One of the classics of any gym is to ask about the exercise we have to do to change what we don’t like about ourselves. That personal objective can be very varied, maybe you don’t like how your heart rate skyrockets if you go up some stairs, or that some undesirable love handles give you a physical appearance with which you are not very satisfied.
There is no limit or classification to the objectives of each human being.
Any trainer can confirm how complex it is to answer the question “what exercise do I have to do to get rid of this gut?”, without having to give an explanation that most people don’t want to hear. The exercises are not medicines that are dispensed to cure something that we do not like.
Hey, I want Adriana Lima’s legs. Of course, take a jar of strides with you and take them ten at a time every morning. This doesn’t work like that, unfortunately no exercise will do you any good. There are no exercises aimed at a goal. What there is is an adequate intensity to achieve it. Stop looking for exercises. Focus on hitting the right intensity. But this concept is what complicates everything.
The word intensity it has two drawbacks. The first is that it usually gives fear unfounded by sheer ignorance or prejudice. The second is that it can be deformed by perception subjective what is being intense and what is not. It is necessary that we define what an adequate intensity is and how we can know if it is the one that we are applying to our training.
measure intensity over time
If you have established a directly proportional relationship, the more time the more intensity, you are wrong. Suppose two people have participated in a marathon. The two have run. One has completed it in two and a half hours and the other person in three days. Same exercise, two intensities. The first runner has had a brutal intensity, the second may have stopped every time he felt a little tired and regained his strength with a beer and some tortilla skewers. Someone who wants to achieve a world record in a marathon will have to reach an enormous intensity, but also an athlete who wants to win the Olympic final of one hundred meters ready. There is almost a two hour difference between one thing and the other. Use this example to explain that there is no direct relationship between time and intensity. It will depend a lot on what is done in that time and on your ability to concentrate and get the stimulus (intensity) necessary for your goals.
We have given two examples that have distance (and speed, of course) as fundamental axes, but let’s take another case that has nothing to do with it. If in your exercise table it appears that you do four series of eight repetitions and, between series and series, you dedicate yourself to talking on the mobile, it is very possible that you will not find the right intensity. On the contrary, if you are in a hurry and don’t rest for the necessary time, you may overdo it, you may not complete the last series and you may be leaving part of the training undone. The times of work and rest will directly influence the intensity of your exercises, this is well known by those who train by high intensity intervals, the famous HIITs.
Measure current by charges
You can also measure the intensity of your training by counting the weights you are going to handle, either as a percentage of your max lift or to the total load that you are going to move once the complete training is finished (the tonnage).
Training to your max load requires knowing your max load, so if you’re brand new, it’s more difficult to come up with an estimate of what you need to do. Here again the figure of the coach is very necessary, especially if we add poor technical executions to the ignorance of the weights.
Sports planning: the end of the process
Carrying out the planning of an athlete is a task that requires a series of knowledge that transcends the merely sporting. The nutrition and the rest They are as important or more important than the training itself. An optimal result requires a global approach, but the basic principles of intensity application remain. The most widespread method (not the only one) to improve the performance of an athlete is the overcompensation, which is nothing more than progressively increasing the intensity week by week until reaching a valley period, with less intensity, in which a series of adaptations are produced that improve the athlete’s performance. After this drop in demand in training, peaks occur in such a way that they allow improving marks to start the whole process over again in the search for a constant optimization of the athlete’s performance. If it is not possible to improve or there is even a setback, it is time to review what could be doing wrong, something that is complex and multifactorial. Health and sports performance are.
