Creating My Own Exercise Program

Photo credit: StockSnap.io

Now that you have gotten to the point that you're able to exercise every single day for five minutes it is time to start increasing the amount of time that you exercise. This is done very similar to the way that you increased the frequency, one day out of the week you will increase that 5 minutes to 6 minutes. Again using the same principle as previously, when you wake up on Thursday morning you'll determine how much that added stress did indeed stress the body. Again, if you're not at all sore or stiff and not feeling any effects of the previous days exercise at that point you can increase Thursday's activity also to six minutes. Just like you did with frequency you'll continue to increase each day’s number of minutes until you get to a point that you're starting to feel a little bit sore, not overly sore but just a little bit to recognize that the body was indeed stressed adequately and it is now making change and becoming stronger. This method is continued until you have reached the ability to do 30 minutes of exercise every day out of the week.

Now it is time to start working on intensity, intensity is how difficult the minutes of exercise are.  Up to this point you should be able to do your exercise without having to increase your respiratory effort at all. In other words, you should be able to breathe completely normal while you're doing the exercise. The way that you will start increasing intensity is again very similar to how you started with frequency and time. You'll increase the amount of the intensity up to a point where you can not sing, but you are able to talk. You will do this for one out of the 30 minutes that you were doing previously only on that Wednesday, again waiting until Thursday to determine how much stress that added to the body. Again, just like on the previous both frequency and time, you will get the report card, if that report card indicates that you have the right amount of stress previously it will let you know by a little bit of soreness or stiffness in your body. Again this is not something to be afraid of, but an indication that you have stressed the body to the point that has it has received a stimulus and knows that it must adapt in order to improve. Remember that during this phase of developing your exercise program you are working on intensity. Just as previously you will choose only a 1 minute portion of the session on Wednesday and increase the intensity for that 1 minute. The remaining 29 minutes should be done at a very low intensity, easy to do,  not increasing your need for breathing. As your body adapts you will be able to get to a point where you will be able to do the intensity level of sing – talk, meaning that the intensity is at a level where you are not able to have an of breath control to sing but you're still able to carry on a conversation, for the entire 30 minutes. Use your report cards to determine when you can increase the amount of intense activity. Keep a record so you know for the next week and you can record your progress. 

The amount of exercises prescribed to increase the fitness of the body to a point that reduces it's all cause mortality, and improves overall functionality is 150 minutes of sing — talk exercise per week. That would be 30 minutes five days a week. If you're able to do more, you will have improvement in fitness level, however, you get most of your benefit at 150 minutes of sing — talk activity per week.

Need to read the first part of this article again? Click previous