Ten years ago, I asked a 65-year-old friend of mine, “When was the last time you went all out?” He responded that it had been decades. He had been a member of a health club for years, but he seldom went. He was very busy and at the peak of his income earning years. I made my case to committing to ½ hour of high intensity strength training just once a week. I told him that if you push your body to a little more than you are used to, you get an upgrade. If you don't, you are guaranteed a downgrade. He listened but he wasn't biting.
If you don't make time for exercise now you just might have to devote considerably more time to sickness and injury later on.
I saw him again recently. A lot can happen in ten years. He now has a laundry list of health complications, significant enough that exercise to correct those complications is untenable. I ask myself, what if he had committed to exercise a decade back. Would he have any of these complications?
What if?
What if you committed to a properly designed full-body strength training workout once a week?
Where each week you do the exercises just a few seconds longer or do additional repetitions on at least some of the exercises.
Where each week you spend a little less time between exercises - rest when you are finished.
Where you progress in the amount of weight you lift. You might not go up in weight each week, but over the long-run the progression is toward increasing the amount of weight you lift.
Extrapolate these small improvements out over years, and the improvement is often dramatic. There is a very long list of benefits from proper exercise. Here is a list of 35 of those benefits.
This workout would not be designed to see how much exercise you can tolerate, but what is the least amount that will produce the largest marginal return. Such a workout will have a higher compliance rate – you will stick to it. The personal trainers at Kelly Personal Training have designed just such an exercise program. A good personal trainer will know how to structure such a workout. You do a little bit more than you are used to handling, and as self-protection, your body, if given adequate time to recover, will improve. With these improvements you will find you’ll likely become less sedentary. You will increase physical activity that will further enhance your well-being. It is a great feeling to still be doing those activities years later.
A decade from now you could have more strength, mobility, mental acuity, resilience, protection from injury, plus stronger bones and stamina or... not.
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