FITNESS TIPS for EVERYONE

• JUST DO IT. I LOVE this simple - but very profound - phrase from Nike. It applies to more than just fitness, of course, but boy does it apply there. Often I have been hemming and hawing about heading to work out...trying to figure out how to make it fit into my day. Then this phrase will pop into my head. I go (usually :-), and everything else just falls into place. As any military leader knows, sometimes it is important to do SOMETHING, rather than do nothing while overanalyzing the IDEAL thing to do. If that sounds too haphazard for you, then let me put it in these terms...if you came under gunfire in the middle of a road while leading a team across, you can (a) sit there and get shot while you analyze which is the ideal route off the road, or (b) just MOVE! Any move is better than sitting there. The same is true for exercise.

• Consistency: How often you work out is far more important than what you do.

• Do what you like the best because that's what you will stick with for the long term.

• Don't be too attached to scales. Judge your fitness by how you feel and how your clothes fit.

• Remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so - when you start a new exercise program - you will likely see a slight initial weight increase even if you are losing fat. What's important is not your net weight, but your lean body weight (percentage of weight that comes from fat vs. from muscle.)

• Working out GIVES you energy that you take with you all day. So if you ever feel too tired to work out, that's all the more reason to do so - especially if that lethargy is chronic.

• Your best workouts will often be on the days when you didn't feel like doing it. It's as if God rewards you for having the discipline to go anyway.

• Minimize your rest periods between sets. Resting too long between sets is one of THE MOST COMMON mistakes of avid exercisers. Have you seen the people who work out every day but look the same for years? Most likely these people are spending too much time between sets chatting with others and hanging out next to the work bench. Start a program with no more than thirty seconds rest between sets and whittle it down from there. That will seem like a crushing tempo at first, but you will get used to it in a week or two. The whole point of training is to break down glycogen levels (your muscle fuel). When you rest between sets too long, your glycogen levels come back up, reducing the effectiveness of your training. That's why you have to minimize or eliminate your rest. Again, start with a thirty second rest between sets and adapt to that before reducing it further. This concept is true whether you are talking about cardio or strength training.

• Give any new exercise two weeks of practice before passing judgment on it. A new movement in the gym or a new routine will feel awkward at first.

• V=DI: Training Volume = Duration x Intensity. Sprinting at high intensity for five minutes can be equal in value (training volume) to fifteen minutes of casual pace jogging. Adjust your time and intensity to get the training volume you need for your current fitness level.

• Just Say No to No Pain, No Gain: This is an outdated and dangerous concept. To practice this - even for an elite athlete - is to overtrain and, thus, decrease in fitness! It's true that your body needs to be pushed out of it's comfort zone so that it will adapt its fitness upwards, but too far out of that comfort zone too often will just break you down. Even Lance Armstrong saves maximal efforts for competition - not for daily training.

• Fast tempo weight training burns fat too: It is a misconception that lifting weights (strength training) is just for men who want to look like Arnold. Barbells and dumbbells are also ESSENTIAL for the weight loss exerciser of either sex. The tempo for fat-burning oriented weight training is faster than for - say - power lifting, with minimal or no rests between sets. It is valuable for fat burning for two reasons...one, because the way cardio works is by getting big muscles (like the legs and glutes when running) working hard and fast enough to increase your heart rate. Lifting weights gets all the body's muscles working in this way for a cardio and - thus - fat burning - effect. Secondly, weight training increases your metabolism, which helps you burn fat even when you are not working out. And, of course, anything that burns calories is helpful

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