What is Fitness?

Defined clearly, fitness signifies the ability of the human body to function with energy and alertness, without excessive fatigue, and with sufficient energy to engage in leisure activities, and to meet physical stresses. Each and every stress placed upon the body be it small or large, requires the expenditure of energy and involvement of all the body's defences; with added oxygen having to be delivered to muscles and supplementary waste products having to be carried away. This places extra demand on the circulatory system and strain on the heart. How our body faces any stressful conditions depends on our baseline level of fitness. In light of this, research suggests that physical activity may be linked to lowering physiological reactivity towards stress, so, put simply, those who get more exercise may become less affected by the stress they face. If that's not a great motive to get more active, I don't know what is… So keep up with the good work!

Fact?

A person who exercises regularly becomes trimmer, lighter of foot, brighter of spirit and lot less stressed!

Balancing eating and exercise

What you need to know...

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail! If you want to get the most out of your training your pre-exercise diet needs to be planned.

Simple Top Tips:

Ideally, you should have a high carbohydrate meal 3-4 hours before exercise to stock up your carbohydrate stores, if this is not possible then remember that ‘something is better than nothing'. (e.g a bowl of cereal or a sports drink). You need to be well hydrated before starting - beginning exercise in a dehydrated state will be detrimental to your performance.

For a CV workout under 40 minutes long, if you have prepared well, drinking water throughout should ensure that you are able to maintain your performance. For longer sessions you need to provide fuel as well as fluid and drinking a carbohydrate-electrolyte solution is the easiest way to do this. In normal conditions, 600-1200ml of fluid per hour is recommended.

For performance to be reproducible, the post exercise period is crucial - in essence you are starting your preparation for your next workout immediately. You should try to consume about 50 grams of carbohydrate ASAP - 750ml sports drink or 4 tablespoons of raisins or 60g jelly sweets - as this will kick start the refueling of your stores. Your first meal should be eaten within an hour and this too should be high in carbohydrates. You also need to rehydrate yourself fully.

Fun facts!

According to a new study conducted by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, nearly half of exercisers arrive at the gym already dehydrated - researchers studied 300 gym users in the USA.

Weighing yourself before and after exercise is a good way to find out how much fluid you have lost - 1kg weight = 1 litre of fluid.

For every litre of water lost, your heart has to beat 8 times per minute more in order to meet your body's requirements.

The adult human body contains 2.5 million sweat glands! Drinking a well formulated carbohydrate-electrolyte drink during prolonged exercise can increase endurance performance by one third.