What are Fitness Results?
You are the judge of how you feel. When you commit to a fitness program, your body will change, and you will achieve specific results. Different programs will bring different effects. Whether working out on your own or with a trainer, the aim is to create a program that will generate the results you seek. You are the judge of the results you achieve.
Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash
You need to work to get results. Create a schedule and commit to your fitness habit.
The shape you are in when you start, your genetics and your effort will dictate how far you get. I always use the example of how I would love to have arms like Michelle Obama. But, after twenty-five years of weight training, I can tell you that my genes don’t do that. You will learn over time what your body does and doesn’t do. Accept and keep going. Regardless of how you change, working out is a positive for your body, mind, sleep, eating, and mood.
In this essay, I’ll discuss the quantitative and qualitative measures of your results. Your feelings and observations are the best guides. You can use other measures as well, but I say trust yourself.
Weight Loss or Gain
Healthy eating choices and cardio and strength training exercises support this slow process. Fast weight loss or gain is often quickly reversed once the restrictions are removed. For permanent weight loss or gain, design an eating plan that provides protein at every meal and snack, good variety, healthy fats, and limits consumption of foods and snacks that aren’t nutrient-dense.
The recommendation is to burn more calories than you consume for weight loss.
For weight gain, you want to eat more calories than you burn.
Now, how do you measure your results?
The scale can be helpful or discouraging. Judge that for yourself. Don’t do anything that weighs on you, is pun intended, or makes you feel bad.
My favorite measure is how my clothes feel and look.
See what works for you.
You also can look at yourself in the mirror.
People may make comments. Ignore those who are not supportive. Accept when a friend or family member notices your changes.
Aerobic
Many people think of cardio exercise as a way to lose fat, but its best use and most substantial benefit is improving cardiovascular health — that means your heart, lungs, and blood vessels.
You can use tools to measure your heart rate as you train, such as taking your pulse or using a monitoring device. If you want to calculate your improvement, you can take two measures. Resting heart rate (RHR) is the number of beats per minute at rest; a pace of 60 to 100 beats per minute is typical of a healthy adult heart. The second measure is the heart rate recovery (HRR), which is your maximum heart rate during exercise minus your RHR.
When you strengthen your cardiovascular system, your heart rate will be lower during exercise, return to normal more quickly, and be lower at rest.
I like the talk test if you don’t want to take your pulse or wear a device. When doing cardio to train your heart, lungs, and blood vessels, you want to work hard enough that you don’t want to talk. You can speak, but you would prefer not to talk. Get to that level. See how you feel. If you want to work harder, go for it. You are in charge.
More qualitative measures of your results will be based on how you feel before, during, and after your workout. Do you notice you are looking forward to working out? Do you train longer than you did when you first started? Are you training harder than before? Do you recover faster? Are you ready to go again sooner? Do you sleep better?
Strength
Weight or resistance training will increase the strength of the working muscles. To train effectively and continue to build, gradually increase the weight you are lifting. Proper form is critical. If you can do 12 reps with good form, you are ready to increase the amount of weight you are using. When you increase, you will likely do fewer reps. Working back up to 12 solid reps will be the next clue to increase again.
If you want to build muscles, train in the 8 to 12-rep range.
You can do more reps at lighter weights to tone muscle without building.
Muscular strength is how much you can lift. Muscular endurance is how many times you can move the weight without fatigue. By strength training, you are training for both.
You can note the concrete change in your ability to lift more weight in more reps.
You will be able to feel and see results in your body. After an intense workout, my muscles remind me I just worked them. As you gain strength, you will notice more tone and an increase in muscle size. Women, please do not worry about bulking up. I’ve been weight training for years and am not bulky. I like that my biceps, triceps, chest, back, and all other muscles have grown from before I did resistance training.
Bigger muscles weigh more, so you might notice that on the scale. If you lose weight, there will be a balance between losing fat and gaining muscle.
Power
Power training is strength training plus speed. It improves coordination and reaction time and is beneficial for quick sports like tennis. When training for power, it is recommended that you use lighter weights. For example, you can do the same move as a bicep curl but lift in 1 and lower in 3. If your knees allow, you can do squats and lunge jumps for power.
Again, observe yourself to measure your results. Are you moving more quickly?
You can use a metric like time yourself doing squats. Over time, you will see if you can do more squats at the same time.
Balance
This is likely the most accessible component to measure. Can you stand on one leg? For how many seconds can you stand? Practice regularly and see if you can extend the time you can balance on one leg. You can do this simply by lifting a leg. You can do it inside of yoga poses like Tree or Warrior III. You can incorporate balance in strength training through B-stances and single-leg deadlifts.
Mobility and Range of Motion
Mobility is how well you move actively throughout the day. It depends on flexibility, range of motion, balance, coordination, strength, and stamina.
Range of motion is how far a joint can move or extend. You likely remember how much range of motion you had when you were younger. Note where you might have less than you used to have. Depending on whether this was caused by injury or time, how much you regain will depend on the damage. You can restore your range of motion through movement, exercise, stretching, myofascial release, and massage. It is a slow, steady, and deliberate process.
I have a 74-year-old client who injured her rotator cuff. She is an active person, and she was determined to regain her full range of motion. After the injury, she could barely lift her arm laterally to the side. She did physical therapy and worked with me. She did her physical therapy exercises thrice daily and strength training twice weekly. After one year, she fully restored her range of motion.
Flexibility
This refers specifically to the ability of your muscles and connective tissue to lengthen or stretch. It is closely related to your range of motion and how you move and feel. This is so individual. I am super bendy and have been since birth. I am careful when I am teaching classes to make sure people know that I do not expect them to go as deep as my body goes.
Regarding flexibility, trust, and feeling your body without judgment, Everyone and every muscle is different. You may have flexible arms and less flexible hamstrings.
Include stretching in your workout to invite the lengthening your body will allow. See how you feel over time. Any stretch, such as touching your toes, should give you a sense of how far you are reaching. Be guided by those per stretch and see if you make gentle progress over time.
Stretch dynamically before working out and statically after.
Bonus Results
When you are working out regularly, odds are you will notice that you are:
Sleeping better
Enjoying an improved mood
Thinking and focusing better
Experiencing an improved memory
Conclusion
If you work out regularly, including cardio and strength training, you will feel, move, and look better. You will notice the results. Others will notice. Hopefully, the results will keep you motivated to gain more results. Start young and continue as you age. This is the best alternative to losing mobility through inactivity.