The Two Most Important Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Fitness Program!

By Joe Mullen

Thinking about turning over a new leaf and starting a fitness program? There are two very important questions to ask yourself to insure maximum results in minimum time.

You must answer them or you, like millions of Americans, will waste valuable time, effort and money during the fitness quest.

The first question is “What are my goals?” and the second question is “How little time is required to reach those goals?”

Unless you clearly define your goals, your exercise program will be the equivalent of being on the right track but heading in the wrong direction.

Just as a train can be on the right track and heading in the wrong direction, perhaps towards catastrophe. An improperly designed fitness program can lead to misfortune.

As an example, if your goal is to build “cardio fitness” it is not necessary to follow the typical recommendations of most Fitness Instructors which is to ride a bike, swim, run on a treadmill, use an elliptical machine or stair stepper.

There is a more efficient method and it creates total fitness, not partial fitness. There is more to fitness than most interested in fitness understand.

A second example would be to begin fitness training to improve strength, flexibility, improve muscle tone and change the shape of one’s body.

Often time’s people are directed towards several different types of fitness programs that involve many hours of wasted time. In fact, there is one type of program that will improve all aspects of fitness.

Yes, it is possible to design a fitness program that improves all the elements of total fitness in one program – strength, flexibility, muscle endurance, cardio-endurance and loss of body fat -- and it can take less than one hour per week.
There will also be improvements in muscle tone, body shape, self-esteem and self-reliance.

To precisely design a total fitness program goes beyond the space allotted for this article; however, following are the basic rules of total fitness.

The following recommendations apply regardless of one’s goals.

• Firstly, if you know you are physically or emotionally unfit, get the approval of your physician before starting any kind of fitness regimen.
• Find a reputable fitness center in which to exercise. Generally, if the center is using tactics that require large down payments or long term contracts beware.
• Those offering long term or life long contracts are more interested in your money not your health. Usually, the life time of the fitness center is shorter than your life time. Purchase the shortest term membership offered. You can always extend it if you are happy with the center.
• Pick a center that specializes in the use and instruction of High-tech machines like Nautilus. Just as a jet plane can get you from one place to another quicker than riding a mule, High-tech equipment can produce results quicker and safer than free weights, and the exercise time reduces by two thirds.
• Inform the fitness professional of your goals and the amount of time you wish to spend in the facility.
• Insist on a number of visits under the guidance of an Instructor. Typically, fitness centers only offer a few visits with supervision.
• This is not enough and frankly, many centers do this on purpose and hope that you drop out of the program because they cannot provide the proper service based on the price they charge.
• Of course, if you quit the program you will not get your money back and are often times charged an additional fee to cancel your membership.

Once you are satisfied that your wishes are granted, ask the instructor to design a fitness program that involves all of the major muscle structures of the body.

Insist on exercises that, when performed, contract the most muscles possible. In the fitness trade these exercises are known as “multi-joint movements.”

This means that when you do the movement, more than one joint is involved in the movement. Example, the performance of a curling motion requires that the palms are moved up towards the shoulders and back to the starting position.

The only joint moving is the elbow joint and only the muscles of the upper arm are involved in the movement. Not a very large muscle mass and few calories are used up.

On the other hand, a movement like a squatting type movement involves more muscle contraction because legs, hips and lower back muscles perform the movement.

More muscles are involved, more are simultaneously contracted (therefore toned), the heart rate elevates and more calories used in the quest towards weight loss.

It is easy to understand that when a fitness program includes exercises for the total body muscles, more strength, flexibility, muscle endurance, aerobic endurance and weight loss happens at the same time. Decreasing the exercise time, than when exercising individual, smaller muscle groups.

Simply put, why not exercise several muscles at the same time rather than one muscle group.

Finally, and this is initially difficult to grasp: the results will come quicker in proportion to the least amount of time you spend exercising.

If a fitness program is logically designed the first thing to consider is: What is the minimum time required to produce maximum results?

Logically, any time spent exercising beyond the minimum that will produce results is therefore a waste of time. If 10 exercises will produce maximum results why perform 20 exercises?

There is no need to go beyond the minimum requirement.