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A NEW ROUTINE I’ve been asked to describe in detail, the training program that I use to bring success to my clients at IFC. Success in a fitness program can be broken down into five components: muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, cardiovascular exercise, and agility. The workout should begin with a brief five -10 minute warm-up involving the biggest muscles in your body (legs). Once you have elevated your core body temperature two degrees (this usually occurs when you break a sweat), we continue the warming up process by performing a series of abdominal exercises using bodyweight or light resistance only. Once completed, we proceed to stretch. Stretching is done to increase joint mobility. The stretches that we do at IFC emphasize the low back, hamstrings, and hip joint. These areas are particularly important for people who experience low back pain or are prone to it. Typically, the stretches are held for a 10 count, emphasizing your breathing, allowing the muscles to relax and the joint to be pushed further. Following the stretching, we proceed to the muscular strength and endurance portion of the workout. The basic weight training workout consists of 16 exercises which hit every part of each skeletal muscle in the body. The exercises are performed for one set of 15-20 reps. Provided that a repetition takes four seconds to complete, a set should last about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. This determination is a result of many studies done by exercise physiologists who have found that a muscle needs to be under stress for between 60 and 72 seconds to be fatigued enough to promote positive physiological changes. Agility is developed during multiple phases of the program. Proper form during the strength training and cardiovascular conditioning exercises improve agility as well as aids balance and coordination. The
workout should conclude on one of the pieces of cardiovascular equipment
provided at IFC. This portion of the workout should be performed for
30 minutes in your Target Heart Rate (THR) Zone. This zone is determined
by taking 220 and subtracting your age, then subtracting your Resting
Heart Rate (RHR) (take your pulse for six seconds and multiplying the
number by 10), then multiplying the difference by .65 and adding back
in your RHR. This results in finding the low end of your THR Zone. To
find the high end, do the same as described above, however, multiply
the difference by .85. The cardio is then done at the end of the workout
to take advantage of the elevated heart rate achieved during the weight
training and so minimizing the need for additional warm-up. Therefore,
by coming to IFC and participating in this vigorous workout for one
hour and eating smaller, more frequent meals, and choosing good healthy
foods, one can achieve any fitness goal.
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