We know that when we exercise we perform everyday tasks better, our health is improved, and we feel better. So the question is, how do you know if your workout program is working for you? What are the Signs Your Workout Program is Working?
That is actually a funny subject. The Signs Your Workout Program is Working are actually opposite of our intended goals. The signs are soreness, feeling slow or even sluggish, and feeling hungry. While these signs may seem like negatives, we actually want these signs. These are clear Signs Your Workout Program is Working.
So the key is to embrace programs that are designed to push you just enough to make you sore, sluggish and hungry. Programs lacking this threesome don’t provide you an incentive to get in top shape. When you push your body above its normal output, even if is it barely there, and you keep it there over time, you will yield improvements.
SORENESS
Soreness is the first Sign Your Workout Program is Working. Soreness is the easiest symptom to understand. Most of us have been sore one time or another. Soreness happens when we do something physically that our bodies are not accustomed to doing. It can happen from doing yard work, to a pickup game of basketball, or spending hours at a theme park walking around. When you push your body beyond what you do in normal day-to-day activity, you can get sore.
SIGNS YOUR WORKOUT PROGRAM IS WORKING
Muscle soreness comes from the breakdown of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Our bodies have both slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers. Slow-twitch fibers have a low recruitment factor. This means they get fired up during low outputs. Fast-twitch fibers have a high recruitment factor. This meaning it takes something more intense to get them going. An example would be when you pick up your water bottle to take a drink, this requires the use of the slow-twitch fibers. When you jump up out of your chair and run to the front door you involve fast-twitch fibers.
Fast-twitch fibers are repaired more slowly than slow-twitch fibers (i.e you don’t get tired from lifting your bottle of water, but you would get tired if you had to sprint to the door all the time).
Hypertrophy means muscle growth. Muscle growth is part of a well rounded and varied training program. The greatest change in the body involves body fat loss and muscular gains. The quickest way to lose body fat is to gain more muscle. To create hypertrophy, you need to overload your muscle fibers progressively to keep breaking them down. As you become healthier this threshold will change. When you utilize progressive weight or resistance programs, you will get sore. Programs that switch between muscle groups cause muscle confusion and avoid plateaus, so you keep making progress. The most comprehensive and well-designed programs that supply no shortage of muscle confusion and progressions are Beachbody Programs.
SLOW AND SLUGGISH
The second Sign Your Workout Program is Working is when you feel slow and sluggish. This is the hardest condition to conceptualize but the easiest to explain. Remember that hypertrophy means your muscles are growing. When your body is growing it has to adapt to the growth.
Just because a muscle is large does not mean it is strong. It takes training to create those gains in size and in strength. The best gains are realized from a combination of low repetitions, high repetitions, eccentric and isometric movements, as well as agility, cardio and plyometric movements. These all teach the muscles to operate at a higher efficiency.
When you use programs that mix the various exercise types, your muscles are learning and growing, which means you will experience times when you feel slow or sluggish. Typically you will experience slowness and sluggishness most in the first four weeks of the program, the training phase. If you don’t feel these symptoms during this time, you are not pushing yourself hard enough and need to ramp up your training. This should be the same when you start a new program, or repeat a program. On the other hand, if the feelings of slowness or sluggishness persist beyond four weeks, you may be overdoing it and risk overtraining. You must work to find a balance.
HUNGRY
Hunger is final Sign that Your Workout is Working. Do you typically feel hungrier when starting a new program? Well, in some cases the reason can be somewhat obvious. If you are trying to lose weight and start a nutrition plan that is portion controlled and contains foods your body isn’t necessarily use to, it takes time to adapt, especially if you leaned toward a lot of high fat and sugary foods. The body will make you feel hungry as you are weaning yourself off these foods because it is craving them. No different than a drug addict wanting more drugs, the body for a time will crave the types of food you used to feed it.
You may also feel hungry even when your body has passed the cravings stage. This happens because the body needs nutrients to properly repair and grow. It is very difficult to provide (through normal nutrition) everything your body needs when you are under the type of duress a good progressive workout program creates. You can try, but you are not going to be able to feed your body what it needs through food without overeating. With overeating, you wouldn’t be able to put those calories to use, and some may get stored as fat.
The answer to the greater nutritional needs when you are working your body hard is supplements. When your body needs to be fed the appropriate nutrients, supplements should be your best friend. High quality supplements have very few calories and a lot of very well balanced nutrients, plus some supplements have targeted nutrients, which means they’re designed for nutrient efficiency. The best solution is to utilize a nutrient dense total nutrition shake like Shakeology, and high quality performance nutritionals like the Beachbody Performance Nutrition Line. When you want above average results, you need above average supplements.
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