Fitness Tripod part 1 Training
We all know the importance of fitness. And especially in today’s world it is even more relevant. Irrespective of gender and age fitness is equally important to all. Lot of us does something or the other for physical fitness. Some do strength training, some play sports, some of us do yoga and many do just walking. Nevertheless lot of us fails to achieve the goals.
There are many reasons for not achieving goals. However there is three common mistakes and we are also ignorant towards it. To understand this lets first understand the concept of fitness tripod. Fitness tripod is three legged tripod which includes Training (progressive overload), rest & recovery and Nutrition. Many of us tend to focus on one of these factors. And ignore other two. There is also a saying that it’s “70% nutrition and 30% training”. This according to me is not true. It is actually 100% of all three factors. If you ignore any one leg of this tripod you are not going to reach your goals. Chances are you will make it even worse and might risk yourself for more fatigue, injuries and might also loose muscle.
Example - There are many young kids who workout for 2-3 hours a day in the gyms. Even athletes will feel jealous of their workouts. But still most of them never reach their goals. Reason is they never take their nutrition and recovery seriously. Either the sleep cycles are disturbed or the nutrition timings or quality is compromised. Sometimes both.
So to progress in any type of physical fitness goal all three factors are equally important. These factors never change irrespective of your goal. Whether to gain muscle, to lose fat or to increase cardio endurance.
1. Training
Important leg of fitness tripod is training. You have to train in a specific manner to achieve specific fitness goals. Example -1 if your goal is to increase physical strength you have to lift challenging weights for fewer reps to achieve your goal. 2 if your goal is to increase cardiovascular endurance then you have to train in specific manner like jogging, swimming, rowing, skipping.
This applies to any type of physical activity. But only training in specific manner is not enough. To reach your goals you need to keep challenging yourself, which means you need to increase intensity or resistance for that specific exercise. One more thing to consider about fitness is, it is not stagnant, and it’s a dynamic concept. Fitness has to be a continuous process. You either keep on improving your physical fitness or lose it by doing nothing or worst abusing yourself. So fitness is reversible concept. If you reached a specific goal you need to keep challenging yourself to maintain it or improve further. Unlike when you acquire a particular skill for example swimming. You don’t have to swim every other day to remember it. Even after 3-4 years of not swimming you will still be able to swim after little bit of practice. You don’t have to learn to swim again. This concept does not apply to fitness. If you are physically fit now to do a certain task, but after 6 months or a year you might not be fit to do the same. Example - a guy can squat 220 pounds for maximum of 10 reps today, he need to keep training himself regularly to achieve same reps or more with the same weight after 3 months. A modified quote “fitness is not owned, it is rented and the rent is due every day.”
Just like you have to keep training to maintain your physical fitness levels, fitness is also activity specific if your training is only focused on lifting strength you will certainly not gain strength on pushing movements or you will not improve your cardio endurance. Example – I respect all athletes from all sports. A top level sprinter might not able to do squats with big weights with ease. Similarly a top level weight lifting athlete might not be a good sprint. And that’s good for them they are true to their passion. But for us we need to understand it. If you want to improve overall physical fitness you need to choose a well rounded training program which will focus on all aspects of fitness.
Constant physical challenge. For weight training this is also known as progressive overload. To do so there are 4 factors to consider poundage/resistance, number of repetitions, range of motion/ ROM, Speed. To make it simple we will keep the ROM and speed of the movement same for all exercises. ROM will be complete range of motion for that particular movement (exercise). You can play with reps and poundage to overload yourself. For example If you do 10 reps of 10 pounds to challenge yourself in a specific exercise, you have to do 12 reps with the same poundage or same reps for 12 pounds tomorrow to challenge yourself.
This also applies to endurance training. In order to improve cardiovascular endurance you have to increase the distance or lessen the time to complete same distance.
If you want to improve muscular endurance for specific activity you need to do the same activity or activities that mimic it. If you want to improve overall physical fitness which most of us do, it is better to divide training between upper and lower limbs. So it is better to divide your week for running, rowing, cycling etc to improve overall muscular endurance. This is also known as cross training.
Flexibility. Ability to maintain complete range of motion around joints. To improve flexibility you need to stretch a particular joint just beyond its current ability. Flexibility is very important aspect of fitness to prevent injuries during or after workouts. Important point to remember is to only maintain flexibility till the normal range of motion. Stretching beyond that point will decrease muscle strength. Also if you reached complete range of motion for a joint you should not stretch beyond that. This is not the case in strength or cardiovascular endurance.
So the conclusion of this is you have to keep challenging yourself to improve physical fitness. And only training will not help in improving overall fitness you need to consider other two legs also which is rest and nutrition.