A book I read a fair few years ago described a fundamental principle of fitness training in a way that made sense: it said there were four areas you needed to focus on, and that none of them could be ignored. Just like a car can't drive when its missing a wheel, you can't ignore one of these priorities no matter how well you do on the other three. The four wheels are as follows:
1) Resistance Training. Or as it is more commonly known, weightlifting. This builds functional and non-functional strength. It also burns calories, promotes testosterone and increases your base metabolic rate (BMR), which governs how many calories you burn just sitting around.
2) Cardiovascular Training. This can be done in countless different ways, but the main priority is that you spend 30 to 50 minutes at +80% or more of your resting heartrate. This burns calories, and improves your cardiovascular fitness.
3) Nutrition. You need to eat and eat well. And if you're doing quite a bit of wheels 1 and 2, which you should be, then you will need to eat quite a damn lot.
4) Rest and recuperation. This is really, really important, and often disregarded. You need to give your body time to recuperate, especially since resistance training involves pushing your body's muscles to the point where they fail and need repairing. Your body needs enough time to repair the muscles before you push them to failure again. You also need plenty of sleep.
These four wheels are what will be driving the design of my program. I'll talk more about the four wheels, and my particular strategies for each, in the coming weeks.
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