As we all know there are numerous benefits to exercise. It is an exhaustive list, but some benefits include lower resting heart rate, decreases in blood pressure, improves energy levels, reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, and it is essential in weight management. When a sedentary individual begins a training program, usually benefits occur relatively quickly. For someone currently in a training program, benefits are harder to obtain because the body is familiar with the exercise, but something needs to change to get increased benefits. Below I will highlight a few reasons why you may not be experiencing results from exercise.
Not enough exercise
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines recommend that healthy individuals engage in 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week. Included in the 150 minutes is resistance training on two nonconsecutive days of the week. With this bit of information think about if you are meeting these guidelines to exercise. Obstacles such as family life, work commitment, or lack of knowledge may be preventing you from meeting these guidelines. Some exercise is better than none, but to reap the benefits of exercise you must make exercise a priority!
Too much exercise
They say too much of anything can be bad for you. Too much exercise can produce adverse health effects. Effects such as the increased chance of injury, insomnia, disruption of hormone levels, reduction in performance levels, excessive fatigue, and training plateaus. While there are many more symptoms of overtraining, these are the more common ones. This individual can be someone who has seen results early in their training programs but has reached a plateau because they do not know how to manage their training. This person can also be someone who has not seen desired results, and because of lack of knowledge, their training program and goals do not coincide.
Diet
Diet plays a key role in health and wellness. Even with a perfectly executed training program, you will see minimal results with poor nutrition. I am not going to advocate any specific diet to follow such as following a vegan, vegetarian, or paleo diet, but a good balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fatsise essential for a balanced diet. A good rule of thumb is to stay away from highly processed foods, foods high in saturated fats, and simple sugars. These types of foods can increase your risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and hypertension. Therefore, a healthy diet provides great benefits to exercise, health and wellness.
Type of exercise
Lastly type of exercise can be inhibiting your results. If you are doing the same exercises, weights, and repetitions constantly, you cannot expect different results. To see results, something must change over time. This “something” can be the number of sets, reps, intensity, or type of exercise. These changes also need to be strategic and fit with the goals you are trying to accomplish. Different types of training will help prevent plateauing as well. Some examples include high-intensity interval training, circuit training, and slow continuous training. Involving some type of resistance training as mentioned earlier will help keep you from plateauing.
The information mentioned above is meant to bring awareness to why you may not be achieving desired results from exercise. There are many more details and reasons not mentioned why you may be having trouble. For more guidance and information regarding this topic please email me at attiworkhard@gmail.com or send a message to me on Instagram @Marvelfitny