Are you getting the most out of your time while exercising? To answer this question, we need to understand what a quality exercise program entails.
Frequency: The frequency in a quality exercise program should be 3 to 6 days a week. In the beginning, the more consistent you are with your workout days, the more your body will adapt to your new exercise program. As you progress and your exercise endurance improves, you will be able complete a quality exercise program in fewer days. You should focus more days on your cardiorespiratory exercises compared to your resistance exercises. You should give yourself 48,s hour between resistance exercise sessions.
Intensity: Exercise intensity can be judged in a few ways. When you can monitor your heart rate during your exercise, you should stay in your exercise heart rate zone. Below is a web site to help show you the proper heart rate zone for your age when you are exercising. When you begin your exercise program, you will want to stay closer to the lower end of the heart rate zone to insure you complete your workout time. As you progress with your exercise endurance, you can work out at a higher heart rate zone.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/PhysicalActivity/Target-Heart-Rates_UCM_434341_Article.jsp
Another way to judge your exercise intensity is the Borg rate of perceived intensity scale. This scale will help you judge how intense your exercise session is. Below is a web site to help show you the Borg rate of perceived intensity scale. http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/measuring/exertion.html
Time: A quality exercise program will have a total of 150 to 300 minutes per week. How you divide this time up depends on where you are with your exercise program. At the beginning of a workout program, it is important to spread this time out throughout the week. You can even start by dividing up your time in to small ten minute sessions. It is important to find the right balance with amount of time you exercise each week. There is a point where you can exercise to excess.
Once you have achieved a consistent exercise program in all three phase (Frequency, Intensity, and Time) you must progress your program to continue to challenge your body. If you do not continue to progress your exercise by learning new exercises, increasing intensity, increasing time, or increasing total distance you are not getting the most out of your time while you are exercising. Exercise should never feel easy, it should just feel like you are getting better at it!
