I know, I know. You’re probably reading the title of this and thinking, “Well, duh,” but I wanted to give you an in-depth look as to what really constitutes exercise and why it’s so important to know the difference so that you can really create that change you’re looking for.
This isn’t to cast judgment on anything that you might already be doing. We encourage people all the time to just start where they are and do whatever it might be that they feel is going to help them achieve their health and fitness goals. However, if you aren’t reaching your goals or you aren’t really seeing a difference in your appearance, here are some reasons as to why that may be.
Exercise is registered in some very specific ways in your body. Your body is a marvel. It is THE quintessential king of adaptation in the world. There is no organism that can become really good at whatever stimulus you provide it quite like the human body. Unfortunately, this is a double edged sword. You will get better at whatever you regularly do, so if you regularly sit at a desk and very rarely move, then you will become an expert at sitting at a desk and rarely moving. Therefore, we have to consider what your body is going to register as exercise. If at the moment you get out of breath while walking, then that is exercise for YOUR body. But, if you regularly walk and really don’t get much out of breath at all, then you may not have realized it, but you are doing less than you may have thought in the way of exercising for your body.
Humans evolved as hunter gatherers. Our ancestors walked EVERYWHERE. If you think about how long the human genome has spent walking compared to riding around in cars, you would see that riding in cars is outnumbered 5 to 1! Genetics play a role in a lot of things and your predisposition to handle walking is one of them.
So, what constitutes exercise? Yup, you probably guessed it. Getting out of breath. Your body is comprised of tissue which is comprised of cells. You either have muscle tissue as a reserve or fat tissue. If you don’t have a lot of muscle tissue to support exercise then your body is going to use your fat tissue to support it. A fat cell is comprised of 6 carbon atoms linked together. (I know, no one said there would be biology but just stay with me.) When you exercise (and again, this means getting out of breath) you take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Well, where is that carbon molecule coming from? That’s right, your fat tissue! When we break a bond, energy is released but something has to facilitate the breaking of that bond and in this case it’s oxygen. This is also one of the reasons why going on long runs or bike rides in which you don’t spend a lot of time breathing heavy hasn’t created a lot of change for your body composition.
Now, don’t immediately go out and run sprints if you haven’t run sprints in a long time. This is an easy way to hurt yourself. But, you need to start gradually getting more and more out of breath in a short amount of time. The results will begin to unfold.
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If you have any questions feel free to email me at jobie@crossfitvirilis.com or schedule your free “No-Sweat Intro” here at CrossFit Virilis to discuss your health and fitness goals!
