Exercise With Purpose

Nothing feels better than approaching your goals with conviction, focus and direction. That old phrase, practice makes perfect isn’t just a saying. It’s reality and applies to so many areas of our life, including exercise and fitness.

Step One - Understanding Why

Most people who exercise aim to put in a good effort, but they often have no idea why. When you don’t know why you’re doing something, it’s difficult to think about troubleshooting, which is important because roadblocks (and overcoming them) are a huge part of progress and totally normal. So if you find yourself in this boat, don’t fret. Our bodies are also complex and so are the range of health problems that can get in the way of our fitness goals, which is why the real fitness experts continue to study the principles of exercise and nutrition for years both before and after becoming proficient and effective in their knowledge and application.

Building strong muscle and bone is one of the most important things we can do for our bodies. Besides the obvious preventive factors like fighting off osteoporosis and degenerative spine, hip and knee problems, you’re building inner strength. With age, many people experience trouble taking on simple daily tasks like lifting themselves from a sitting position or carrying grocery bags. These tasks require body strength that can not only be improved but prolonged when we work to achieve muscular and bone strength.

Step Two - Understanding Your Needs

Since we no longer live in an era where physical work is the everyday norm, our lifestyles have become a lot more sedentary. This explains the rise in a variety of health issues and by extension, the pressure placed on our health care system. Even with so many gyms to choose from and fitness professionals ready to help us win the war against obesity, osteoporosis and heart disease, something is still missing. The truth is that there are very few exercise programs with the structure required to deliver optimal benefits. Many current trends are geared toward class participation and while classes are great for inclusivity, they don’t allow an individual to focus on their own body which has its own unique set of needs.

Step Three - Exercise Purposefully

So what is purposeful exercise and what kind of time do you need to invest? First, realize that the harder you exercise (under good control and in a safe environment), the less you need and the more you get out of it. Even those who are trying to optimize their function and lean mass, working toward looking as good as they can while also achieving more strength need no more than 30-40 minutes, three times a week. And with the typical client, we can produce extraordinary gains in just 30 minutes, once or twice a week.

Although the time commitment is minimal, many people feel they are too busy to invest even 30 minutes a week on their fitness goals. It’s your life and your health. You only have one body. Can you afford to lose it prematurely or to a preventable disease? It’s not enough to ‘just do’ an activity. It requires careful planning, problem solving, precise measurement and prescription of exercise stimulus in order to achieve the best results without injury.

Let’s MUV.