Consistency of Exercise

Consistency in your exercise routine is the key to success in your fitness endeavors! Often times I hear people tell me that they are not seeing the results they want or expect, so I quickly analyze their program by asking some questions:

1. How is your diet? This usually covers it right there when they turn their head and look down, I know.
2. How many days per week are you exercising? When it starts with “Usually” there is the beginning of the problem…Lacking consistency.

What else might I hear (just to cover bases)? How about ‘Well I missed ‘X’ days because of ‘Y’” OR Well such and such got in the way…OR My dog ate my workout clothes…YEA, BS…Go workout!

When you miss just one workout per week, that equates to 52 MISSED workouts per year. Any idea how many calories you did NOT burn? Think about your workout and answer that question. But how about adding this to it: How many pounds of muscle building did missing those workouts cost you? How many pounds of muscle loss did that cost you? Remember, we are trying to BUILD muscle while working out (YES, even you ladies!). 1 pound of muscle mass/tone burns 30-50 extra calories AT REST. Multiply that by 10 and you come up with the numbers…then add in the calories that you DID NOT burn for those 52 workouts. Even if you suck at math you can see where this is going.

OK, so you only miss one every other week (BS)…so you cut that number in half, it is still a lot…but better. How about one per month on average? That should cover any SICK time you may have, when you need time off. Remember that with exercise and health, accompanied by common intelligence and solid nutrition, you should not be sick very often!

Some will be saying something like: “But I was injured and could not exercise” OK, I’ll buy that…if your whole damn body was injured! So many times I hear clients tell me that their doctor said no exercise for X weeks. Keep in mind that these are the doctor who want our fat butts off the couch and exercising! So you hurt your hamstring and can’t run: upper body still works. So you hurt your shoulder: your legs still work (not to mention that they burn most of the calories). Now I am not going to go against the Doctors (there is my disclaimer) BUT when they pull you off of ALL exercise due to one thing at one end of your body, most will readily accept it and go straight into LAZY EXCUSE MODE! You must step up to the plate and call them on that one: ASK WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO!

First off, you MUST ask your Doctor what else you can do to keep at least some level of fitness while injured, without furthering the injury and allowing it to heal. The Doctor is the boss, not me…but step up and ask. What might be some injury alternatives? How about:

-Water exercise – Awesome and low impact
-Bike - very low (to no) impact and is usually OK on knees
-Elliptical - not that hard of an exercise, in fact I am shying away from it because I am finding that it has a very limited impact on my fitness level…or trying to use it in ways that are not as easy and create an intense burn!
-Walking - if you can walk, maybe you can power walk???
-Weight/resistance training - something in your body probably is not hurt…train it while the rest heals.

This may not always be the way to go, but I hear so much that makes me know that about 80-90% of the injured people can still do something to at least maintain some level of their current fitness program!

Talk to your Doctor and if he/she gives the OK after confronting them with this information: NOW GO WORKOUT!

Brett A. Riesenhuber
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