A Deeper Look at Fitness

Let me start by mentioning that I am not a fitness professional and I am not a physical trainer of any sort. I haven't won any body-building competitions. So you must be wondering what are my intentions with writing this blog.
Let me first tell you about myself. I am 46 years old and doing weighting lifting, running, swimming and other cross training exercises for the last 15 years. What has been my goal with my exercise routines? My goals has been fitness and body well-being.
Fitness has a different meaning for different people. For some people it means big muscles which translates into strength, for some it is flexibility/agility, for some it is speed, for some it is stamina. For me it all of the above plus the feeling of well-being. It is my state of mind, how I feel If I am feeling happy in my skin that is what is fitness for me. And that feeling of well-being defines a body and mind that has the ability to survive and reproduce in the environment we live. Reproduce here should not be associated with making children here. Though healthy functioning of the sex system is also part of the overall body fitness.  It, in fact, requires sound and healthy functioning of all of our body systems. So how do we build fitness. I think it starts with the body. When the body goes through physical exercises, the body cells go through the survival process, which our overall body is composed of. Once this survival process is completed, it creates a feeling of well-being in our minds, which comes from section of the brain that keeps record of the survival episode. The human body needs to keep repeating these survival processes in order to keep that state of well-being also repeating itself. The survival process should be time constrained and should give the body and brain the time to absorb all the extra energy created during the survival process.
Enough background of myself and my thoughts on fitness.
So what I am going to do is, I am just going to share my experiences with you. Experience is wisdom and it is our best teacher. My experience many not mean much to you, unless you have shared that experience. But it can give you some insight that you can use while you are building your experiences.
Let me mention one more thing here. Our body's and minds are not created equal. That is the beauty of the Creator. What applies to my body/mind may not apply to your or not to the same extent. So when approaching any workout regimen keep that in mind.

So Always, Always and Always listen to your body. This will help you how much of a weight you should lift, how strenuous your effort should be, what speed you should be running at and what should be the length of your workout. This is the fundamental rule that takes precedence over everything else mentioned here.
I will elaborate on this one little bit more. Here are some of the questions that arise when people after certain age start working out.

• Should I lift heavy weights or light
• What should be the duration of the workout session
• If running what should be the speed, should it be a regular speed, high speed or slow speed
• What should be the intensity of my workout
• Should I do isolation exercises or should I do compound exercises

I will share my views about these questions in my next post. But for now coming back to the main mantra to follow after age 40+ is to listen to your body.
If it does not mean much to you yet, I will explain little about it also what exactly it means.

If you like any piece of my writing or have any feedback please do not forget to leave comments.

Live healthy! Live Happy!!