A recent study that found only 10 minutes a day of exercise was enough to improve the fitness of overweight, older women. The report didn’t elaborate about how hard the activity was, but I assume that if the women were not doing any exercise prior to the study, then anything would have been harder than their body was used to.

And that is the point. To get fitter, you have to exercise at a level that pushes your body past what is does normally.

Your body is an amazing piece of engineering that adapts to the demands placed on it. It does this by increasing the size and strength of muscles, producing more oxygen carrying blood cells, increasing the enzymes that allow us to burn fat as a fuel, increasing the thickness and strength of our bones, increasing our ability to tolerate lactic acid and many other physiological changes.

The different ways in which the body adapts to exercise fill Exercise Physiology textbooks however all the changes are designed to do the same thing; keep our body in its ‘comfort zone’.

Now that probably sounds strange but the body’s systems work a bit like a thermostat and tries to maintain the internal (inside the cells) environment as stable as possible. When the cell’s chemistry is disrupted, the body adapts to try and return it to ‘normal’.

What does this mean for how hard you need to exercise to get fitter or stay fit?

You need to exercise at an intensity that pushes your body outside of its comfort zone. It is only when your body is pushed outside of this zone that it has to adapt by some of the changes mentioned above. By doing this it can then tolerate more intense exercise before it is pushed out of its ‘new’ comfort zone. This is how you get fitter; by continually expanding your ‘comfort zone’.

How quickly you get fitter is the product of how much exercise you do and how hard you exercise. Finding the right combination of these to achieve your goals is the key.

Obviously there are other factors that play a part such as genetics, your past fitness levels, and your lifestyle but the intensity at which you exercise is the major variable.

Most people make the mistake of not exercising hard enough to achieve the result they want. Then they think they have to do more and end up getting injured from too much exercise. Instead of dong more, try pushing yourself a bit harder.

David Beard is a specialist in adult fitness and health. He has a Masters degree in exercise physiology and biochemistry, but more importantly he has worked with people from 25 to 100 years old; helping them to better health and greater fitness.

He now shares what he has learned from working in the health, fitness and aged care industries for over three decades as an author, speaker and mentor. His book “if I’d only known I’d live this long…” is a collection of simple but practical tips on health, fitness and life that everyone should know before they get old. It’s the perfect gift for yourself, firends, parents of grandparents.

For more information about David, his latest book and presentations go to http://www.lifelongfitness.net.

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