The Four Elements of Comprehensive Physical Training
Dr. Jason Kwok
Everybody is aware of the benefits of regular exercise to our health. These include keeping a healthy body weight, decreasing the risk of having chronic illnesses (including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus and cancers), improving balance and coordination, strengthening muscles and bones and improving self-esteem. Regardless of whether you are a novice making your first step towards regular exercise or a veteran trying to make further improvement, a comprehensive physical fitness training program is very important. A comprehensive and balanced training should include the following four important elements:
Cardio-pulmonary training: Aerobic exercise is the basis of almost all training programs. Aerobic exercise makes breathing faster and deeper and the heart beating faster, utilizes more muscle groups and increases oxygen content in the circuiting blood. Athletes with better aerobic fitness will have better efficiency in their heart and lung functions and oxygen carrying capacity of their circulatory system. They can more easily meet the physical energy requirement of daily activities or unexpected challenges, such as running to cars parked in faraway spots on rainy days or chasing after a bus which is going to leave the bus stop. Healthy adults should aim at a minimum of 150 minutes of aerobic exercise of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of high intensity every week. Try your best to not reaching the goal in one or two days, but spread it over five to seven days. Recently, there are reports saying High Intensity Interval Training can maximize the benefit of exercise. An example is while running, one starts with a warm-up for five to ten minutes, till the stage of slight sweating. Then, one can proceed with exercise of high intensity, sprinting for around 20 seconds. This is followed by an intermittent exercise of jogging or fast walking for about one minutes. Repeat the last two procedures for five times. It is recommended that two to four times a week is good. This exercise may not be suitable to everybody. Therefore, you have to consult your family doctor before starting.
Strength training, also called resistance training: Muscle training is one of the important elements of training. Strength training will increase muscle endurance and bone strength. It will also maintain muscle mass in weight-loss programs. Contrary to popular belief, strength training does not need to be done for long period of time every day. For most people, training one or two main muscle groups two or three times a week is sufficient. Furthermore, strength training does not need to be done in gym with heavy weight-lifting equipment. It can be done at home, using simple equipment. Please consult your family doctor or physiotherapist before proceeding.
Balance training: Balance training is especially important to the middle-aged and seniors. This is because as one ages, one loses balancing ability, leading to falls more easily and fractures. Regardless, balance training is also important to people of all ages because strengthening of core muscles, including muscles of the abdomen, lower back and hip, will protect the back and connect movements of the upper and lower body.
Flexibility and stretching training: Flexibility is an important component of physical fitness. Stretching exercise will increase flexibility, enabling one to do movements requiring more flexibility. Stretching exercise can also improve joint range of movement and relieve tension. Everyone should do stretching before and after exercise. When performing stretching exercise, one should do it gently. Breathing should be spontaneous and one should not hold the breath. One should stop if there is feeling of pain. A sense of stretching is fine, but feeling of pain means over-stretching.
Regardless of whether one is participating in a self-planned program or a program with certified instructor, the whole program should include all of the four above-mentioned elements. Of course, there is no need to include all four elements in every session. If you find a suitable program that you like, you may try to modify the program some time so as to avoid boring and to promote improvement. You can also try different kinds of exercise and training methods so as to identify the one that you like most, especially the one that you enjoy. This is because if you really like the program, you will persevere.
