The Importance of Exercise

Exercise isn’t just about weight loss! In fact, you don’t have to exercise to lose weight; however, there are numerous reasons why you should be working out! Exercise helps maintain muscle mass, which can improve metabolism. But working out still goes beyond body composition! Research shows that exercise improves healthy aging and longevity, physical strength, power, endurance, and metabolic capacity. 

Different Types of Exercise

Okay, so you know you should exercise, but what kind of exercises should you be doing? Well, let’s look at the different modalities of working out: aerobic and anaerobic training. Anaerobic training is important for strength and power and includes resistance training (think weight lifting). Aerobic training is important for endurance and includes cardiovascular activities like running or swimming. The key to optimized health is a balance between the two. Strength and power from resistance training are important for simple, everyday tasks like standing up from the couch, carrying objects, or even catching yourself if you fall. Endurance, on the other hand, is equally important for common tasks like walking, walking upstairs, or hiking. Research suggests that a combination of these two, also known as concurrent training, is optimal for body composition and overall health.

Optimizing Resistance Training

Now you know that in order to optimize overall health, you should be practicing concurrent training, but let’s go further into detail and discuss how to optimize both resistance and endurance training. First, what is resistance training? Resistance training isn’t just about weight lifting, it is when your muscles have to fight against a force. This can be bodyweight, resistance bands, machines, or weights. All of these modalities may have a place in your workout regime; however, free weights and resistance bands are more functional than machines (because they are not on a set path and require stabilizer muscles), as compared to machines, however, because machines are on a fixed path, they are less dangerous and less likely to cause injury when compared to free weights. It is optimal to use a combination of both. 

In order to figure out exactly what kind of exercises will be most beneficial to you, you need to understand what your needs are. The core needs that most people look for when exercising are outlined below, along with suggested rep ranges.  When practicing these recommendations, it’s also important to take into account muscle confusion. You should not be doing the same exercises day-in and day-out. Every few weeks to months, try to switch up your routine to maximize results.

• Type: Hypertrophy
• Goal: Body Composition (to lose fat and gain or maintain muscle mass)
• Rep Range: 8-12 reps, resting 60-90 seconds between sets
• Movements: Compound and isolation movements

• Type: Endurance
• Goal: To lose fat (“tone up”) and/or gain endurance
• Rep Range: 12-20 reps, 30-60 seconds rest
• Movements: Compound and isolation movements

• Type: Strength Training
• Goal: Increase strength 
• Rep Range: 1-5 reps, long rest times (2-3 minutes, max 5 minutes)
• Movements: Compound lifts

• Type: Power Training
• Goal: Increase power output 
• Movements: Compound lifts, decrease weight by ~50% of strength training and increase power (lift explosively)
• Rep Range: 1-5 reps, 1-2 minutes rest

Optimizing Aerobic Training

Aerobic training requires oxygen and includes activities like running, biking, swimming, dancing, and more. Aerobic activity is great for fat loss because fat is broken down aerobically (meaning it requires oxygen). The degree to which fat is broken down depends on the intensity of the exercise (need for fuel). When you complete lower intensity exercises (like walking or hiking), you burn fat as the primary fuel source. When completing higher intensity activities, carbohydrates are the primary fuel source. Does this mean you need carbohydrates to exercise? No, you don’t need to consume carbohydrates through diet, because muscle glycogen can provide fuel. The carbons from fats can be converted into glucose, which can be used as fuel. Similarly, amino acids like alanine can be converted into glucose.  Additionally, carbohydrates are not needed for endurance activities because your body can tap into fat stores, which are greater and provide much more energy to fuel your workout. 

In order to determine what kind of aerobic activities you should be doing, you should assess your goals and consider the different advantages and disadvantages (outlined below).

• Type: Steady-State Cardio
• Goal: To increase heart rate to a certain zone and then stay there (typically around 60%)
• Advantages: Not as taxing as interval training, you won’t be as sore, requires less attention (you can watch TV or talk to a friend)
• Disadvantages: Can be time-consuming and/or boring

• Type: Interval Training
• Goal: Increase heart rate to maximal aerobic capacity (can only complete the exercise for up to a minute max) and then slowly lower the heart rate with lower intensity activities and repeat
• Advantages: Greater fat loss, time-efficient, preserves muscle mass
• Disadvantages: High intensity, taxing and will cause soreness, can only be truly completed a few times a week
• Performing aerobic exercises 2-3 times a week is optimal. Whether or not this is steady-state cardio or interval training is up to you, but if you choose steady-state cardio, try to complete at least 1 interval training session each week for the best results. 
• 2-3 times a week whichever you’d prefer, recommended at least 1 interval training

When people refer to metabolism, they are often referring to the calories burned in a day. These calories aren’t just from exercise or genetics, but a complex of factors. In fact, exercise itself (or exercise activity thermogenesis, E.A.T.) only accounts for approximately 5% of your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). Other factors to consider include the thermic effect of food (TEF), and basal metabolic rate. Outside of exercise, another aspect of metabolism to consider is non-exercise activity thermogenesis or N.E.A.T. NEAT is a measurement of spontaneous activity and includes everything from fidgeting and blinking to walking. NEAT actually makes up about 15% of your TDEE. 

TDEE= BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF

A simple way to increase NEAT is to move more (outside of exercise). Doing things like walking more (try to hit over 10,000 steps), taking the stairs instead of the elevator, cleaning up/ doing chores, and even chewing gum can help increase your metabolism.