Exercise and fitness tips

The most useful sports and fitness secrets are never the "5-exercise-differentiated training schedule per week" or the "14-day rapid fat loss recipe", but rather finding an exercise pattern that you are willing to stick to for a lifetime, rather than copying any standardized "high-efficiency plan".

I didn't believe in this evil when I followed the trend of fitness in the past two years. I got up at 6 o'clock in the morning and climbed 30 floors on an empty stomach. I ate salad without a drop of sauce at noon. I also went to the gym for an hour of strength training in the evening after get off work. Even drinking water was counted as my daily caloric intake. As a result, I burned to 38 degrees Celsius for 9 days. I went to the hospital and the doctor said that I was overtired and my immunity was weakened. I also had fluid accumulation in my knees due to the wrong posture when climbing stairs. It took me less than half a month to recover. The two kilograms of meat that I had lost from starvation had all grown back.

Later, I just broke the rules and didn’t make any plans. I walked around the riverside park next to my house after get off work. When I saw someone else playing badminton and there was no one available, I joined them to play a few games. On the weekends, I invited friends to ride bicycles to the countryside for a farmhouse. After half a year of laziness, my body fat dropped by 4 percentage points during the last physical examination. The rounded shoulders that had troubled me for a long time were also relieved a lot. Even the abnormal blood lipid arrow on the physical examination report was gone.

It’s not that those standardized and efficient plans are useless. Several friends I know who are into powerlifting have to strictly follow the plan when competing in the three major events. They are stuck on how much protein they eat every day and how many times they do each group. They can squat from an empty bar to 150 kilograms in half a year. The effect of building muscle and strength is really fast. But the premise is that the person enjoys the process of lifting the iron. The soreness and swelling of squatting to exhaustion is a sense of accomplishment for them, not torture. If you get a headache when you see dumbbells, and you can't even go downstairs after squatting, and you have to do half an hour of mental training next time you go to the gym, then no matter how efficient your plan is, it will be in vain.

I used to have a colleague who was doing back-end development. His lumbar protrusion hurt after sitting for a long time. The doctor asked him to do core exercises. He followed the video and did crunches. He grinned every time he did it. He gave up after less than a week. Later, he was dragged by a friend to play indoor rock climbing. After climbing for the first time, his arms were sore for three days. As a result, he became addicted. He went there two or three times a week for more than half a year.

Many people are always confused about "which kind of exercise is the most efficient at burning fat". When they see a video that says "burning fat in 10 minutes is equivalent to running for 1 hour", they quickly save it. As a result, there are hundreds of plans in their favorites, and none of them persist for more than 3 days. In fact, the benefits of exercise are accumulated over the long term. Even if you choose the "most useless" walk in everyone's eyes, walking for 20 minutes a day for three to five years will have a much better effect than practicing like crazy for a week and then lying down for three months.

Of course, if you have clear short-term goals, such as taking wedding photos and wanting to lose a few pounds quickly, or taking a physical fitness test to improve your performance, then it is perfectly fine to use a high-intensity standardized plan in the short term. However, if your original intention of fitness is to be healthier, less sick, and more comfortable, there is really no point in competing with yourself.

Is there any universal secret? If you like to square dance, go for it. If you like to ride a shared bicycle, go for it. Even if you play hide-and-seek with your children at home for half an hour, as long as you are still looking forward to playing again next time and can stick to it, it will be more effective than any sky-high-priced private lessons. After all, fitness is all about making yourself more comfortable, right?