Build a Fitness Team: Exercise With Others to Stay on Track

by admin

One of the best things that you can do right now to ensure success with your commitment to exercise is to start to make it a public experience rather than a private one.  There are a whole host of benefits that can help you get better results with your fitness or help ease the transition of adding more movement in your life.

Partner Exercise

Having a partner to exercise with on a regular basis is a great way to improve your results and enjoyment.  You could find a walking or running partner, a friend to go to the gym with, or someone who enjoys similar types of physical activities as you.  An exercise buddy can help you:

  • Stay on track and hold you accountable to your exercise routine
  • Help keep you motivated and encouraged
  • Help build a strong friendship and make exercise more fun!

Group Exercise

Something that has been gaining popularity recently is organized exercise and supervised group classes.  Facilities like Crossfit gyms, YMCA’s, Bootcamps and other fitness programs are finding that coached exercisers in group programs are enjoying the following benefits:

  • Regular encouragement
  • Accountability
  • Positive social atmosphere
  • Tons of fun!

Patient information published in 2005 in the Journal of American Academy of Physician Assistants also recommends that people exercise with a partner or group because they “are more likely to stay on track.”  The group encourages exercisers to involve family members, friends, and even pets, as “dogs need exercise too.”

Other benefits of group fitness:

You’re more likely to complete a well-rounded exercise routine and get a potentially tougher workout.  A class can help you move past a plateau — if you want to push yourself a little bit and improve.  Other exercisers who might be in better shape than you can help create what is called a vicarious experience to motivate you.  Exercising with others can make you want to be your best and achieve better fitness and overall health.

The combination of improving your fitness, meeting new people, and learning a new skill produces an excellent confidence boost, too.  You’ll start to feel better about yourself and feel that nothing is too difficult for you to achieve.  New research suggests that for some (but not all) people, finding workout buddies can even help turn fitness into a pleasant addiction by triggering chemicals in the brain that elicit the same feelings as dancing and laughter.

Related Resources:

Exercise with Your Pet!

Find a Local Crossfit to Join

Can’t Get the Kids Away From Video Games? Get the Whole Family Moving!

Being Fit vs. Being Healthy: The 10 Facets of Physical Fitness

by admin

Does this look natural to you?
(Okay, for many of you this is outright disgusting and for others, compared to the many American men sporting monster bellies, it’s a breath of fresh air.)

For sure this guy looks big and muscular; for sure he looks strong; but there are a couple of questions that begged to be asked: 

1.    Is he healthy? 

2.    Is he fit?

These are not only interesting questions, but important ones as well.  There are many ways to look big and strong, which can give the impression of being healthy and fit, but is big and strong healthy and fit?  A body builder or even an Olympic weight lifter is unquestionably strong; but … fit? … healthy?

Rule One:  To be healthy, you must be fit. BUT, a person can be fit, and not be healthy. For example, it’s highly probable that the man pictured above has taken steroids to get the way he is.  It’s hard to know whether he can run, jump, and do sustained exercise over time – a sign of being fit. We do know that steroids destroy one’s health over time in many ways.

Bodybuilding and fitness magazines are filled with pages that boast men and women with bulging muscular figures, super-tanned bodies, and not a trace of fat on them.  At first glance at a bodybuilder or fitness model, you might say “Wow, they look incredibly fit!” But, physical appearances can fool you. While bodybuilders and fitness models are certainly adept at sculpting their bodies by doing exercises that isolate particular muscle groups, they are often far from being healthy and fit; and they are often even far from being functionally fit. There can be benefits to isolation and machine exercises, but if your goal is to maximize your overall health and your ability to perform everyday tasks and challenges, there are a different set of skills on which you should focus.

At Bonfire we advocate exercise regimens that use what are called universal motor recruitment patterns – exercises that get your entire body moving in symphony…efficiently, effectively and quickly from one place to another with strength, balance and agility. These movements are universal in that they are found everywhere.  These basic movements are used in everything you do in daily life, from homemaking to physical labor to sports and recreation; they include:

  • Jumping
  • Lifting
  • Reaching
  • Pushing
  • Pulling
  • Throwing
  • Running
  • Climbing

These functional movements mimic what you do in life versus calf-raises, pec-flies or leg curls, which are non-functional, isolated and artificial movements that do not serve us in real life activities. Universal motor recruitment patterns are safe, in fact the safest kinds of movements you can do. Adduction/abduction machines, lateral raises and flies are not natural, and thus are not inherently safe movements.

Also, when doing universal recruitment type of exercises it’s very demanding on the cardiovascular system which makes your ‘workouts’ very time efficient – you get an awesome workout in a very short period of time.  For more on this subject, please read Short Interval High Intensity Exercise.

The 10 Elements Of Fitness
According to Crossfit.com, if your goal is optimum physical competence then there are 10 general physical components that need to be considered:

1. Endurance (Cardiovascular and Cardio-Respiratory): This is your body’s ability to use and deliver oxygen to your body.

2. Stamina (Muscular Endurance): This is your body’s ability to store, process, and use energy.

3. Strength: This is the ability of your muscles or a muscular unit to apply force.

4. Flexibility: The ability to maximize the range of motion of a joint.

5. Power: The ability of your muscles to maximize their force in a minimum amount of time.

6. Speed: The ability to minimize the amount of time it takes you to accomplish a task or movement.

7. Coordination: The ability to combine several different movement patterns in a single distinct movement.

8. Accuracy: The ability to control a movement in a given direction or intensity.

9. Agility: The ability to minimize the time going from one movement to another.

10. Balance: The ability to control the center of gravity of your body in relation to your supportive base.

The first four (Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility) are organic (natural) and are developed through exercise and training.  Science has shown that improvements in each one of these components can be confirmed biologically (actually under a microscope) as you improve your training.  The last four (Coordination, Accuracy, Agility, Balance) are neuromuscular and developed through practice and repetition. These are improvements that we see with specific challenges and tests.  Those that are a combination of both (Power, Speed) are improved when exercise and training are combined with practice and repetition over time.

The Bonfire Health exercise program has been designed to help you build all 10 of these fitness elements regardless of your age or current level of activity.  All of the workouts are tailored to any fitness level and are composed of movements that will help you build outstanding results in your health and fitness.

We were built to be healthy and successful; we were meant to move.  Follow the Bonfire program and unleash your potential to be strong, fit, functional, healthy and ready for life’s challenges!