The below is a slightly abridged and edited version of Chapter 12 from my book The Thinking Person’s Guide to Fitness.
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Basic Exercise Theory
As I explained in Part I, exercise is a terrible way to lose fat; your diet must play that role. But exercise is still incredibly important for your overall fitness (and health), and engaging in a few different types of exercise each week — even just a little — will do wonders for your day-to-day energy level, sense of well-being, and ability to handle the occasional more extreme situation.
There are three essential physical goals your exercise should help with, and this applies even to specialized athletes. You want to (1) build skeletal muscle; (2) strengthen your cardiovascular system; and (3) develop good mobility.
These three goals should be the building blocks for any exercise routine, though your interests may lead you to spend much more time in one area than another. For example, someone who loves long-distance running should spend relatively more time on their cardiovascular system than someone who wants to go rock-climbing on a regular basis (rock-climbers should focus more on developing muscle strength and mobility). But regardless of their interests, everyone should be spending at least a little time every week working on all three forms of exercise.
This chapter provides some basic anatomical information so that you will understand why each of these goals is important. It also explain the types of exercises and activities that develop the capacities associated with them. The next chapter will then outline a good routine that addresses all these goals.
Build Skeletal Muscle
Skeletal muscle affects the way you look just as much as body fat, since it creates the shapes and curves that lie underneath. More importantly, though, skeletal muscle affects your ability to engage in strenuous activities, your day-to-day energy levels, your ability to rebound from illness, protection from injury, and even how many calories you burn while resting.
In fact, if you had to choose between being understrong and thin versus strong and pudgy, the latter is both fitter and healthier, hands down. But before we dig into the benefits of skeletal muscle and how to build it, let’s do a crash course on what it is.
There are technically three types of muscle in your body: one type is cardiac (heart) muscle, and another — smooth muscle — is found in the organs and arteries. Normally, though, when we refer to muscle we mean the skeletal type. As the name implies, skeletal muscle is the type that connects to your skeleton via tendons. This bone-muscle system is what allows you to move.
In Part III of this book we will get into the different types of skeletal muscle and the forms of energy that power them, but in order to start developing muscle, the main thing to understand is simply that your muscles will get stronger, and bigger, by engaging in exercises which force them to work hard to move something heavy.
For many people interested in increasing their strength, weightlifting is the go-to form of exercise. But you can also develop a very impressive amount of strength just by moving your body (think of a gymnast, for example). The essential thing is that you move something “very heavy.” This is a relative goal of course, and the body can indeed be a very heavy thing, especially if you are trying to move it with just one arm or one leg.
For those just beginning to increase their strength, bodyweight exercises will prove plenty challenging. And if done properly, a program of bodyweight exercises can be sufficient for a lifetime of solid strength training. They are also super convenient, as they can be done pretty much anywhere. This book will focus solely on bodyweight exercises as our form of strength training, though if you truly want to get as strong as you absolutely can, you should eventually consider “real” weightlifting.
The first key to a good strength routine is to concentrate on whole-body compound movements that work multiple muscles. Ignore bicep curls and similar “isolation” exercises that just work one muscle by itself, and instead focus on movements that require coordination of your entire body and which work multiple large muscle groups. Doing so will not only make the routine more efficient and thereby build more muscle in less time, but it will also develop more functional strength — real life activities virtually always involve using multiple muscle groups in a coordinated way.
There are really only three bodyweight exercises you need to focus on. You may eventually want to supplement these with some modifications and other exercises, for variety and to ensure you are developing well-rounded, functional strength. But when first starting out, all you need to do is the squat, the push-up, and the pull-up. Even many years from now, these three exercises should always form the core of your routine. The squat will strengthen your legs; the push-up will develop your chest, shoulders, and core; and the pull-up will work your back and arms.
Appendices B-E are dedicated to describing the mechanics of these three exercises, as well as providing some variations and a sequencing of progressions to allow you to “lift heavier” as your strength increases. So if you aren’t familiar with the proper mechanics and form of squats, push-ups or pull-ups, just go to each of those appendices when you begin, and refer back to them when you need to progress to more difficult exercises.
The reason that you will eventually want to progress to more difficult versions of these exercises (for example, a one-arm or feet-elevated push-up instant of the standard variety) is that in strength training your goal is to increase your maximum strength. This is best done by focusing on exercises that you can only do 5-15 times in a row (this is called a “set” and each movement of the exercise is a repetition, or “rep” in gym-speak) before your muscles give out. If you cannot do multiple sets of at least 3 reps of an exercise, you run the risk of injury. And while there’s nothing wrong with doing 50 squats in a row, when you do this you are shifting from strength training into something more like a cardio workout (see the next section), and there are typically better ways to work your cardiovascular system.
Therefore, when doing your bodyweight exercises, you generally want to find a variation of the squat, push-up or pull-up that allows you to do between about 5-15 reps in a set. You then rest for about 2-3 minutes between sets to allow your muscles to recuperate.
For those just starting out, I find it is easiest to simply focus on the total number of reps you can do in an exercise session, and besides some warm-up and cool down with an easier exercise, try to find the exercise that allows you to do about five sets of between 5-20 reps, even if it means you start doing a set of 20 reps and by the end are only doing 8.
Strengthen Your Cardiovascular System
The cardiovascular system is also called the circulatory system: it circulates blood around your body to provide oxygen, nutrients, and other good stuff to all the cells in your body. In addition to supplying your brain and other organs with the things needed to keep you alive, it also provides the muscular-skeletal system with the ability to move. So — to state the obvious — it’s something you want both healthy and strong.
The main component of the cardiovascular system is your heart, which pumps oxygenated blood through your arteries to a system of tiny capillaries which provide nutrition and oxygen to your individual cells. From there, the blood returns through veins to your heart, where it receives more oxygen and repeats the circulatory route, for as long as you live.
Since this movement of oxygen from the blood to your various organs and muscles is the primary function of this system, the circulatory system is closely related to your lungs and respiratory system as well— breathing is what gets the oxygen into your body in the first place. This is also why exercises which work your heart also tend to affect your breathing.
Cardiovascular exercises (“cardio” in gym-speak) strengthen your heart: just like any other muscle, making your heart work harder than normal from time to time will make it stronger, and a stronger heart pumps more blood and is more resistant to injury. This also leads to stronger lungs as well, as they are forced to keep up with a stronger heart. In addition, exercising your cardiovascular system also improves the health of your arteries and veins, keeping the cell walls of these little “blood tubes” flexible and tough.
In addition to increasing your life satisfaction by making all your normal activities easier, cardio is probably the most important form of exercise for your long-term health.
There are two types of cardio which you should regularly engage in: “light” and “hard.” Another way to think of these is “jogging” and “sprinting.” I mean these latter terms in a very broad sense. Light cardio can also include swimming, brisk walking, kayaking, or the like; and in addition to literally sprinting, hard cardio can include things like running stairs or doing burpees or jumping jacks.
The key to a good “jogging” exercise is to get your heart rate above 100 beats per minute (bpm), but not so high that you cannot carry on a conversation; for simplicity’s sake we can just say this upper limit is 130 bpm (for the technically-minded, though, I include more precise information in Appendix G). Doing a jog that requires your heart to pump blood in this 100-130 bpm range is a type of exercise that you should be able to maintain for hours without feeling worn-out.
The goal with a “sprinting” exercise, on the other hand, is to push yourself close to your limit for a very short period of time. With true sprints, this might just be the ten or so seconds it takes to run a 50 yard dash; with stair running, you may be able to maintain a hard pace for 10 minutes or more. Either way, at the end of a good “sprinting” session, your heart rate should be near its maximum (somewhere in the vicinity of 160-190 beats per minute), you should be very out of breath, and your clothes should be soaked with sweat.
Doing both of these forms of exercise is important for reasons we will discuss more fully in Part III. But to make a long story short, your heart is meant to be capable of powering you through brief emergency situations (“sprinting”) and also maintaining a moderate activity for hours on end (“jogging”), as well as ticking along as you leisurely go through your day. So giving yourself a little moderate activity at least once a week, and pushing yourself to your limit once a week (but no more), is essential to keeping your heart in good working order.
For most people, sprinting exercises are among the most dreaded. But if you regularly engage in these for a while, you will quickly realize that not only do you feel good the rest of the day afterwards, but you are able to do quick little dashes and bursts of activity without even breaking a sweat. It really is a good feeling to be able to run down a block quickly when needed and not be out of breath. Similarly, regularly jogging at a slow pace will do wonders for your energy level the next time you go on a hike or are traveling in a new city and walking for several hours a day.
A specific form of “sprinting session” currently in vogue is called HIIT (for High Intensity Interval Training). I provide very specific instructions for how to do these in Appendix F, but the basic idea is to exercise as hard as possible for 20-30 seconds, rest for a couple minutes, and then repeat, usually for a total of five sets.
There are other “sprinting” options as well. Running stairs or running a mile for time are both good activities for getting your heart rate as high as (reasonably) possible. And while exercises like this obviously work your muscles and can even add some strength, the difference between a sprint session and a bodyweight session is your primary goal: strengthening your heart and lungs instead of your skeletal muscle.
Likewise, even jogging will strengthen your muscles, or least certain types of muscles (see Chapter 18), but again the goal with a good jog is to increase your endurance, not your strength, and the limiting factor on endurance is your ability to move oxygen quickly though your body — a function of a well-conditioned heart and lungs.
Develop Mobility
You can have a strong heart and be bulging with skeletal muscle, but if you haven’t developed some good mobility, then you won’t be able to take full advantage of your other strengths; in fact, if you don’t work on your mobility along with your skeletal muscle and sprinting capabilities, you are likely to injure yourself.
A lot of people think of flexibility and mobility as the same thing, but mobility is a more comprehensive term, and developing it — as opposed to pure “flexibility” — is more functional and well-rounded. Technically, flexibility is just is a measure of your muscles’ ability to stretch and bend. Mobility includes that flexibility, as well as the range of motion available in your joints. While flexible muscles are important for increasing power and overall muscular capabilities, it is the skeletal joints that actually create your ability to move, and conditioning these is critical for making your strength gains functional and for preventing injury.
Joints consist of tendons and ligaments, both made of fibrous connective tissues composed primarily of collagen (a type of protein). While very similar in structure, their locations and functions differ slightly: tendons connect your skeletal muscles to your bones, whereas ligaments fit between bones and connect one bone to another.
Though it is entirely possible to pull a muscle during intense activity, most injuries are more likely to occur in our joints (ankles, knees, elbows, shoulders, etc), which means they involve tendons and ligaments. In addition, tendon and ligament injuries heal much more slowly than pulled muscles, making daily life more annoying and slowing progress in your exercise goals. What’s more, as your skeletal muscles become stronger, they become capable of exerting more force on your tendons and ligaments, making injury more likely if they haven’t also been exercised in tandem.
This gives you many reasons to develop your mobility at the same time that you are exercising your other physical capabilities, and incorporating some light to moderate stretching exercises into your regular workout routine. I personally find that having specific workouts dedicated just to stretching and mobility to be ideal — these can also work as a kind of rest day between more intense strength or cardio sessions.
A good mobility routine will not only develop muscle flexibility but also put a little strain on your tendons and ligaments, which over time will strengthen them. I provide an example in Appendix H.
Whatever exact routine you end up doing, it is important to ensure that it works your trunk — your back, hips, and neck — especially if you work an office job. Too often, novices will just pick up a few stretches they’ve seen runners or other athletes do, which tend to focus on the legs. And while leg mobility is important, don’t allow yourself to neglect your trunk.
There are a few different types of stretching. “Static stretching” is putting yourself into an extended position and holding it for a period of time, and is what most people thing of as “stretching.” This is also the safest form of stretching, and the only one I recommend for beginners.
“Ballistic stretching” — where you bounce your body a bit to push that extended position farther — can be good for athletes trying to develop power, but it is also a recipe for getting hurt, especially when just starting out. So avoid that style.
Similar to ballistic stretching is “dynamic stretching,” which usually involves rotating joints or moving quickly in and out of “static stretch” positions. While this can be a great pre-exercise warm-up, static routines are better for post-workout or a mobility-focused session. If you do decide to do some dynamic stretching for your warm-ups, keep it moderate: do not let yourself push your limbs or joints beyond a “normal” position, which would turn into a ballistic stretch. Just use them to literally “warm up” your muscles and prepare them for the more intense activity that will follow.
In addition to incorporating a mobility session into your weekly routine, doing a few minutes of static or dynamic stretching throughout the day is never a bad idea, especially when you have been sitting a long time. At work, setting an alarm to make yourself get up from the desk every hour and doing some quick stretches (and maybe taking a short walk) will go a long way towards keeping yourself limber throughout the day, minimize your chance of developing chronic back or neck problems, and augment your stretching workouts.