General Fitness Guidelines for a Healthy Student



General Fitness Guidelines for a Healthy Student

(You should check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program)

FITT Principle

FITT stands for (F)requency, (I)ntensity, (T)ime, and (T)ype of exercise. The frequency and time of exercise depend on the type and intensity of the exercise. If you choose a high intensity type of exercise like jogging or swimming laps, you should exercise three times per week for 20-30 minutes. If you choose a low intensity type of exercise like walking, you should exercise 5-6 times per week for 50-60 minutes. Doing a variety of activities is a good idea. For example, you could swim laps two times per week for 30 minutes and play racquetball two times per week for 45 minutes. Variety keeps you more interested in exercise and gives you a more diverse range of physical benefits (such as muscular strength and endurance and/or flexibility).

What Kind of Exercise Should I Do?

The most important thing is that you choose activities that you enjoy doing. You will be much more likely to stick to your exercise plan if you enjoy doing the exercise. The best activities for weight management and heart and lung health are jogging, bicycling, swimming laps, cross country skiing, aerobics, tae bo and other high intensity, continuous activities. There are certain sports that work fairly well like full court basketball, soccer, racquetball, etc., but they require you to put in a little more time to get the same amount of benefit (such as one hour of basketball instead of 20-30 minutes of jogging). You should also do exercises that build muscular strength and endurance and flexibility. Stretching before and after a cardiovascular workout is a good way to work on flexibility. Doing some limited weight training is also a good thing to include in your workout for your overall health.

Muscular Strength and Endurance

A limited weight-training plan is a good thing for overall fitness. Increasing muscle mass will speed up your metabolism and help you to lose weight faster. Having some muscular strength and endurance is also important for your overall health. A basic guideline would be to do three sets of ten repetitions about three days per week. You should try to work on all of the major muscle groups when you do your workout.

Abdominal Strength

In order to increase abdominal strength, it is recommended that you do between 30 and 50 sit-ups each day (or a similar abdominal workout). It is a good idea to do a one-minute timed test regularly to track your improvement. Have someone hold your feet and time you for one minute to see how many sit-ups you can do.

Flexibility

Yoga and Pilates are good ways to work on flexibility, build strength, and relieve stress (but not very good for strengthening your heart or burning calories). Another good way to increase flexibility is to stretch when your muscles are warm (after a cardiovascular workout – stretch before the workout to avoid injury and stretch after the workout to reduce soreness and increase flexibility). Increasing flexibility is good as it helps you to be more athletic and often helps to reduce lower back pain. You should stretch all of your major muscle groups.

Weight Management (Body Composition)

When most people decide to lose weight they do it by starving themselves or by cutting out certain food groups. This is generally a bad idea, it might lead to short-term weight loss, but it is not healthy and most people usually put the weight back on. The key to losing weight is to burn more calories than you take in each day (I know it seems obvious). You need to eat a balanced diet so that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs, but you should try to cut out most of the unhealthy snacks and sweets and cut down your meal portions a little bit. Generally you shouldn’t make drastic changes, just eat a little better and exercise more. You will lose weight if you reduce your caloric intake (especially the unhealthy calories) and increase your caloric expenditure by increasing your activity. The important thing is to change your lifestyle so that you can get healthier and stay healthy. You should try to eat a lot of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and healthy sources of protein and exercise regularly. Remember “low fat” foods are not always low calorie foods. Pay attention to fat content and caloric intake when planning meals. For more information, see: .

Target Heart Rate

To maximize cardiovascular and fat burning benefits, your heart rate should stay in your target heart rate zone (60%-80% of your maximum heart rate) for the duration of the exercise session (minimum 20 minutes). You find your target heart rate zone by using the following formula:

Subtract your age from 220 (220-Age). The answer is your maximum heart rate. Then find 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate in order to find your target heart rate zone. For example, a 35 year old person would subtract 35 from 220 which = 185 beats per minute. 185 x .60 = 111 and 185 x .80 = 148. So this person’s Target Heart Rate Zone would be between 111 and 148 beats per minute.

Finding Your Heart Rate When You Exercise

You can either wear a heart rate monitor during exercise or do periodic pulse checks during your exercise session. In order to manually check your heart rate, find your pulse (I use the carotid artery on the neck) using two fingers. Time how many times your pulse beats during a six second time period. Multiply your answer times 10 in order to find your approximate heart rate.

Being Healthy Is Not About Looking Good (Although Looking Good Is A Nice Side Effect)

Healthiness is not really about looking good. It is about feeling good and having a healthy heart and body. Your focus for your exercise should not only be to look good. Your focus should be to be healthy. That is why fad diets are so bad for you. You might lose weight and look better, but your heart is not any healthier. If you eat balanced, sensible meals and exercise regularly your heart and body will be healthy and you will feel good. A nice bi-product of a healthy lifestyle is that you will probably look better as well, but that shouldn’t be the focus of your exercise plan.

Scales Sometimes Bend The Truth

You will probably re-position your weight (from belly to biceps) before you start losing a lot of weight. When you start an exercise program, you might not always lose weight right away. Hopefully, your exercise plan will help you to build muscle and burn fat. The increased muscle will make it seem like you’re not losing weight (Remember muscle weighs more than fat) even though you are lowering your body fat percentage. Your body fat percentage is more important than your weight.

Aerobic VS Anaerobic

Aerobic exercises are exercises that cause the cardiovascular system to speed up for a sustained period of time to keep up with the body’s increased oxygen demand. In order to maximize the cardiovascular and fat burning benefits, the exercise should be sustained for a minimum of 20 minutes. Anaerobic exercises are exercises that require short bursts of muscle exertion such as weight lifting, football, and short sprints.

Health Benefits of regular Cardiovascular Exercise

Managing weight and doing regular cardiovascular exercise can greatly reduce your chances of developing many life-threatening diseases such as Type II Diabetes, Heart Disease, and High Blood Pressure. Regular exercise also helps to reduce stress and helps you to sleep better at night. If you start looking and feeling better you might even improve your self-esteem.

Wear A Pedometer to Evaluate Activity Level and Motivate Yourself

Wearing a pedometer all day long can help you to assess how active you are. It is also very motivating when you can look down and see how much you have done each day.

Fitness Plan Assignment

You need to write one sentence for each of the five fitness categories (cardiovascular fitness, bicep strength, abdominal strength, flexibility, and body composition) based on your Tri-Fit test results. The sentence should include what exercise you will be doing, how often you will do the exercise, and how many minutes you will be exercising (cardiovascular exercise) or lifts you will be doing (sets and repetitions for strengthening exercises). You also need to write down what kind of foods you should be eating and what kind of foods that you should avoid (or eat sparingly) in order to maintain optimal health and energy levels.

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