness. Overload involves subjecting the body to unaccustomed stress. Challenging the body to periodically accept a slightly increased level of work forces it to adapt by attaining a higher level of fitness. When to impose each new challenge involves the principle of progression. The workload is increased only when the exerciser is ready to accept a new challenge. For aerobic exercise, target heart rate and/or perceived exertion may be used to establish criteria for scheduling the progression of exercise. For example, if you jog, swim, or cycle a certain distance, the exercise heart rate will decrease over time as your body adapts to training. When the exercise heart rate drops to a predetermined level, you should adjust the pace and/or distance to return to the original target zone.

The principle of specificity of training suggests that the body adapts according to the specific type of stress placed on it. The muscles involved in any activity are the ones that adapt, and they do so in the specific way in which they are used. For example, jogging prepares you for jogging but is poor preparation for cycling. Cycling does not prepare you for swimming. Although all these activities stress the cardiorespiratory system, they are sufficiently different that there is little fitness carryover among them.

The principle of specificity is particularly important for competitive athletes. Competitors attempt to maximize the returns from their training effort; therefore runners must train by running, swimmers must swim, and cyclists must cycle. The focus is on maximal improvement in one activity so that the body is trained in a specific manner. This locks athletes into regimented training programs, but people who exercise for health reasons are not under such constraints. They can vary activities and prevent the boredom of participating in the same activity week after week. Cycling, jogging, swimming, racquetball, cross country skiing, and weight training may be used in any combination or order for the development of physical fitness. This is the essence of cross training. Not only does cross training relieve boredom, it may reduce the incidence of injury because the same muscles are not being stressed in the same way during every workout.

Cross training has many advantages and is an excellent technique for attaining the health benefits of exercise. Variety, the major attraction of cross training, can also be a disadvantage. By participating in many different activities, you seldom become proficient in anyone. However, if the objective is health enhancement, proficiency is incidental.

Identifying goals provides some direction for the activities selected and the way the principles of exercise are to be manipulated to increase the probability of success. Only one or two major goals should be selected, and these should be as specific as possible so that an effective exercise program may be devised. Activities, objectives, and principles must match.

When you have identified the objectives and know what you wish to achieve from the exercise program, the means for sustaining the program must be identified next. The resolve to exercise is shakiest during the early stages of the program, usually because people push untrained bodies beyond their limits. This results in sore muscles, stiffness, and possible injury. The drop out rate is highest in the beginning of any exercise program. The irony is that the greatest return for the effort is attained during this phase.

Isotonic Training Isotonic exercise training systems use both concentric and eccentric contractions as the exercising muscle shortens and lengthens about a joint. Both types of contractions contribute to the development of strength.

Isotonic exercises produce delayed muscle soreness 24 to 48 hours after a workout. Eccentric contractions cause microscopic damage to muscle fibers, their connective tissue and to the cell membrane itself. Soreness occurs because the damaged tissues swell and apply pressure on the nerves.

Delayed muscle soreness is more common among -

• Beginning exercisers,
• Exercisers who attempt to overload too quickly, and
• Those who change from one activity to another.

Stretching exercises, light workouts, or complete rest may be required to alleviate muscle soreness. Prevention is the best treatment. Prevention involves allowing enough time to adjust to a new routine overloading the muscles in small increments (not trying to do too much too fast), and exercising within your capacity. Because muscle soreness may last 48 hours, those who use isotonic exercise systems are advised to exercise no more than every other day. This schedule ensures that the next bout of exercise will occur after soreness has abated.

Variable Resistance Training

Variable resistance exercise equipment was developed in response to isotonic exercises not maximally stressing muscles throughout their full range of motion. The maximum weight lifted isotonically is limited to the weakest point in the musculoskeletal leverage system. The weight appears lighter at some points in the joint movement and heavier at others. In reality, the weight itself is constant and the human bony leverage system changes.

Variable resistance equipment is designed to provide maximum resistance through the full range of motion. Universal gym equipment accomplishes this by altering the lifter’s leverage. Decreasing the leverage increases the resistance at points in the movement where the muscles are strongest. Nautilus equipment uses a system of cams to do the same. Variable resistance training challenges the individual to exert more force throughout the range of motion, which should result in greater returns. Whether variable resistance weight training is more effective than conventional weight training is yet to be resolved. Evidence indicates that it is as good and may be better.

Free Weight Training

Isotonic training with free weights (dumbbells and barbells) continues to be an appropriate method for strength development. Free weight training provides many advantages. For athletes, it yields some flexibility in strength development because the movements are not confined to a track. Exercises can be selected or improvised to simulate the movements required by specific sports, allowing the development of the muscles that will be used in competition. Concurrently, ancillary musculature that plays a supporting or stabilizing role for the major muscles is also stimulated and developed.

For noncompetitors, free weights have several advantages. The equipment is inexpensive and versatile. A starter set of free weights typically costs less than $100. Free weights do not require much space, so the workout can occur in the home.

The major limitation of free-weight exercise is that this system does not provide maximum resistance throughout the full range of motion. A second limitation, one that is more of an inconvenience, is the constant changing of collars and plates as the exerciser adjusts the weight to perform the different exercises. A third limitation is the need for one or two spotters to assist with exercises such as the bench press and half squats.

Isokinetic resistance training involves dynamic movements performed on exercise devices that produce maximum resistance throughout the full range of motion. The movement speed is preselected by the exerciser and remains constant throughout the movement. Isokinetic exercise theoretically improves on traditional and variable resistance dynamic systems. Isokinetic devices adjust the resistance to accommodate the force applied by the exerciser. The greater the application of force, the greater the resistance to movement supplied by the device. Maximum force applied through the full range of motion is countered with maximum resistance at all joint angles. This activates the greatest number of motor units, producing greater gains in strength than other dynamic systems of exercise.

Circuit Resistance Training

Circuit resistance training (CRT) is very effective for individuals who wish to develop several fitness dimensions simultaneously. Muscular strength and endurance, changes in body composition, and improvement in cardiorespiratory endurance can be attained together.

Evidence has been accumulating during the last decade, showing a positive relationship between dynamic resistance training and health enhancement. Weight training (exercising the major muscles of the body at an intensity level of 70% to 90% of maximum strength) rather than weight lifting (lifting maximum loads in power or olympic style) has produced these changes. Very recent studies have shown that cardiac patients can benefit from appropriately planned weight training programs. Although weight training had always been considered too dangerous for cardiac patients, 25 cardiac patients participated in 3 years of circuit weight training. As a group, they had a 24% increase in strength and a 12% increase in cardiorespiratory endurance.Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by the deterioration of bone, which ultimately leads to bones that are so fragile that they fracture at the slightest provocation. Women are much more susceptible than men to this diseases. Women can protect the integrity of the skeletal system by maintaining a normal menstrual status, by being adequately nourished, and by participating regularly in an exercise program that includes weight training.

Cardiorespiratory development should be the focal point of a physical fitness program. However, it should not be the only component. Evidence has steadily mounted during the last decade regarding the growing importance of muscular development for fitness, health, and aesthetic purposes.The body contains more than 600 muscles, and 65% of these are located above the waist. All muscles, regardless of location, respond to the physiological law of use and disuse. “Use it or lose it” is an axiom that applies to all human beings during every phase of the life cycle. Americans tend to become more sedentary as they age. The declining stimulation results in a progressive shrinking and weakening of the muscles.

With few exceptions, notably cross-country skiing, rowing, and swimming, aerobic activities provide limited stimulation of upper body musculature. Sedentary living neglects the muscular system entirely and accelerates the loss of muscle tissue and body strength. The need for resistance training was illustrated in a study of runners during a 10 year period. Runners who did no resistance training suffered muscle atrophy in their upper bodies while maintaining muscle size in their legs. Their arms, which received little stimulation from jogging, decreased in circumference.

The loss of muscle tissue leads to a predictable loss in muscle strength. By the age of 74, 28% of american men and 65% of american women cannot lift objects that weigh more than 10 pounds. Because of this limitation, everyday functions taken for granted by the young become physical challenges, including opening bottle caps and jar lids, carrying groceries, and climbing stairs. If muscle atrophy progresses unabated, walking without assistance or an aid becomes very difficult if not impossible and the likelihood of falling increases.

Strength remains essentially unaffected to approximately 45 years of age and then declines by 5% to 10% per decade thereafter. On the average, people lose 40% of their muscle mass and 30% of their strength by the time they reach the age of 70. The aging process itself is responsible for only minor changes in the ability of muscles to generate tension. Inactivity, which results in muscle atrophy (loss of muscle mass), is the major contributor to the loss of strength as people age.

Resistance training ideally begins during middle or late adolescence and continues throughout life, but starting at any age provides significant benefit if training is done properly. For example, 12 weeks of weight training increased the strength and size of the exercised muscles in men aged 60 to 72. Strength training also improved the ability of the trained muscles of these older people to use oxygen. Even frail men and women with an average age of 90 years responded positively to 8 weeks of resistance training. These very old subjects averaged a 174% increase in strength and a 9% increase in muscle size. After training, they walked a specified course 48% faster than they could previously. Two subjects discarded their walking canes and walked unassisted. Of three subjects who could not rise from a chair without using their arms before training, two of them were able to accomplish this feat after training.

The same research team expanded on this study by including more subjects (100, average age 87 years), by increasing the number of resistance exercises performed, and by increasing the length of the training program to 10 weeks. Muscle strength increased dramatically, muscle mass by 3%, walking speed by 12%, and stair climbing by 28%.

These studies indicate that the muscular systems of older people are indeed trainable. Improving or maintaining muscle strength enhances mobility and independence during the later years. Cessation of training leads to physical decline at all age levels. Four weeks of detraining led to substantial decreases in maximum strength.

An estimated 8 of every 10 Americans will suffer a back injury sometime during their lives. It is the most common symptomatic complaint for both genders in the 25- to 60-year-old age group when visiting a physician’s office. The estimated annual cost of medical care for low back pain is approximately $13 billion.The high incidence of low back pain may be primarily attributed to mechanical factors,s including excess weight, poor posture, and lack of physical fitness. Most low back pain involves muscle and ligament strain and inflamed joints along the vertebral column. Some injuries involve disks that herniated or tear, resulting in the gel like inner substance escaping and exerting pressure on the spinal nerves. Back pain also occurs as a result of injuries sustained from accidents, falls, lifting objects incorrectly, participation in sports, arthritis, and osteoporosis.

Approximately 90% of all back problems occur in the lumbar region of the spine. The spinal column consists of bones (the vertebrae) and represents the only bony connection between the upper and lower halves of the body. Located between the bones of the spine are rings of tough fibrous tissue, the disks, which act as shock absorbers and keep the vertebrae from rubbing against each other. The spinal column is shaped and consists of three naturally occurring curves. When these three curves are balanced, the body weight is evenly distributed and movement occurs fluidly. Misalignment in this region applies substantial stress to the concave, or inner, side of the curve. The more pronounced the curve, the greater the stress because of the uneven distribution of weight on the bones and disks.

Being overweight stresses the low back through excess weight that pulls the spinal column forward, accentuating the lumbar curve and putting pressure on the disks. Research indicates that weak abdominal muscles and lack of flexibility in the lower back and hamstring muscles promote fatigue and poor posture. Fatigue also causes the pelvis to tilt forward, increasing stress on the spinal column and its supporting structures. Wearing high heeled shoes tilts the pelvis forward, causing discomfort or pain in the low back.

Stress may be a factor in inducing or prolonging low back pain. Muscles that are under constant tension result in tightness and fatigue in the low back. Exercises that develop and strengthen the abdominal muscles and those that stretch the low back and hamstrings are invaluable in preventing low back pain. Exercise also contributes to weight control, is an excellent stress reducer generally and specifically for the muscles exercised, and develops the antigravity muscles the calves, front and back of the thighs, hips, back, and abdominal’s, thereby contributing to correct posture.

If a back problem occurs, you should consult a physician for treatment. If surgery is suggested, you should seek a second opinion and explore alternative treatments. Many back problems can be treated with williams flexion exercises and mckenzie’s extension exercises. The selection depends on the type of problem being experienced and should be made by a health care professional.

Anabolic steroid use by nonathletes is on the rise. This is particularly true for young men. A nation wide survey of 3403 male high school seniors indicated that 6.6% of this group were current users or had previously been users of steroids and that 25% of the current users showed signs of dependency. According to this report, the improvement in physical appearance reputed to occur with steroid use, accompanied by peer approval of those physical changes, functioned as a powerful reinforcer for continued use.Heavy steroid users were more likely than light users to take two or more steroids concomitantly and more apt to take these drugs by injection rather than in pill form. Injection as a method of delivery is highly characteristic of drugs that involve addiction. The steroid “hook” is insidious and powerful: 30% of the heavy users vowed that they would not discontinue steroid use if steroids were proved to cause liver cancer, 31 % would not stop if they proved to cause heart attacks, and 39% would not stop if they proved to cause infertility.

Although definitive evidence of the long term effects of steroid use is not available, the potential for long term harm is certainly real. Predicting how and when the effects of steroids will be manifested is impossible because people respond individually to those drugs as a result of differences in body chemistry. The steroid effect is complicated further because “black market” preparations contain additives, and some preparations are contaminated. The potential for harm is readily discernible; 80% to 90% of all steroids used are purchased through the black market.

Beginning weight trainers should keep a daily log of their training activities. The advantages of keeping such a record far outweigh the minimal amount of bother, time, and effort required to make the entries during the workout. Each entry should be recorded during the rest period between sets.

The advantages of maintaining a daily training log include the following:

• You will always know which exercises you performed and the amount of weight that was used for each.
• You will always know the number of repetitions and sets that you performed of each exercise.
• The training log provides an objective account of your improvement. You can compare the amount of weight you are currently lifting with the amount at the beginning of your training.
• The training log provides an accurate history. The training log is a motivating device that provides objective feedback of performance improvement.