I’d done no exercise for 3 years…
In that time I’d lost weight and gained back my 6 pack, I hadn’t been ill the entire time, I had loads more energy and I was in a constant good mood.
Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
Lets jump back to a few years before…
When I was training for the Marines I was doing 3 – 5 hours of exercise a DAY.
Circuit classes, jogging, hitting the weights, it was a brutal regime.
I was, in short, ridiculously fit.
I was also constantly ill, grumpy ALL the time, always famished and had no energy for anything else…but hey I was fit, so all was good.
After I left her Majesties Service I naturally let my exercise plan drift a little…well let’s be honest…a lot.
For 3 years I did no formal exercise. Sure I played a bit of sport, did a bit of kiting, walked up and down the beach a LOT chasing students but nothing structured and certainly nothing like the level I’d been doing before.
I expected to get fat, I expected to lose a lot of fitness.
The reverse happened.
- I lost weight (I’d always had a stubborn bit of puppy fat obscuring my abs which I just couldn’t shift, which just melted away)
- My moods massively improved.
- I didn’t get ill once in the entire 3 years.
- And when I signed up for a Spartan Race as part of a dare to a friend I found my physical fitness hadn’t degenerated anywhere as near as much as it “should” have.
What was going on?
In medicine there is something called the Minimum Effect Dose for any drug. This is the dose at which this drug gives maximum benefit with minimum side effects.
Once we exceed the MED we are not increasing the benefits of the drug but are increasing the unpleasant and often harmful side effects.
In short, more is not better.
Now exercise has a MED…and it’s a LOT lower than we think. (I have clients who work out for 15 mins a week and look, feel and perform amazingly!)
Once we exceed the MED we are gaining fewer benefits and massively increasing our chances of injury, DOMS (aching muscles) and overtraining.
If you’re interested to discover how you can exercise less and get bigger benefits by effectively finding your MED for exercise (and a load of other performance enhancing factors) then grab a copy of my latest book.
It’s packed full of the latest science showing how you can get more gains whilst doing less by utilising the MED of each exercise.
Sam
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