See if this sounds familiar: Robert Reilly worked out regularly for several years, running two miles every other day and lifting weights two or three times per week when his job as an Orland Park police sergeant allowed it. But he could never lose the extra pounds around his waist that convinced him to start an exercise program in the first place.
“I still felt out of shape,” said Reilly, 42.
Now the less typical part: One of Reilly’s fellow officers was participating in a “Physique Transformation Challenge 1998” contest sponsored by the Colorado-based Muscle Media magazine. He coaxed Reilly to join him in the 12-week program, which prescribed efficient workouts as short as 20 minutes for cardiovascular exercise and no longer than 46 minutes to perform weight training.
As a result, Reilly lost 15 pounds of fat and gained three pounds of muscle. He accomplished it in about half the time of his previous workout routine.
What he most gained was an appreciation for what heightened intensity can add to an exercise routine.
“I stopped just throwing weights around or feeling sort of blah after two miles of running,” Reilly said. “I pushed myself more. My body had to adapt and so did my mind. I would take a risk to see if I could lift one more (repetition). If I made it, then I would take the next risk. If I couldn’t do it, I would simply try again the next workout.
“My confidence went way up by realizing how much I could accomplish in workouts. I felt more in control of my life.”
Testing your limits during exercise might seem redundant or even unhealthful for anyone already juggling, say, an overflowing schedule of family and work commitments that make 24-hour days or seven-day weeks seem too short. On the contrary, notching up your physical activity levels might be just the remedy for a stressed-out life.
The subject of intensity is attracting a new round of enthusiasm among exercise scientists and other fitness experts. It’s not an entirely new concept; anyone who has run wind sprints knows that. But you might say the fitness pendulum has swung from “just do anything” to “make it worth your time and effort.”
While the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still sends out the fundamental message that any exercise is better than sitting on the couch–and it most certainly is–there is growing sentiment that moderate-level activity such as steady exercise walking, recreational bike-riding or gardening is an effective strategy only as a starting point.
People like James Prochaska, a health psychologist at the University of Rhode Island and director of the school’s Cancer Prevention Research Consortium, contends the CDC’s well-publicized daily “accumulated 30 minutes” of physical activity won’t deliver the types of body changes that keep most of us exercising. People who can’t shed the last 5 to 10 pounds tend to quit trying, he said.
What amazes Prochaska most is that the federal government changed its recommendations from 20 minutes of more intense exercise to the current half-hour.
It actually added time to people’s busy schedules, he said, rather than focusing on how to best use the shorter commitment of 20 minutes.
Intensity would be a primary focal point of using the 20 minutes wisely. Research shows interval training, which can be described as a series of go-hard/go-slow units, is the optimal method for enhancing cardiovascular health and burning fat. What worries many public health officials is that beginners will go too hard too soon, leading to sore muscles that can be discouraging or, worse, heart attacks.
No exercise program should be started without consulting your doctor, especially if you have experienced health problems. It’s equally important to be sure to warm up the muscles–breaking a light sweat–before either an aerobics or weight training workout.
Bill Phillips, publisher of Media Magazine and author of the current bestseller “Body-for-LIFE” (HarperCollins, $25), said novice exercisers shouldn’t confuse intensity with overdoing it. His “Body of Work Challenge” (the new name for the former Physique Transformation Challenge that has drawn tens of thousands of participants each of the last two years) features a “20-Minute Aerobics Solution.” It starts with 2 minutes at a Level 5 rate of perceived exertion on a scale of 1 to 10. This rate is a lab-tested self-evaluation in which you monitor how hard you are working; it encourages body awareness and eliminates calculating heart rates that can be difficult to do.
After the 2 minutes at Level 5, the workout escalates to 1 minute each at Levels 6 through 9 before dropping back to Level 6. You repeat the pattern three times, going as hard as possible in the last minute of the third cycle, before finishing with a minute at Level 5.
For beginners, Level 5 might be reached by just walking, Phillips said, while others might need to jog briskly. Everybody uses his own scale; the objective is to make it a progressive-intensity workout. Over time, your Level 5 will become more intense, so you never actually perform the same workout or completely master the program, in contrast to someone who exerts less on a favorite fitness video after one to three months.
“At Level 7 on a stationary bike, you might still be able to talk to someone, but it is getting strenuous,” said Phillips, who runs a sports dietary supplement company, EAS, and is donating all of the profits of his book to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. “By Levels 8 and 9, you have to completely focus on your mind on the movement.”
That’s how varying intensity can make the most impact, Phillips said. “There is a tremendous misunderstanding about intensity. It is an important link to opening the mind. As an adult, the mind tends to close about what you can and can’t do, especially what’s not possible.”
For both the mind and body, exercise scientists espouse the overload or fatigue approach to weight lifting. The muscles respond fully when pushed to exhaustion.
Two provisos arise: 1. Overload shouldn’t come too soon in any one set or workout session (8 to 12 repetitions per set is a reasonable guideline) to prevent both injury and stunting a workout’s potential; 2. Get enough rest between weight sessions because the muscles gain strength in the 24 to 48 hours after a workout, not in the gym; a common mistake is not allowing the body to completely rebuild and restore itself.
Prochaska is one to talk. His cancer prevention work motivated thousands of Rhode Islanders to quit smoking, impressively including people who were not openly willing to stop the habit. Consequently, the National Cancer Institute awarded the university $10 million to apply its methods to persuading people to exercise more and eat low-fat diets. Prochaska works with a five-step approach to change that includes precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.
The behavioral model has been successful because it encourages people to move one step at a time–whether it takes days, weeks or months–rather than set up an all-or-nothing premise. What Prochaska found is that people cite time as the main reason they cease exercising, but he said lack of preparation is the missing ingredient.
“The problem is not your schedule,” he said. “It’s that you didn’t develop a substantial list of benefits. So when your time gets jammed, you don’t have enough good reasons to rationalize why you still need to fit exercise into your day.”
Phillips said planning is an integral step in the Body-for-LIFE program. He asks people to identify what they will be doing on a certain day, then record the rate of perceived exertion. It helps determine if you are working hard enough, or maybe even too hard.
“You become more conscious of your body,” he said. “This is not bodybuilding but body balancing. When the mind and body are balanced, you know it. Everyone has their own best body.”
CLUB EXERCISES THE IDEA THAT FITNESS CAN BE FUN
PLAYING DODGEBALL FEATURED IN `RECESS’
Upping the intensity is one way to boost the results of a personal exercise program. But there is still room for fun in the equation.
“I think people work out harder and more regularly if they enjoy it,” said Donna Cyrus, national group fitness director of Crunch Fitness, the innovative New York-based company that opens a brand-new 35,000-square-foot club next to House of Blues in Marina City on Monday. “They lose sight of the work and concentrate on the fun parts.”
Cyrus said “Recess” is a popular one-hour class at Crunch clubs in New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, among other U.S. cities. Participants use such props as mini-trampolines, Hula Hoops and inflatable “bop-bags.” They play dodgeball and do cartwheels. The mix is decidedly playful and light on the formal calisthenics.
“It’s a blast,” Cyrus said, “yet we are still asking people to notice their rate of perceived exertion. If they are feeling about a 5, we suggest ways to increase the level, such as getting your hips and torso more into the jumps on the mini-trampoline.”
Cyrus said the idea is to not let the mind or body go on automatic pilot, not paying much attention to whether the exercise is challenging enough.
“I talk to people all of the time who say, `I’m taking five spinning classes per week, but I still can’t seem to lose the weight,’ ” she said. “My answer is to see if they are increasing the resistance enough. Muscles have memory and can handle a task more easily if done over and over. Each time you change intensity, the body is forced to adapt and stabilize.”
Cyrus champions the notion of pursuing a wide variety of different activities. It maintains fun and practically guarantees more intensity, since the muscles are consistently surprised.
Adding flexibility workouts is another way to gain benefits, Cyrus said, because you can increase range of motion in the joints and muscles. Perhaps most important is getting enough rest after trying out a new intensity ethic.
“The body needs to recover,” she said. “If you are working hard enough, you need the time off.”
If you are working too hard, muscles tend to feel more sore than achy. Plus, the soreness lasts beyond 48 hours. You want to push the muscles enough for results but not so far as to lose the enjoyment.
HOW TO UP THE ANTE
Intensity has its place in any exercise program, even for beginners. “If you want to achieve some form of peak fitness, you must raise intensity on a regular basis,” said Dave Pearson, an exercise physiologist at Ball State University’s Human Performance Laboratory in Muncie, Ind. “The best way to do it is set some sort of goal.”
For example, Pearson said preparing for a fun run or charity-sponsored walk is a reasonable target for novices. You can identify a time you hope to achieve, then use thrice-weekly workouts to get ready for the goal.
If losing weight is your goal, make it more specific and health-minded, such as five pounds in six weeks or 10 pounds over 12 weeks. Then develop an exercise routine that shows progress each week or two along the way.
“You might need to find a training partner or workout facility that helps you move through a program, increasing intensity when necessary,” Pearson said. “A personal trainer is the answer for some people. I talk to so many folks who are not self-motivated or are afraid of making changes. They never move up their weights or change pace during 20 minutes of aerobic exercise.”
On the other hand, intermediate and advanced exercisers without goals might actually overtrain themselves. Pearson said what frequently occurs is people keep increasing the amount of time they spend in the gym as an effort to gain strength, sometimes going twice each day five to seven days per week. These dedicated exercisers are not often evaluating whether intensity is high enough. Another problem is not getting enough rest.
“There is an exercise concept the top athletes use called `periodization,’ ” Pearson said. “It allows for periods of stepped-up intensity (typically measured in weeks), then a period of low training so the body can recover.”
