Exertion

Exertion is a very important component in the recipe for successful fitness programs. 

It is essentially the difficulty level of the work your doing, and plays a big factor into creating change in your body. 

Not enough exertion and your muscles won't be stressed to the point of exhaustion. If your body can do something for a long time fairly easily, there's no reason for it to expend the energy and time needed to change. This is a big reason why walking alone isn't enough to lose weight/gain muscle/improve metabolism/etc...It just isn't difficult enough to make a difference. While lifting weights, if you can do 5 more reps of any given exercise than you're supposed to (can do 15 instead of the prescribed 10), it's time to increase weights.

Too much exertion and you can create multiple problems for your body. Number one, your form will fall apart. At the very least this means you're using the right muscles less, and the wrong ones are taking over to help you move the weight. This can cause imbalances and overdominance, and can leave you with excessive soreness and nagging aches and pains. This loss in form also puts you at a very high risk for injury, especially in exercises like a squat or bench press. You can either injure yourself by dropping a weight or falling, or through the incorrect form mentioned earlier. Too much exertion over an extended period of time will eventually lead to your body being unable to recover, and reaching a plateau/losing a lot of your progress/constant pain and tiredness/injury.

There are a few key indicators that your exertion is appropriate. First, you should be able to maintain correct form throughout the entire exercise. Second, you shouldn't have more than 3-5 reps "left in the tank" at the end of an exercise. For the last 2-3 reps, it should take some additional energy and focus to maintain form and finish the exercise, and it should be difficult! As mentioned earlier, difficulty is necessary for change. Finally, you shouldn't have any aches and pains that last more than 3 days after a workout and none that are in areas you shoud've been resting. Soreness is a natural part of your body's recovery process, but if it's excessive to the point of pain or lasting too long you should back off a little bit in the next workout.

If you feel like you aren't getting enough exertion in your current program, or are concerned about injuring yourself, check out the link on our website to request a free consultation!