The Best Training and Exercise Principles

There is nothing more vain than to say I have the best training and exercise platform. But the worst story of them all is the montage of nothingness that leads people astray in their fitness.

I am not going to provide the "Best Kept Secret Training Plan" and promise you will reach your goal in no time. But what I will do is provide insight of the principles that a sound training plan offers and the knowledge so that you will not be fooled by anything cookie cutter or misleading.

First Principle: You

If you put in your full effort and consistency into most programs you will achieve results even if the program isn't of best design. There are many ways to hit goals through fitness, some better than others but the bottom line is typically your effort.

Second Principle: Progressive Overload

Functional stress is one of the best influences on human health. Place a stress on the body, the body responds by adapting to the demands of that stress making the you more resilient to it. Therefore you have to increase the amount of stress to provide even more results. This is the progressive overload principle and how the body adapts and makes physical changes. This can be done with doing an extra set to all your exercises, more reps, increasing your time working out or shortening your rest periods. Either way, progressive overload is one of the key principles to continual results. If your program is not built for this or is not designed specifically for you-it may be playing with cookie-cutter-esque.

Third Principle: FOOD

Eating nutritious food that you like within your caloric range is the best bet for results. Unless you have an impending medical condition or you are realistically consuming too much junk food, a drastic change from normal eating patterns in a short period time does not work in most cases. The best nutritional guide for reaching your exercise goals are eating the right foods that work for you. Developing nutrition plans should not generically look the same since each person is different and has a varied lifestyle. Your nutrition intake should be optimized by your lifestyle choices that will be congruent with your goals.  

Fourth Principle: F.I.T.T.- Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type

This area goes hand in hand with progressive overload. F.I.T.T gets slightly more specific but not in too much detail. A sound exercise plan will not have this acronym on their front page (would appear boring and textbook-ish) but it definitely has it's place in exercise programming. Your frequency, intensity, time, and type of exercise done will be the igniter of your results.

Fifth Principle: Sleep

Talking about sleep in fitness programs is extremely essential. The modern age embraces "the no sleep" and want a tone of merit for it but the fact of the matter is the "team no sleepers" are getting larger waistlines, unhealthier, and more addicted to caffeine. Sleep is where the majority of the rebuilding happens for the human body. Our tissues, ligaments, and brain (yes you rewire and enhance neural connections in your sleep) after being properly fed, do their bid of recovery during sleep. The importance of sleep cannot be further harped upon. Get your 6-8 hours.

Wrapping Up

Will these principles help you build the best workout plan of your life? Most likely if you follow these principles and enhance upon them and do your research. If not, you will be able to look at a program and realize that it may not work for you. The basics are very essential and have been for many of years. In fact, all of these principles can be found in the first three chapters of the majority of introductory exercise physiology books. At the end of the day control what you can control which is your effort, consistency, food choices, and sleep and your results are on their way.