Minimum Effective Dose...Of Exercise

Breaking news! Exercise is good for you!...Whats that? Oh you knew that already? Ok cool Ill write about something thats not often discussed then. Being fit as a butchers dog is a very wonderful thing but occasionally life conspires to interfere with our meticulously structured exercise regime. It could be an injury takes us out, in my case it was an illness, or it could be the exceptional demand of a new child, new job new project. Who knows? but occasionally we can find ourselves wondering what is the right way for us to get back to exercise.

Some people think sitting on the couch and resting up until you feel better is the way forward. Personally I think a small amount of light exercise is not only good for you, it accelerates your healing. The dilemma is if you get the dosing wrong you will find that too much of not so light exercise will set you back, possibly causing a serious relapse. As I write I reflect that this debate affects not only you and me, but elite athletes as well. I remember watching Andy Murray hobble onto centre court at Wimbledon this year with a hip injury. He then took 100 days out before playing an exhibition match with Roger Federer recently. He is hoping to be fit for the Austalian Open early next year. Did he know about 100 days to healthy :-)?

Anyhow back to the story. In terms of recovering from my recent illness what I needed was a training regime for Lazarus. On the first day out of hospital I could barely stagger at walking pace around the park. Three and a bit weeks later I felt just about ready to do some light movement (I don't even want to describe it as exercise, that would be overselling it).

How much is just enough and how much is too much? Whats the minimum effective dose? That of course would depend on the individual and their current condition. For myself I decided to start with 15 minutes of cardio and then add 2 minutes per gym visit session thereafter. The first session was barely enough to bring a glow to my forehead but nevertheless I was totally banjaxed and had to lie down for the rest of the day! Next session was better and over the course of a month I was able to increase duration and power output to build up to something approaching a decent level. What has helped me massively is tracking my efforts. It has restrained me in a good way, whilst also giving me positive feedback. The training volume increased from a very low base by 340% in a month. I have also been doing light weight training, in this case I haven't been tracking the lifts so far because its not helpful if your ego gets involved too early on. What I feel is I have established a good base of fitness, and about now is the time that I can be using a training diary for the weights. Its been two months since getting out of hospital and Im a) happy to be alive, b) happy with progress c) looking forward to getting back to fully fit.

If you are on a 100 days to Healthy Journey are there any actionable steps you can take from my story?

1) Exercise is good for you and may increase your rate of recovery if done at appropriate intensity or dosing.

2) Start at the beginning, minimum minimum minimum.

3) Have a plan and progressively increase the load, duration and or intensity of the exercise slowly.

4) Stick to the plan and increase slowly

5) Did I mention slowly?

6) Track your results and celebrate your progress even if you ignored points 3 , 4 and 5 :-)