Practicing the basic exercise principles is crucial
for you to develop an effective fitness training program. The principles of
exercise apply to everyone at all levels of physical training,from the Olympic
champion to the weekend golfer. They apply especially to fitness training for
military personnel because having standard fitness principles across the
organization saves time, energy, resources—and prevents injury. You can easily
remember the basic principles of exercise if you recall the P-R-O-V-RB-S
acronym:
- P
PROGRESSION the intensity and duration of exercise
must gradually increase to improve your fitness level. A good guideline for
improvement is a 10 percent gain at specified intervals.
- R
REGULARITY to achieve effective training you should
schedule workouts in each of the first four fitness components at least three
times a week. Regularity is also key in resting, sleeping, and following a good
diet.
- O
OVERLOAD the workload of each exercise session must exceed
the normal demands placed on your body to bring about a training effect. You’ve
often heard this expressed as “No pain, no gain. A fitness trainer, such as
your ROTC instructor, can help you learn to tell the difference between pain
that results from an optimum level of overload and pain that indicates
potential injury.
- V
VARIETY changing activities reduces the boredom and
increases your motivation to progress.
- R
RECOVERY you should follow a hard day of training for a given
component of fitness by an easier training or rest day for that component. This
helps your body recover. Another way to promote recovery is to alternate the
muscle groups you exercise every other day, especially when training for
strength and muscle endurance.
- B
BALANCE to be effective, a fitness program should address
all the fitness components, since overemphasizing any one of them may detract
from the others.
- S
SPECIFICITY you must gear training toward specific
goals. For example, Soldiers become better runners if their training emphasizes
running drills and techniques. Although swimming is great exercise, it will not
improve a two-mile-run time as much as a coordinated running program does.
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