We all know that exercise is good for us and an important component of our overall health. Though, many of us may not know what makes a good or well-rounded exercise routine. Worse, many have fallen into the trap of the many myths about exercise and aren’t getting the results they are seeking as a result.
Today I am sharing the four essential components of an exercise routine. A comprehensive, effective exercise routine requires all four of these. The essential components are:
- Strength training.
- Effective cardio.
- Stretching or mobility.
- Rest.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that I began with exercise and “dieting” at the age of 14. When I started, my exercise routine consisted only of cardio. At that time what I knew about cardio, or thought I knew, was that it burns fat. So, in my mind, if I wanted to get results faster I needed to do as much cardio as possible. At 14, this translated to 45 minutes of cardio every single day after school, on top of whatever I was doing in PE at school.
In later years, it was cardio kickboxing videos, running, or my stepmom’s old Jane Fonda and Denise Austin videos, or some combination of all of these. In these earlier years, I believed there was magic to certain types of workouts. At this time, which was later 90s into the early 2000s that was what the fitness industry tended to sell, this workout will get you the body you want type of messaging. So, naturally, I believed that and thought, oh, if I do this video every day, I’ll look like the instructor. Wrong. Now, to be fair, yes I lost some weight, but I never got a six pack nor did I even look anywhere near as toned as the video instructors did. It wasn’t until decades later that I would learn this is because it’s complete bullshit that a workout video will get you results like this. It’s also complete bullshit that doing nothing but cardio will get you results like this. I didn’t know better. In fact, I didn’t learn better for a long time.
Fortunately, I did eventually learn. Now I know that exercise alone will not get you the physique you may be wanting. Nutrition drives the majority of our overall physique. I have many episodes about that. We do also need exercise for our health. Exercise can also help improve our physique, if you are including the essential components in your exercise routine, of which cardio is only one. So, let’s get into what these are.
- Strength training.
Ok, strength training is number one for a reason, it is probably the most important and most beneficial overall for health as well as a good physique. Cardio may help you burn fat, if done correctly and effectively, but it is not going to give you any shape. If you want toned arms and shoulders, a smaller waist, some lift and definition to your booty and toned thighs there is no other way around it, you need to be doing strength training. Your muscles are what give you the shapely physique many of us want. You cannot run your way to this. You cannot spot exercise your way to this. You need a solid, full body strength training routine, period.
I know there are some myths or misconceptions out there that weightlifting will make you bulky. You may have images of some of the extreme female body builders that you do not want to look like. You will not look like this from weightlifting. Weightlifting is not going to bulk you up. It is going to tighten you up and make you look smaller. We often hear people say, erroneously that muscle weights more than fat. This obviously makes no sense if you think about it. A better way to say it is that muscle takes up less space than fat. This is why you may see the scale stay put for quite some time, yet your body measurements will decrease. As you replace fat with muscle you will get smaller, even if your weight doesn’t drop or doesn’t drop a lot.
In addition to aesthetic benefits, there are numerous other benefits to weightlifting. You get stronger. You become less prone to injury. You strengthen your bones, reducing the risk of things like osteoporosis or serious injuries to your bones. You will increase your metabolism and burn more calories throughout the day. This is because muscle requires a greater amount of energy to maintain than body fat. The exact amount of energy is a subject of debate, but increased muscle mass does help your base metabolic rate.
Another benefit is that it truly is the fountain of youth. Again, not just in that you will look younger, but it keeps your body strong and able, which is really important as we age. I heard a story on the radio years ago about an 80-someodd year old lady who beat the daylights out of a home invader. All because she was a weightlifter. I want to be that 80-some-year-old lady. I want to know my kids aren’t going to have to take care of me when I am older and I want to be strong enough and capable of maintaining my independence for as long as possible. - Effective cardio.
Ok, so I’ve noticed a trend in the fitness industry right now. There are a lot of ads out there for programs where they are saying things like “if you want to lose weight and look like x,y,z then stop doing cardio” or they will say something like “lose weight and look great without cardio.” I find this a tad misleading, because you do need some cardio. There are two reasons I say this. One, it is called cardio because it works your cardiovascular system, which is good and you absolutely want to take good care of that system. So, cardio is very important for your health. Second, cardio helps you to burn excess body fat, so long as you are doing effective cardio. So, what does that mean?
This is where I think the messaging out there about not doing cardio is misleading. What these trainers are really getting at is that you do not need to nor should you be doing really long periods of high intensity cardio. This means huffing and puffing, cannot talk or can barely talk, sweating profusely, and your heart rate is at it’s peak, possibly higher. This type of cardio results in your body pumping out adrenaline and a number of other hormones that can end up countering your weight loss efforts and can actually cause you to hold on to body fat instead of burning it.
There are so many workouts and programs out there that push these types of workouts. I spent decades convinced I had to get at least 45 minutes at peak heart rate in order to get the results I wanted. Little did I know it was the equivalent of a hamster on a wheel getting nowhere! So, what is effective cardio? It’s keeping yourself in a fat burning heart rate, which is about 60% of your max heart rate. If you don’t have a heart rate monitor like a smart watch or Fitbit a good gauge is you should feel your heart pumping, but you should be able to carry on a conversation comfortably.
The best example cardio exercise is walking. Believe it or not walking is all the cardio you really need. It is far more effective at burning fat than running or other forms of cardio and it has many other benefits, like improving mobility, reducing pain, and heart health. This is not to say all other forms of cardio are detrimental to your goals. It is a matter of staying within that 60% of max range to prevent your body from pumping out high amounts of the hormones that lead to you storing more fat or resisting releasing fat. - Stretching or mobility.
It is often the first thing many of us will skip, myself included, but it is one hundred percent an essential component of a workout routine. Not stretching increases your risk if muscle injury. If you have ever had your back seize up on you, you know what I’m talking about. I found out the hard way this is what happens when your hamstrings get too tight and when you don’t stretch enough after workouts. Take my advice and stretch after workouts. Trust me; if you have not experienced back spasms this is not one of the lessons in life you want to learn the hard way.
In addition to stretching after workouts it is also essential to have a focused day of the week where you do a stretching workout instead of weightlifting or cardio. This can be yoga or just 15-30 minutes of dedicated stretching however you prefer. It is important to improve your flexibility, improve mobility, and it also helps with relaxation and mindset. - Rest.
Rest is listed last but it is certainly not the least of these. This is another one we sometimes tend to want to skip, especially if you worked really hard to get yourself going with exercise. I spent decades in absolute terror that if I took any breaks from workouts I’d fall off the wagon and never get back on track. As a result I hardly ever took breaks or rested much more than maybe one day a week. This coupled with skipping on the stretching all the time ultimately led to a really bad shoulder injury, which later forced me to take a two-week break from weightlifting. Please feel free to learn from my mistake and build rest days into your routine. I am very disciplined about this now. Wednesday and Sunday are no-workout days. The most I will do on either is take a walk or get out in my garden.
A little bit of a lesson on how this works. When you lift weights you are creating small tears in your muscles. This is why you will often feel sore when starting out or when you change your workouts up and/or increase the weight you are lifting. Your body repairs this when you sleep. This is also how your muscles grow. This is why you will see workout splits designed the way they are, for example you never work the same muscle group back-to-back. You want to put at least a day in between.
After you have been working out consistently for some time, say several months or years, it is good to add in an occasional week off as well. It just gives your body some time to recover and rest. If you find you are really sore and struggling to get up in the mornings there are a few things to look at. One, are you getting enough sleep? This means at least 7 hours of sleep each night. If you are not getting at least 7 hours of sleep you should not be working out until you do. At the very least do not work out higher than 60% of your capacity until you get to 7 hours of sleep consistently. Hormones are a factor in this, which is why it’s important. Otherwise you can start pumping out the wrong hormones in the wrong amounts and end up finding it much more difficult to lose weight or fat.
The second thing is you may just need more rest from workouts. This might mean taking an extra rest day that week, maybe a couple. Listen to your body here and give it what it’s trying to tell you it needs. If you don’t want to take a third rest day, go to bed an hour earlier that night and see how you feel the next day. Sometimes this does the trick. Other times you just might need more rest and that’s ok. You will get better results in the long run when give your body what it needs.
So, those are the four essential components of a good exercise routine. They all work together and they all add up to the healthier, stronger, leaner body you are working so hard to achieve. I hope you find this helpful and create a workout routine for yourself that includes all of these components.
Regardless of what you do, keeping track of your food, exercise, and water intake is a great way to keep you on track and sustain your progress. I have been doing this for years. Check out my fitness and progress trackers available on Amazon. You can check out the covers and interior in the Store, here on the website, or on Amazon at the links here:
Beauty & Barbells Fitness Tracker https://a.co/d/aWO2VjY
Faith Fitness Joy Fitness Tracker: https://a.co/d/hjcqfO7
High Energy Fitness Tracker: https://a.co/d/0Eoq9ES
I Can & I Will: Weight Loss & Fitness Tracker (Tie-Dye) https://a.co/d/1HS8oYA
Progress not Perfection: Weight Loss and Fitness Tracker https://a.co/d/d0b3vOt