3rd Key: Exercise Right
Due to our nomadic hunter gatherer ancestory, our bodies were designed to move every day, and sometimes vigorously. Our joints, bones, muscles, tendons and many metabolic pathways depend on this. If we don’t give our bodies any physical stress, they will fail us. Exercise and the way our body responds to it also helps our mind. Here are some of the scientifically proven benefits:
1. Build lean muscle
a. Essential for staving off chronic disease
b. Support your joints & increase bone desnity
c. Increasing your metabolism
2. Get the mental and physical benefits from the hormonal responses from exercise
a. Muscle relaxation
b. Mental clarity & positivity
c. Greater energy and stamina
3. It makes it much easier to eat well
So we need to find an exercise regime that works for us. My general advice is to create a regular, sustainable and flexible exercise routine. The necessary inclusions are:
1. Resistance (weights) training. These can be pin-loaded, spring loaded or free-weights. The thing that I see missed most often is progressing your resistance in an upward fashion. For example, the resistance you are lifting right now should be heavier than what you were lifting this time last year.
2. Posture, mobility & injury prevention training. Whether it’s Pilates, yoga or mobility activities on a foam roller, you need to ensure you don’t get injured otherwise your whole program can come to a halt and your health is the victim! Address your weaknesses and restrictions, it’s like servicing your car!
3. Get your heart rate up. You may be able to achieve this by doing step 1 & 2, if not, take up some continuous exercise such as walking, riding or swimming. Make sure it is intense enough to make a conversation difficult. The more intense it is the less time you need to do it.
Most people need some support to keep this good routine up whether it is supervised training sessions, doing a regular challenging walk or run with friends or playing a regular sport. So don’t feel like you need to go it alone!
Conclusion to the 3 Keys
So now we have covered the 3 Keys: Goal setting, eating right and exercising right. The truth is that these 3 areas feed off and support each other. For example if you eat well your training will be more effective. Likewise, if you begin with a clear and healthy goal, you will feed off the fact that you are achieving and moving towards this with a greater focus on your training – it will become an important part of your life. Your health is worth it, so I challenge you to make a single improvement in each of these areas, work hard and then enjoy the benefits of feeling better.