Without a question, both exercise and recreational activities are important in the overall scheme of strength and fitness and leading a healthy active lifestyle. However, in order to achieve maximum results from both or either, they must be properly defined and then practiced.

Unfortunately, the benefits of proper exercise and the stimuli necessary to produce these benefits, cannot be accomplished with recreational activities alone.

A proper exercise program must challenge the body over and beyond what it experiences with everyday tasks and activities.

There are six major factors of physical fitness that you should be addressing:

1. Muscular size, strength and endurance
2. Bone strength
3. Cardiovascular (heart/lung)efficiency
4. Enhanced flexibility
5. A contribution to body leanness
6. Increased resistance to injury

If you do not see a continuous improvement in these six factors of physical fitness, then the exercise is either partial or non-existent.

Exercise is based on the muscular and joint functions of the human body and as we all have these same functions, the general principles and application of exercise are therefore universal and the same for every human being on the planet.

Recreational activity on the other hand, is a personal, fun chosen pastime activity, different for each one of us. It is a wonderful diversion from daily routines and important for our mental health and happiness.

The idea is to try not to confuse and mix them both together so you can receive maximum physical benefits from your exercise program and maximum fun from your chosen recreational activities.

Here’s the strength training terminology you need to familiarize yourself with:

• Exercise: the actual strength training complete movement of the muscle group being performed. For example: the bench press is an exercise.
• Repetitions or reps: one full movement of the exercise from start to the prescribed end-point and back to the original starting positon is called a repetition. Often you perform each exercise between 8-12 repetitions.
• Sets: a set is a fixed number of repetitions or repeated exercise movements. Forexample, doing a bench press 10 consecutive times will complete 1 set. . Usually, 1–3sets make up one exercise routine. The pause between sets is usually 1–1.5 minutes and this allows muscles to retain enough strength to complete the next set effectively.

• Positive phase: this is the phase of the exercise that requires your muscles to contract. When you are doing a bench press for example, the positive phase is when you pressthe weight upwards, away from your body.

• Negative phase: this is the phase whereby you slowly allow the weight to return tohome position. For example, for the bench press, the negative phase is when you slowly lower the weight back down to your chest.
• Overload: to see gains in strength you must always simulate the muscle more than it is accustomed to.
• Progression: the active muscle must continue to work against a gradually increasing resistance in order to meet overload. You need to increase the amount of the weight you use over a period of time on your exercises to keep progressing.
• Intensity: (in the case of strength training) refers to the amount of weight you are lifting and indicates how difficult the exercise is for you to complete. Increasing your intensity (the weight you are lifting) is the key to progression and your success with a strength-training program.

The correct level of intensity is probably the most important factor in an efficient strength training program. In general, the higher or greater the intensity the better the strength gains but it is important to find the right balance between being careful when exercising to prevent injury (always important) and always progressing to increase strength.

High intensity means working each muscle to the point of fatigue when not more reps can be performed. The relates to the Overload Principle that says to increase muscular size and strength, a muscle must be stressed or “overloaded,” with a workload that is beyond its present capacity and trigger and adaptive response (muscular growth).

Bottom line is this: exercise that does not produce enough muscular fatigues will not stimulate muscular growth.

I’ve included a complete exercise plan in “Could-Be Commandos” which is part of my “Strong Men Stay Young” program.