Fitness Overview

Topic Overview

The Fitness pillar is all about training for life. It’s not just about achieving temporary goals or hitting certain numbers in the gym — it’s about developing the physical characteristics that represent your ideal self. Whether you’re aiming for strength, endurance, improved body composition, or overall vitality, your fitness programming should support and shape your life in meaningful ways. The ultimate goal is to create a body that is capable, resilient, and aligned with your personal vision of health and performance.

Higher Endeavors’ approach to fitness training incorporates resistance training, cardiometabolic training, and recovery modalities. Resistance training primarily focus on your muscles and soft tissue. Cardiometabolic training addresses your cardiorespiratory and energy systems. Each training session should help you progress toward your ideal version of yourself, whether that’s a more powerful physique, better endurance for daily activities, or a balanced, agile body.

However, true fitness is not just about training hard; it’s also about recovering well. Effective fitness programs should include structured recovery, both passive and active recovery modalities. Passive recovery should emphasize adequate rest and proper nutrition. Active recovery modalities can include stretching and mobility exercises as well as different manual therapy related activities, that help enhance recovery and maximize physiological adaptations. When recovery is prioritized, the body can repair, grow stronger, and more efficiently handle the demands of future training sessions.

By focusing on both the training and recovery aspects, a well-rounded fitness routine allows you to not only achieve your goals but also maintain and optimize them long-term, ensuring your body becomes and remains a resilient, high-functioning system throughout all stages of life.

Prerequisites

  • Personal Health Status: Awareness of your current fitness level, any existing health conditions, and fitness goals. It is also recommended to check with your healthcare provider to ensure you are capable of performing fitness training.

Goals

The goals of your Fitness Training Program should include:

  • Building Resilience: Developing a stronger, more resilient body capable of handling physical stress.
  • Improving Physical Health: Enhancing strength, endurance, mobility, and overall fitness.
  • Educating on Fitness Principles: Providing a clear understanding of how different exercises affect the body and how to optimize your workout regimen.
  • Promoting Lifelong Fitness: Encouraging the development of sustainable fitness habits.
  • Creating the physical capacity to live your ideal life.

What

Higher Endeavors considers Fitness to be the ability of your body to meet the demands that you place upon it, whether your average or absolute ideal day.

  • Musculoskeletal Fitness: Strengthening muscles, connective tissues, and bones.
  • Cardiometabolic Fitness: Improving heart, lung, and metabolic function to enhance energy production and endurance.
  • Function and Balance: Ensuring joints and muscles can move through their full range of motion and maintaining joint stability.

How

Achieving fitness involves incorporating three primary modalities:

  • Resistance Training: Exercises like bodyweight exercises or those that incorporate external load like dumbbells, barbells, and kettlebells that stress muscles, causing them to adapt and grow stronger.
  • CardioMetabolic Training: Activities like running, cycling, swimming, and rowing that improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular, respiratory, and energy systems.
  • Recovery: forms of therapy like massage, stretching, hot/ cold exposure that enhance your body’s adaptations processes.

Why

Fitness is vital for several reasons:

  • Physical Health: Reduces the risk of chronic diseases, improves muscle and bone health, and enhances cardiovascular function.
  • Mental Health: Regular exercise reduces stress, anxiety, and depression, and improves mood and cognitive function.
  • Quality of Life: Enhances daily functional abilities, increases energy levels, and promotes longevity.

When

You must consistently find and create time in your schedule that you will devote to your fitness training. It’s more important to create a plan that you will consistently execute than the perfect plan that you do sporadically.

The frequency and timing of exercise depend on individual goals and fitness levels:

  • Beginners: Aim for 3-5 training sessions a week. Ideally 2-3 resistance training workouts and another 2-3 cardiometabolic training sessions per week.
  • Intermediate to Advanced: Aim for 5+ training sessions per week. Increase the intensity and duration of workouts as fitness improves, incorporating varied periodization to optimize results.

Action Steps

  • Set Clear Goals: Define what you want to achieve with your fitness program, whether it’s weight loss, muscle gain, improved endurance, or overall health.
  • Create a Plan: Develop a workout plan that includes a balance of resistance training, cardio, and recovery activities.
  • Monitor Progress: Keep track of your workouts and measure your goal related results
  • Adjust as Needed: Modify your program based on progress, goals, and how your body responds.
  • Stay Consistent: Consistency is key to achieving and maintaining fitness.

Tools and Resources

  • Resistance Training Programming: Coming Soon
  • Online Programs: Coming Soon
  • Fitness Equipment: Invest in basic equipment such as dumbbells, resistance bands, and a yoga mat.
  • Professional Guidance: Contact us for additional support and guidance

Extra Credit

  • Wear a Garmin/ Apple Watch daily to begin collecting data and gaining insight into some of your fitness and recovery metrics

References

  • A Guide to Comprehensive Resistance Training Program Design: Coming Soon