Exercising for the New Year, New You!

by Paula Allia PT, DHSc, MTC, OCS

The holidays are here and with them comes time to celebrate with family and friends. Soon, it will be time to reflect on the past year and, more importantly, thinking about how the new year will look. It is indeed time to mentally wrap your mind around the positive actions that can affect your 2025!

We have all heard by now that exercise is beneficial for the mind, body, and spirit. There is a plethora of literature to substantiate the relevance of many different types of exercise to make a positive impact on the mind, body, and spirit.

Now, which type of exercise may be right for you?

More gym memberships occur in the beginning of the year than any other time. Sadly, the desire to improve oneself and to participate in a program wane over the next few months. Finding a program that you enjoy will assist in maintaining the motivation to reach your goals and the new you.

Everybody is at a different level in their fitness and one should ever feel inept or embarrassed about where their entry point lies. Everyone has inadequacies. The typical comments one may say to themselves include:

• I need to lose weight
• I am just so out of shape
• I need to get toned
• I am always tired
• I need to get stronger
• My balance is not good
• I just do not have any endurance
• I want to exercise so that I can eat

Do any of these fit your description?

There are many benefits to exercise. First, the muscles indeed need to be activated. Assuming this activation can occur efficiently; then working on endurance, hypertrophy, strength, and power comes into play. How does one do that? Just how does thebody get stimulated enough to make positive changes?

The results of an exercise regime initially are dependent upon the exercise regime itself and the condition of the body when starting.

Unhealthy and unfit individuals have inhibitory factors that make the body not strong or have power. These are things that are coordinated in the nervous system and may protect the body from injury and inhibit the body from advancing in physical training.

An individual who is out of shape needs to focus on stimulating the systems that can help remove the inhibitions to the nervous and muscle systems to allow positive changes to occur. When adaptations occur between the muscles and nervous system, the rate of stimulation and muscle firing improves and the body improves its ability to respond to all different stimuli.

It has been recognized that the volume of muscle fibers has a direct correlation with strength but in the novice exerciser, the lower weights, the speed at which the exercises are performed, the repetitions per set, and the recovery time used may all be contributory to stimulating neural adaptations in the body.

These beginning strength gains may become apparent not from the hypertrophied muscle but from the stimuli to the system to become more efficient.

A weaker individual can make gains more quickly with consistency.

Toning and strength can improve without developing too much muscle growth initially. As the body gains from training, more intensity of training is needed to continue progression. Working on power has actually been found to help balance. Different types of exercise stimuli use more or less oxygen and different fuels sources of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

Realize that the body is an amazing machine and when given the right stimuli a transformation occurs. Muscles and connective tissue strengthen; The utilization of carbohydrates and fats for fuel adapt; The body feels better overall.