The Thinking Person's Guide to Fitness: Principles and Practices for Reaching Any Fitness Goals by Benjamin Loomis

Author:Benjamin Loomis [Loomis, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2020-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

18. Exercise Theory

I oversimplified a number of ideas in my chapters about the fundamentals of exercise. This was appropriate for those who mostly need to develop an exercise habit, but at this point, it’s time to take a more sophisticated approach. This is especially true if you develop very specific interests and goals. But even if all you want to do is make your workouts more intense, some additional knowledge about how your body operates will go a long way to making your workouts as efficient, and your progress as fast, as possible.

In this chapter we are going to take a look at the different types of skeletal muscle you have, as well as the different energy systems that power them. We’ll also delve into the biological process of becoming more fit: adaptation. Adaptation involves two stages: overload and stress, followed by rest and recovery.

The concepts laid out in Part II are still completely true, and it’s worth maintaining the basic structure to your workouts that I described previously. But achieving a higher level of physical conditioning means that at least some of your workouts will get more intense, and longer. Once you start engaging in a few really serious workouts each week, then developing targeted goals for your exercise is critical, as is creating some plans for recovering from these more intense workouts. We’ll examine the practicalities of this in the next chapter, but first we should discuss some theory.

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