My Training Program - Assignment Example

My Training Program My Training Program A. Introduction It is always desirable to be healthy and strong. It saves us fromcostly medical bills not to mention that a good health gives a positive and pleasant disposition and well being. Being healthy includes our social, emotional, physical, spiritual, mental and environmental dimension. Being socially healthy meant that we have a positive and pleasant relationship with people our around us. Being emotionally healthy also meant that we are optimistic about life despite the challenges it bring to us. Spiritual health enables us to commune with our deeper self and with the Higher Being for us to become more centered in facing life and become resilient in pursuing our goals. This could translate to a mentally healthy disposition that we could make sound choices in life that would make us better us a person. Environmental health meant the desirability of the physcial world that would facilitate the other dimensions of health. And the physical health is the most popular dimension of health which involves the wellness of the physique that enables to pursue our aspirations in life. In this project, the physical aspect of health will become the subject of interest because it is the most basic dimension of health. If we are not physically well, we cannot pursue anything and would defeat other dimensions of health when we are sick. In addition, physical health can easily be observed and measured, either by the improvement of the physical stature or the increased ability to engage in a physical activity. I personally elected this dimension of health because I had been sick before and it did not only feel horrible but also prevented me to engage in any activity. Such, being physically healthy would be a positive pre-emptive measure of not being sick. B. Plan To make myself interested and engaged with the training program, I have to device the training to be not that difficult so that I will be motivated to commit. Such, before engaging in a high intensity program, I will gradually condition my body first so that it would become more ready to engage in intense training program. There are two training programs selected. First is swimming that would serve as an introductory training to build endurance, stamina and circuit training (whole body training). Swimming is an ideal method to introduce the body to an exercise because “it does not involve bearing of bodyweight, due to the buoyancy of water, compressive joint forces are lower and, as a consequence, adverse impact on the musculoskeletal system as well as injuries are rare “ (Tanaka 378). In short, swimming first before engaging in weight training will assure me that I will not be injured. I will engage in swimming for the first three days. On the fourth day onward, training will be alternated between weight training and swimming for six days; that would be 3 day training for each program. The program would be a combination of resistance training (weights) and circuit training (swimming). It is important that I have to make the intensity of training gradual so that I will not hurt myself that will discourage me in engaging in the exercise. In addition, I have to add novelty to the program by cross training so that I will not get bored that might induced me to quit. Exercise is very important to keep oneself health. “ There is a linear relationship between physical activity and health—those who maintain an active and fit way of life live longer, healthier lives” (Jonas 4). It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for us to keep a healthy lifestyle. In addition to swimming, study showed that resistance training “was shown to improve cardiometabolic syndrome risk factors including abdominal obesity and insulin resistance. Therefore, it is plausible that RT can protect against the detrimental metabolic consequences of weight regain (WR). Also, RT has been shown to increase muscle mass and strength” (Warner et al 64-65). In short, weight training is very effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes not to mention that it makes us stronger. The benefits of increased muscle mass and strength are many. In addition to keeping us healthy, it also increases our metabolism burn rate that prevents us from getting obese. When we have enough muscles, the body will be burning more calories even when we are sleeping or just sitting in the couch. According to Litchfield “for every additional pound of muscle you gain, your body burns around 50 extra calories every day of the week” and weight training as an exercise is also as effective as “endurance exercises like running when it comes to burning fat and warding off diabetes” (BBC News). C. Tracking There will be two tools that I will use to comprehensively state and monitor my training program and performance. For the setting of targets, activity and food intake, a calendar will be used. There, the specific training activity for the day will be stated. The objective will also be indicated and the kind of foods that I am supposed to eat to enable my body to achieve the objective. The specific training activity shall specifically state how many sets and repetition I will do to train a specific muscle group in the case of gym workout. For swimming, it shall indicate how many laps should i swim and the time required to complete the lap. The logs are important becasuse the calendar will not make any sense if I do not have a mechanism to track my progress. Logs shall include the sets and repetitions I have done for the specific training day in the case of gym workout. The duration of the workout will also be recorded including the weight of the dumbells, benchpress etchetera that I did. The calendar will then be compared to to the logs to determine whether I have met the training objective or not. These two tools will determine whether i have progressed or not as it monitors the performance of my training. From there, necessary adjustment will be made everytime a program will be made for the next two weeks. If the earlier program was easily achieved, the program for the next two weeks will be made more challenging. Inversely, if the previous program was too challenging to be achieved, necessary adjustment shall be made. D. Evaluation Evaluation progress Week 2 The first two weeks is the adjustment period. Since i was not really that involved before in any physical activity, my body was challenged with the exercise that I am now engaged in. Part of the adjustment period are the muscle pains and difficulty of movement because of swollen muscles. The program of increasing intensity helped to make muscle pain bearable. I cannot imagine how painful it would be if I readily engaged with the heavy weights without first going the circuit training of swimming. Although the muscles still hurts with the weight training, it is already bearable because the circuit training afforded by swimming prepared my body for a more intensified training. Week 4 The body is now well adjusted. Prolonged muscle pain was gone in the third week. There is still a muscle pain though after the next day of work out but it is not the sort that restricts my movement and painful but rather a pleasant feeling that a certain muscle group has improved. Training is also starting to become fun where it used to be a drudgery especially during the first week. I now look forward to each training session and is already trying to surpass my previous training record. I also noticed that I lost 6 pounds. Though it is not much, I already feel good about myself. Week 6 I have already totally adopted to the program and I can now truly say that my body is beginning to like it. I could feel my stamina improved and I can now endure heavier physical stress. The muscle pain which I used to despise during the first week is now a welcome occurrence. In fact, I now look forward to it and at some point, makes it a reference whether my program is working or not. I am beginning to understand that if my muscle’s hurts a little, it means that a specific program is working on a specific muscle group. I am also thrilled with the idea that I can now do 10 laps straight of swimming in the pool (Olympic size which is 50 meters long) where I used to have hard time completing a lap before. Right now, I am working on my speed on how can I improve my performance. Also, I could feel that I am a lot stronger now compared before. I can easily do a 100 pound bench press where a 20 pound bench press before almost gave me a fever the next day. I feel terrific and energized and this feeling gives me a confidence that i can do anything. Overall evaluation Inferring from the result of the evaluation progress inthe last six weeks, it would be safe to conclude that the program had been successful. Targets were met and even exceeded and I did not absent from the training program. But above the result of the evaluation progress, it is more important to note that I feel terrific with myself today compared to my old self when I was still about to start with the training program. E. Conclusion I believe I achieved my goal of being healthy. Even if I disregard the evaluation progress sheet, I could already tell that I am healthy because I feel energized. It feels terrific to be always in this condition. It allows me to do more the things that I would like to do not to mention that it provides me a positive disposition in life in general. It feels like i can do and achieve anything. Performance wise, the goals that I set when I started with the program was achieved. It is because I designed the program gradually with an increasing intensity. The objectives for each session was conservative such that it can easily be met and surpassed. I am satisfied with the result because I feel terrific. In fact, I will go beyond the six week program and may even adopt this kind of lifestyle for life because it makes me feel good and healthy. Works Cited BBC News. Lifting weights good as running. Wednesday, 6 February 2008. Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7228896.stm [Accessed February 04, 2012). Jonas, Steve. “Physical Activity as a Vital Sign and the Exercise Prescription: Obstacles to Implementation”. AMAA Journal, 24.2(2011):4-4. Litchfield, John. The Benefits of Weight Training. http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/exercise/weight_training/benefits.htm [Accessed February 04, 2012). Tanaka, Hirofumi. “Swimming Exercise”. Sports Medicine, 39.5 (2009):377-87. Warner SO, Linden MA, Liu Y, Harvey BR, Thyfault JP, Whaley-Connell AT, Chockalingam A, Hinton PS, Dellsperger KC, Thomas. “The effects of resistance training on metabolic health with weight regain”. Journal Of Clinical Hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) [J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich)], ISSN: 1751-7176, 2010, 12.1(2010): 64-72. Read More