This entry is targeting general population of people. Specially written for my group of sedentary friends who needs an extra push to get their bums off the chair at their office and homes.
Why should we exercise?
Exercising increases metabolism rate.
Metabolism = the basic breakdown and restructuring of cells in our body (our body is made up of millions of cells, if you haven't know.).
When we fall sick or sometimes injure ourselves, cells are damaged or inflammed. Increased metabolism rate generally means that these damaged cells can be replaced at a faster rate. To some, it may mean faster time to recovery from sickness, to others it may mean getting more muscular or burning fat cells and building new muscular cells.
Basically exercising means doing something that raise our heart rate for a sustained period of time to increase the workload of our body.
So, when we go through our daily life, we use different fuel sources for energy. When we work out/exercise, the same occurs.
What sources are used are determined by the 3 energy systems that our body uses.
1) Anaerobic
2) Anaerobic Oxidative
3) Aerobic
Anaerobic system provides instant energy to explosive movements. Imagine 10m flat out sprints.
Anaerobic oxidative system provides energy to sustained high intensity workout of 2minutes and above (Highly possible to develop, depending on training).
Aerobic system is the system that provides energy to sustained low to moderate intensity. Imagine walking from your home to mrt stations, going through your daily lifestyle and also jogging at a conversational pace. This is what we will be touching on later.
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Anaerobic system uses Simple sugar (the sweeter a food is, the more it is a simple sugar) and ATP.
Anaerobic system uses Simple sugar + Oxygen
Aerobic system uses mainly complex carbohydrates (Brown Rice, spag, wheat bread.. etc) and fats (when workout lasts more than 20/30mins (debatable topic here...))
For general population hoping to get a lifestyle with general fitness, Aerobic system is the system to train with, I.E low to moderate intensity workouts.
Which brings us to the following question...
Why should we choose lower intensity exercises over high intensity ones?
High intensity workout requires high muscular strength to withstand the impact created by the explosive movements.
e.g: Tuck jump. When you jump off the floor as high as possible and land back on the floor, the impact is created when the feet comes into contact with the ground. If there is not enough strength in the ligament & supporting muscles through base training, injury risk are at all time high.
Lower intensity workout causes less stress to the body's joints and muscular structures and thus its easier to recover from and done over and over again in a consistent basis.
Moreover, the lower intensity workout utilizes complex carbohydrates and fats... isn't that what all the people in this world (fat or thin) want to burn? Doing a lower intensity workout will allow you to do it over a prolong period of time (45 to 60 minutes or more!).
Thus in my opinions, it really beats doing 5 minutes of flat out sprint that burns all sugar and give you hell lots of aches and high risk of injury for those who merely wants a more healthy lifestyle.
The keyword here is consistent basis of low intensity workout - Done daily/alternate days. Each workout should be about 45 to 60 minutes, including 10 to 15minutes warmup and 10 minutes cooldown in that time frame. Without consistency, any kind of workout (high or low intensity regardless) will not show any physiological benefits (losing fats and gaining muscles are just one of those benefits).
So how do we know that we're training in the right system and intensity?
That introduce us to the next question.
Why should we exercise with Heart Rate monitors?
Heart rate monitors give us an arbitrary guideline that is very clear cut to follow.
General population that are sedentary can use this formula to get Max Heart Rate (MHR, the estimated maximum heart rate per minute that can be attained through a workout.).
MHR = 220 - Age
So for example, weihao is 26 yrs old.
220 - 26 will be 194.
A very simple way of making sure the intensity is at the right low/moderate level is to multiply that number by 75%.
Athletes may argue that their moderate effort are of higher HR, but this entry is for general populations.
So 0.75 of 194 is about 145 beats per minute.
Having a heart rate monitor as you jog, weihao'll be able to make sure that he is working out at UNDER 145 beats per minute (i.e 75% max heart rate).
This should be a conversational pace in the event that you can't afford a HR monitor, if you can't talk whilst you're jogging it means you're doing it at too high an intensity.
For obese personel, it is recommended that you use the Karvonen Formula to get a more accurate measurement of HR percentage.
Reason being that obese personnel have a higher resting heart rate usually and take this example for illustration...
Person A is 50 yrs old and obese and have a resting heart rate of 120.
His MHR is 220 - 50 = 170.
75% of his MHR is 127.5.
What that means is that when he is sitting down doing nothing, the heart rate is already 120... when he starts walking, he's going to be way above 127.5 already... Thus using Karvonen formula will be better as it takes into account of his resting heart rate. I shan't elaborate further to make this article lengthy, however, read the link below for more info.
Karvonen Formula Details
If you are very interested and still have enquiries, I'm just a sms away at 81800621 or can email me at enquiry@sapphireswimming.com
Cheers
KK
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