Hi all,
Today, I’d like to introduce Dane Edmonds, Dane is one of our exercise physiologists at Move Better for Life in Armidale and he has written this week’s blog on exercise prescription. Welcome, Dane.
Exercise physiologists, what do they do?
Accredited exercise physiologists are university qualified allied health professionals equipped with the knowledge, skills and competencies to design, deliver and evaluate safe and effective exercise interventions for people with chronic medical conditions, injuries or disabilities.
They analyze their patients’ fitness to help them improve or maintain their health. They help patients with heart disease and other chronic conditions, like diabetes or pulmonary (lung) disease, obesity, to regain their health.
Exercise prescription
There are different ways of strengthening muscles to achieve different outcomes – power, strength, endurance or just to have bigger muscles. As you read on, you will realize exercise prescription is very scientific and forms the basis of the why and how our exercise physiologists decide what you should be doing to achieve your goals.
“The modern principles of exercise training, in particular resistance training are based around General Adaptation Syndrome Theory (GAS). GAS is a theory dating back to the 1930’s and describes the predicable way in which the body responds to a physiological stress. In the case of resistance training stress refers to the prescribed exercises.
When undertaking a resistance training program, it is important to consider which aspects of muscular adaptation or fitness you are trying to achieve as well as the timing of these adaptations, as the different aspects of muscular adaptation respond best to different ways of training.
Elements of muscular fitness include Muscular:
- strength,
- power,
- endurance (aerobic capacity) and
- hypertrophy (increasing the size of the muscle)
How do I build my strength and endurance?
When trying to achieve muscular strength it is recommended to increase intensity to 85% of your 1 repetition maximum and reduce the repetitions to up to 6 repetitions. Volume is reduced to between 2 -6 sets with a rest period of 2-5 mins. This can be dome 2-3 /week with at least 2 days rest period between.
Muscular hypertrophy refers to an increase in muscle size When trying to achieve muscular hypertrophy it is recommended to complete 6-12 repetitions at 67-85% of your 1 repetition maximum. It is recommended to complete 3-6 sets per muscle group being trained and to allow 30-90 seconds between sets.
Endurance is achieved with a lower intensity, higher repetitions in a set (over 12) and less than 30 second rest between sets. It also requires at least 3 days of rest between sessions
Lastly, muscular power is achieved with 75-85% intensity, 2-5 min rest period of 3-5 sets with a rest period of 2-3 days’
I hope this has helped you understand a little more about exercise prescription, Dane.
Thanks Dane.
Deb
