La Crescenta Personal Trainer and the Truth About Exercise Intensity
Hi There!
Today I want to talk to you a bit about exercise intensity – how hard you work out – because there seems to be some confusion, not only with regular people, but also amongst personal trainers.
A while ago Rudi went to check out a local Crossfit Gym. They were having an open house, a free workout session, so he joined in for fun. In that half hour, one young woman passed out and another continuously threw up to the point of delirium. Both were embarrassed and tried to keep up.
To be very clear, this is not OK. You should not be feeling nauseous or faint and continuing to train. This is your body telling you to back off, and you should listen.
A fit person can handle much more intense physical activity than an unfit person. It’s really important to understand your personal fitness level and how to correctly increase it.
At the other end of the spectrum to the Crossfit example above is not enough intensity – this is where I see people spending hours on the treadmill and nothing changes for them. I’ve even seen this with people getting professional training – just the other day I saw a young female client with another La Crescenta personal trainer at the gym we use (not part of our team). They took a full 8 minutes between sets of a very unstrenuous exercise, just chatting. I guarantee that girl won’t be seeing the changes she hopes for anytime soon. We’d call that a very expensive personal training session, seeing as so little got done.
The body needs to be challenged to change – it’s a natural law. Challenge it too far and it will fail and get hurt. The skill is in knowing the precise degree of challenge – this is a totally individual thing and can change for you even on a day to day basis.
Now, I’ve probably given you a bit of a problem – what’s your specific exercise intensity point? Well, it’s probably higher than you might think, but I’d need to evaluate on a case-by-case basis as there are many factors to consider. It’s one of the first things we do with new clients.
You can contact me or Rudi (CLICK HERE) if you want more information but I did want you thinking with this very important but often overlooked aspect of getting fitness results safely.
Have a great day and exercise safely and well. I hope you enjoy the video version of this blog post (below).
