Physical fitness is the foundation of good health
In this day and age it’s well nigh impossible to keep yourself healthy without a regular and systematic fitness training program. That’s because over the last 40 years we’ve being working flat out to strip physical activity from our daily lives. No more walking to work, no more standing up on the job, no more time for sport.
The benefits of physical fitness are legion, in the main improving metabolic, musculo-skeletal and psychological health.
There are three main factors of fitness:
- aerobic fitness
- strength
- flexibility.
An aerobic fitness training program (along with a good diet) is the foundation of good metabolic health.
A good strength and flexibility training program is the foundation of good musculo-skeletal health. Without it bones move out of alignment, ligaments, tendons and muscles around joints are stretched beyond their pain threshold. In the case of the spine, discs become herniated. In one word what it means is ‘pain’.
AEROBIC FITNESS
Your level of aerobic fitness is a good indicator of the condition of the system responsible for transporting oxygen to working muscles: – the heart, lungs and blood vessels. However, to restrict the importance of aerobic fitness to the cardiovascular system does it a grave injustice. On the contrary, your level of aerobic fitness is perhaps the best indicator of the health status of most of the important body systems.
Only 10 to 15 percent of people over the age of 30 years participate in sufficiently vigorous activity (of the huff and puff variety) each week to maintain reasonable level of aerobic fitness and reap the health benefits that come from it.
According to the research, the stimulus to improving aerobic fitness is at least three vigorous aerobic sessions a week of at least 20 minutes a session. And if 20 minutes is good, 30 minutes is better and 40 minutes is best.
Along with time, the intensity of your aerobic exercise needs to be taken into account. They say that you need to get your heart rate to at least 60% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) to gain an aerobic training effect. 70% is better and 80% is best. This level of exercise is achievable and sustainable for people in good aerobic condition and something worth aiming at. Maximum heart rate is said to be 220 minus your age.
The people I see who are in the best of health are those who have a vigorous aerobic training program, for 40 minutes on most days of the week. I see little evidence that ambling around the block for 10 minutes does much for the cardiovascular or any other system, or that it has much of an impact on lowering stress levels.
In the Complete Fitness Workout I’ll show you exactly what you need to do to improve your aerobic fitness.
STRENGTH
We’re living in the age of musculo-skeletal dysfunction. Around 50% of people have some sort of complaint – lower back pain, stiff necks, sore shoulders, bung hips, dicky knees and burning wrists. Most of these complaints are personally generated. The incident – chair – stairs – groceries – garden – grand children … gets the blame for tipping you over the edge, while the underlying, creeping dysfunction lurks hidden in the background.
The research is unequivocal. If you don’t have a regular and systematic strength training program you’re leaving yourself wide open to deteriorating musculo-skeletal health. Most people don’t have a good strength training program.
Weak muscles can’t support your body in correct alignment.
Weak muscles can’t do the lifting, pushing, and pulling that bodies are meant to be able to do without breaking down.
A strength training program also improves and then maintains muscle bulk. Muscle bulk is important for keeping up your metabolic rate – that’s why you’ll notice that the people in the weight training area at the gym look in pretty good shape.
The Complete Fitness Workout has a time-honoured, simple and effective strength training program for both home and the gym.
You don’t have to spend hours at the gym. The program I’ve got for you takes about 40 minutes. It’s a program for young and old.
What I’ve noticed about my gym is that some days I’m just about the youngest person there. It’s full of septuagenarians, octogenarians and nonagenarians keeping up their strength and their muscle mass. It’s definitely use it or lose it.
The home program has four key exercises – situps, pressups, squats and superman back arches. These four exercises done regularly over the weeks, months, years and decades will save you a lot of time in therapists’ waiting rooms reading ancient Time Magazines and Readers Digests.
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility refers to the ability to keep your skeleton in good alignment. If you experience joint and muscle pain you can be certain that tight muscles somewhere in your body have pulled bones out of alignment. Ligaments, tendons and muscles will have been stretched beyond their pain threshold.
Back pain is usually starts with a pelvis that is out of alignment. The misalignment of the pelvis is caused by tightness of any of the muscles attached to it. When the pelvis moves out of alignment, the bones above it move out of alignment in ‘sympathy’. Trying to get the vertebrae back in alignment by rubbing, crunching, heating and vibrating the spot where it hurts is a fruitless task.
By far the greater proportion of people with some sort of musculo-skeletal dysfunction do not have a regular and systematic flexibility training program.
ONE MINUTE FLEXIBILITY TRAINING PROGRAM
I recommend the one minute flexibility training program for people with musculo-skeletal dysfunction. What this means is that you need to do each exercise for at least a minute to get any benefit from it. If you can stretch for longer, so much the better.
The reason for this is that it takes a muscle at least a minute to get the message that it’s safe to loosen up. So, give it time, plenty of time to loosen up.
Many of the exercises will enhance joint function if you stretch for two or three minutes. If you have any sort of musculo-skeletal dysfunction, you’ll get better value from your flexibility training program if you spend a couple of hours at a time doing the exercises over and over again.
If you’re having trouble finding time to do your stretches I suggest you do them while you’re watching television. That way you can take your time and spend as long as you like doing them.
Introducing Our Work Out Program “The Complete Fitness Workout”
The Complete Fitness Workout is a simple, effective, easy to follow fitness training program. It’s a program designed for regular folks. It’s a program that can be put into action in a gym or in your home.
at $9.95US It comes in a 62 page ebook, outlining a comprehensive fitness training program that includes
- a warmup
- 20, 30 or 40 minutes of continuous aerobic activity
- 30 – 40 minutes of strength exercises
- 15 minutes of flexibility exercises.
Purchase the ebook with a copy of our ‘I’m Getting Fitter and Healthier‘ inner mental training audio file, designed to keep you focussed on getting fitter and healthier for $23:00.
Or buy the complete set of fitness ebooks for “The Complete Fitness Workout”
- The Complete Fitness Workout
- Miller 20m aerobic fitness
- Aerabyte aerobic fitness prescription
- Fitness Tracka Aerobic Fitness Diary
- Fitness Tracka excel Spread Sheet
- Strength Training Diary
- Platinum Challenge
- I’m Getting Fitter and Healthier mpg3
