Requirements for Effective Exercise

For exercise to be effective, you need a sufficient stimulus to the body, and then you need to give the body a sufficient recovery time to allow growth. — Dr. Philip Alexander

According to Dr. Alexander, “there appears to be an exercise threshold, which is a minimum level of intensity needed to stimulate the body to make its growth changes. If your exercise intensity is too little, you won’t reach the threshold, and the body won’t be stimulated to grow.”

With Effective Exercise: “If the stimulus was intense enough, and if you allowed enough recovery time, the body will then overcompensate (grow). You then have a higher starting baseline the next time you work out. That’s the way you want your investments to do, so why not for your body as well?”

With Low Intensity aka Ineffective Exercise: “short of the threshold and short of producing any meaningful stimulus on the body. The only result is that that body simply recovers, with no incentive to grow to a higher physical baseline. Your savings account is just keeping up with inflation.”

Lastly with over-training: “which is worse than just spinning your wheels with ineffective exercise. Whether or not your exercise was of sufficient intensity, the problem here is that you returned to the gym before you have fully recovered. This means that you have a progressively lower starting baseline each session. This time, your investment banker is losing your money.”

And always remember: “exercise should certainly be safe. No part of the body should improve at the expense of another part (i.e., don’t trash your knees!)”