Basic Fitness

Let''s say you don''t have any fitness goals other than to be generally healthy and energized. You don''t play a sport; you don''t face any unusual physical demands; your body doesn''t have any particular quirks that need fixing. All you want is to live well, and you''re willing to give three or four hours a week to exercise in order to achieve that.

Hey, it''s a terrific goal—pure, unpretentious, reasonable. And in our hearts, we wish we could tell you there is a golden formula that will work perfectly for you and the rest of the 90-some million men in America. But the thing is, a one-size-fits-all workout program just doesn''t exist. A thousand guys, a thousand different exercise programs—that''s the reality. Why is that? Your age, your weight, your genetics, your previous exercise history, your lifestyle, where you live, your exercise preferences all dictate in some way what is the right exercise for you.

So if you are to get fit, you have no choice but to make some choices about exercise goals and desires. Our goal here is to keep the number of choices down to as few as possible.

The next 34 chapters each outline specific exercise and training needs for specific sports, lifestyles or goals. The point of this book is to let you pick and choose from each of these chapters for your own needs. But if all you want is to be generally fit, we''ll make it as easy as we can.

In this chapter we''ll outline what it takes to obtain a basic level of fitness. In the next chapter we''ll detail a "universal" weight-lifting regimen—we call it the Core Routine—that covers every part of your body that you need to exercise. From there, it''s up to you.

The Basic Fitness Template

A fitness routine should be simply but solidly structured. As a general rule, you should be working out at least three days a week, with a rest day between each workout to give your muscles time to recover and, more important, get stronger. Monday, Wednesday and Friday is the most common schedule, says John Graham, director of the Human Performance Center at the Allentown Sports Medicine and Human Performance Center in Pennsylvania. But do whatever works best for you.

The ideal basic workout takes about 90 minutes. That''s 4½ hours a week at the gym. On those three workout days, you should do:

* A ten-minute warm-up. Do a light aerobic activity to get blood flowing through your muscles. Walking, stair-climbing, doing jumping jacks, whatever, as long as it''s not overly strenuous.

* Five minutes of stretches. Do both your upper and lower body. Hold each stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. You should get in eight to ten stretches during the five minutes.

* Thirty minutes of weight training. This is the centerpiece of your workout, essential to gaining strength and stamina.

* Thirty minutes of aerobic activity. This is key to a healthy heart and lungs as well as weight control.

* A five-minute cooldown. Just like the warm-up, but this is to slowly adjust your body back to its regular levels.

* Five minutes of stretches. These can be the same as above, or you can substitute. Just be sure to hit all the main muscle groups.

Your Key Decisions

So, what choices must you make? We''ll tell you.

* Pick an aerobic activity. Running, walking, bicycling, swimming, stair-climbing, rowing—it''s up to you.

* Pick your stretches. We make that easy for you: Consult Flexibility on page 32 for a good seven-stretch, full-body routine. You needn''t look further.

* Pick your weight exercises. Again, we make that easy for you. The next chapter lays out a perfect weight-lifting regimen we call the Core Routine. These seven lifts will serve the needs of your entire body.

* Decide how much of each weight lift to do. That''s the toughest one. For an answer, you''ll need a little science.

Do you want muscles capable of short surges of great strength? Or do you want muscles that purr and rumble steadily like a well-oiled V-8 engine, minute after minute. That''s what muscular stamina is.

The science behind achieving strength and/or stamina applies to most types of physical training, says Ken Sprague, coach and strength trainer, owner and operator of the original Gold''s Gym and author of Sports Strength. We covered it lightly in the Weight Lifting chapter. We''ll review now.

* For sheer strength, put in lots of heavy effort for short periods. Do a series of all-out bursts.

* For muscular stamina and tone, stick with medium efforts for longer periods.

* For a balance, build a program that mixes it up.

(There''s a fourth category, body shaping, in which you pump up muscles by doing as many as 15 reps with little rest in between. But this is not the stuff of a general health program. Plus, it takes a much larger time commitment. Still interested? See Body Shaping on page 126.)

Some people want or need extreme strength or extreme stamina. Four-time Mr. Universe Bill Pearl listed a few examples in his book Getting Stronger.

Among those who need pure strength, according to Pearl:

* Power lifters

* Olympic lifters

* Football linemen

* Shot-putters

Among those who need great endurance:

* Swimmers

* Rowers

* Cyclists

* Distance runners

Most athletes, Pearl notes, need a combination of both strength and endurance. He calls the combination general conditioning. And that''s what most of us want: a reasonable level of strength, plus the endurance to end our days with energy in reserve. Here''s how to achieve any of these goals.

To Build Strength

You''ll find hundreds of gems of practical advice for building strength—no matter what your lifestyle—in the many chapters that follow. But the science of strength training has a few basic tenets. Understanding what they are will help you develop your muscular system to its highest fitness level. Graham suggests the following:

Lift heavy weights. As you''ve learned, low reps of fairly heavy weights are what build strength the fastest. Specifically, to build strength, you should lift as follows:

* Do three to five sets of each exercise per workout.

* Do three to eight reps per set.

* Use fairly heavy weights, defined as 75 to 85 percent of your one-rep maximum.

Know the role of rest. Lifting weights alone will not build strength. Strength grows while you''re resting. That''s why we recommend weight training every other day. Those rest days allow your muscles time to recover from the overload of the day before. And when they recover, they grow back stronger than before.

When you''re in the low-rep, high-weight world of strength building, remember that you need to rest more between sets, too. According to Tom Baechle, Ed.D., chair of the exercise science department at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, you should take a breather of two to five minutes between sets. Do not scrimp on rest between sets.

To Build Stamina

Muscular endurance, on the other hand, is all about not resting. It''s about lifting and lifting and lifting until you can''t do any more. With this type of training, you need to follow the toning principles we''ve mentioned in the Weight Lifting and Aerobic Exercise chapters, says Sprague. Toning—that is, building lean muscle mass—is the secret to building stamina, since it requires you to do high repetitions of low weights. The longer you do that, the more you''ll extend the time that your muscles, and your body, can endure in any activity. Here''s your basic plan for endurance training, according to Sprague.

Lift high, stay low. Here are the specifics of your lifting routine.

* Do two to three sets of each exercise per workout.

* Do 12 to 20 reps per each set.

* Use light weights, defined as 50 to 60 percent of your one-rep max.

Keep recovery time short. Another key element to building stamina is to restrict your rest periods between sets. In this case, we''re recommending 20 to 30 seconds—just enough time to let you catch your breath, but not enough that your muscles get used to working for a shorter period of time.

Participate in endurance activities. Building stamina goes beyond weight training. Stamina and endurance should be the key descriptors of most every activity you do. So if you''re trying to build stamina for your muscles, you need to get out of the gym and focus on endurance activities, Sprague says. Running, long-distance cycling and full-court basketball are all great endurance sports and, consequently, great endurance builders.

Combining Your Power

For most men, of course, the ideal always lies in the middle. To achieve a balance of both strength and endurance training, Pearl recommends a hybrid of the strength and stamina principles. Here are the basics.

Shoot for the middle ground. When you lift, Pearl suggests the following:

* Do three to five sets per workout.

* Do 8 to 12 reps per set, with 10 being optimal.

* Use moderate weights, defined as 70 to 80 percent of your max.

Build periodized power. To ensure that you continually make progress, get your workout on a periodization schedule. Different fitness trainers and physiologists offer different periodization programs, but the concept remains the same: By constantly mixing up the intensity of your workout, you keep your muscles constantly on edge, always adapting. If you stick with the same intensity for any length of time, your muscles catch on and quit adapting as efficiently, and thus you progress much more slowly, if at all.

Schedules vary. Some trainers recommend three cycles; some recommend more.

All periodization programs feature an active-rest phase, a period in which you do little or no weight training at all, but instead use the bulk of your training time for other fitness activities, such as sports or aerobics. Sprague recommends the active-rest period be the same length as the other cycles.

To give you an example of how periodization can shake up a workout and work out your body in more and varied ways, here''s a five-cycle periodization program developed by Sprague. Each cycle could be as short as a week or as long as a month, he says, but the length is up to you to determine. When you''ve gone through all five phases, start over again.

Then, to step beyond the basic principles, Sprague recommends the following:

By incorporating elements of these phases and principles into any workout schedule, you''ll be building the most well-rounded body possible and training yourself to handle any physical situation. In short, you''ll be the picture of fitness.