Are any of you familiar with these health terms: Principles of overload, Principles of progression.?
Question:
Can you please define them for me...
Also since Im doing a 9 week personal fitness plan can you tell what some good warm up and cool down techniques are?
My Goal is that I want to improve my overall endurance in exerisize ... to stay at a consistent rate... do you think thats a good goal or could you add more to it.possibly to make it sound better...?
Answer:
The overload principle means that if the exercise gets too easy, then you need to make it more difficult. This is one of the key principles of getting in better shape (progression).
At the core of all of these terms is the concept that your body is constantly adapting to what you throw at it. It's essentially becoming more efficient at tasks -- whether that is moving weight (resistance training) or becoming more efficient at delivering oxygen (cardio-vascular exercise.)
The principal of overload is applied to resistance/weight training. It's just a fancy way of saying that each workout you should be either beating the amount of weight you lifted last workout, or increasing your reps with the same amount of weight.
It helps to think of your workout as total amount of work performed versus reps and weight. So if you perform 8 reps at 100 pounds for two sets, you've actually cumulatively done 1600 pounds of work. If you added just one additional rep to each set, while maintaining your rep range and sets, you'll have performed 1800 pounds of work. That's an improvement over the previous workout. That's "progression."
So, for example, if you are able to bench press 100 pounds for two sets of eight reps, your next workout you should aim to do ONE of the following:
- 100 pounds for nine reps (two sets)
- 105 pounds for eight reps (two sets)
- 100 pounds for eight reps (three sets -- realize that for your third set you may only be able to do half to two-thirds of the reps of your previous sets.)
That's progressive overload and it applies to all muscle groups, regardless of amount of weight you initially begin with.
Why is this necessary? Because your muscles adapt to the loads you place on them, and if you want to increase muscle size, strength or endurance, you need to constantly challenge them.
The same principles apply to cardio-vascular exercise. As you increase the instensity and duration of cardio, your heart and lungs adapt and become more efficient. This is why you are less "winded" after a few weeks of cardio -- provided you continue to exercise at the same intensity as when you began.
So if you want to encourage more endurance, you will need to either increase the duration of your exercise or increase the intensity. For cardio, many people find sprints and interval training to be an effective way to boost cardio endurance. Interval training is basically performing short bouts of high intensity cardio (sprints, for example) with longer periods of moderate intensity work (like a moderate jog.)
In terms of warm-up and cool down, 10 minutes on a stationary bike or treadmill is usually sufficient warm-up for weight training (no cool down necessary.) For cardio -- 10 minutes starting at a brisk walk and then increasing in intensity to a light jog is usually enough. A five minute fast walk is usually enough cool down.
In terms of endurance as a goal, I would focus on performing your weight training in the 12-15 rep zone to begin with. Cardio should be a mix of length and intensity (I would consider the interval approach.)
Best of luck!
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