Matter of Movement

When it comes to exercise, consistency trumps intensity. You would be better served completing 12 moderate intensity exercise bouts in a month than doing 2 very high intensity bouts in a month. The best way to create positive adaptations is to continue to turn up. Just get your runners on, get to the gym, and the hard part is already over. Consistency is key.

Today we are inundated with information on how to lose weight (mass). A quick note on weight and mass - weight is the amount of force exerted on an object by gravity. It is related to mass, but if gravity is altered, your weight can vary immensely. Mass is the amount of matter in an object. Regardless of the amount of gravity being exerted on you, your mass will remain consistent. If you would like to lose weight, jump in a body of water (buoyancy) or put yourself in an environment with less gravity.  If you would like to lose mass - the solution is simple. Your total energy expenditure must exceed your total energy (food) consumption for the given period of time. Energy consumption can be measured relatively easily using a mobile app. Energy expenditure is more difficult to measure accurately, however there are equations to estimate the value to sufficient accuracy. Limit how much you eat, optimise how much you move. 

It is possible to have tissue damage without pain or pain without tissue damage.   Such is the problem with chronic pain.

If you wish to improve your physical capacity, you must pay attention to rest. At rest is when you consolidate improvements and allow your body to adapt. Train sufficiently intensely to induce adaptations, but pay attention to rest.

When using an exercise test to measure some aspect of physical capacity, it is important to consider whether the test is both valid and reliable. To be valid, a test needs to measure what you are actually trying to measure.  For example, to measure aerobic fitness an accepted outcome to record is VO2 peak (maximal oxygen consumption). When choosing a test to measure aerobic fitness, it would be best practice to select a test that measures VO2 peak such as a graded exercise test which records actual oxygen consumption or calculates it based off exercise heart rate rather than for example, how far one can walk in six minutes (6 minute walk distance - derived from a 6 minute walk test). To be reliable, a test must be repeatable - you need to be able to control the variables that can affect results as best you can.  For example, if you perform an aerobic test in an extremely hot environment on one occasion, and in a cooler environment on a separate occasion, the results may not be...

A brief look at the origins of exercise and how it moulded the behaviours we enact today   Exercise. We have all heard of it, but when and why did people start putting themselves through the effort of exertion for improvements in health? Through this article I wanted to do a bit of a deep dive into the origins of exercise and see what bizarre and perhaps surprising information I could gather.  Here I will share a summary of what I found.  My hope is that through reading this, you will be mildly entertained and walk away with a greater appreciation for the origins and history of exercise.