What about workouts?Exercising is a great way to boost your energy levels, boost your mental state, and have room for dessert. (cause we all love dessert
xd )
A lot of people have the misconception that when exercising that you are supposed to go either as hard as you can or as long as you can... and some even think both. This however is not true. In fact you can actually do more harm than good exercising the wrong way.
How Exercise WorksWhen you exercise, no matter what physical shape you are in, the responses your body makes are going to be the same. Faster heart rate, harder breathing, and sweating. All of this is normal.
When you are exercising organs that do not need to be in constant use will slow or stop working so that they do not use energy that can be used for the muscles that you are using.
Now, lets do an example.
The wrong way to run for your health would be to start out sprinting... maintaining that speed for as long as you possibly can and finally when you cannot go on any longer you just collapse onto the nearest place you can find to site or lay down.
What is wrong with that? Well, when you start out at a sprint or flat out run your leg muscles and muscles in your abdomen are cold. (That is to say they are just at your resting temperature, which is fine for just walking around) Think of your thigh muscles as any other piece of meat.
Lets say that You are going to be cooking a thick piece of chicken in an uncoated metal pan. You turn the stove on and heat the pan to the correct temperature and you throw a frozen piece of chicken on there and the directions say to cook for 5 min on each side. So that is what you do. Here is what happens to your chicken. It sputters and smolders and sticks to the pan and when you remove it from the pan and cut into it you notice that the outside can be burned in some places and the first few layers of the chicken look to be done... but the middle is still frozen and cold.
The correct way is...
The chicken should first of all be allowed to warm up enough so that all of the ice is melted and then you want to gradually let the pan warm up to about 3/4 of the temp that it should be before you stick the chicken on there because when the chicken is going from an un cooked state to cooked as it is warming up it releases liquid that will coat the pan and not letting the chicken stick to the pan or letting it burn. The heat will evenly penetrate though the chicken to the center and then it will be done and safe to eat.
With your leg muscles it is kind of the same way... You have to warm them up in order to keep them from cramping up, and you are able to sustain running for a longer period of time with out "burning" out.
The correct way to run for your health is to warm up first. Do a few stretches, bend at the knees, hips, and waist. Flex your ankles and feet, make sure you feel loose and limber. Then you are ready to start walking. You should always walk for about 10 min before you start to run, then when running you should never reach maximum speed and stay there for more than a min or two.
I know you are thinking "What about people running races?" Well that calls for a different kind of training regime. I am talking about running/walking/exercising for the purposes of staying in shape.
I have found that walking, jogging, running, jogging, then walking again works the best for feeling the best.
walk 10 min
jog 5 min
run/sprint 2 min
jog 5 min
walk 10 min
jog 5 min
run/spring 2 min
jog 5 min
walk 10 min
you are not over exerting yourself and you are keeping your heart rate up, which will result in weight loss in combination of a healthy diet and other exercises.
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