With proper training to more energy and health E-Book

Gerhard J. Mandalka

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 231

Beschreibung

This book is about effective training. The author explains how the body works and how to design a workout that supports personal goals. It also provides information on metabolism, weight loss, muscle building and orthopaedic problems. The book offers a well-founded and understandable explanation of how the body works and how to design an effective workout. The author emphasizes that effectiveness is not to be equated with fast, hard or long training, but rather with a conscious training that supports one's own goals. The author also refutes some common myths spread on social media, such as the idea that a certain exercise can help you lose fat, build muscle, become more agile and reduce stress. He clarifies that muscle and fat build-up always take place in the body at the same time and that endurance training should take place under good oxygen coverage in order to increase endurance and have more energy. What is particularly positive is that the author proposes a clear order for the structure of different aspects in the body. He compares this to building a house and stresses that while it is possible to start with the roof or the garden, it is more meaningful and effective to start with the foundation. The book also provides information on metabolism, weight loss, muscle building and orthopaedic problems. The author explains these topics in an understandable way and gives concrete tips and advice. Overall, the book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to make their training more effective. It provides sound information, clear explanations and practical advice. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in effective training. The book provides a comprehensive guide for effective training, based on sound information about the body and its functioning. It refutes common myths and offers concrete tips and advice.

Leseprobe

Table of contents

1. Foreword

2. Why should we care about directed training

2.1 Grow or die

2.2 Movement is not training.

2.3 Swimming, hiking, running and gardening

2.4 From power to relaxation courses

2.5 BMI, WHR, and other measurements

2.6 If life is to come from Love

We are an open book for our children

2.7 Muscle soreness, pain and tension

2.8 Back, abdomen, joints and cartilage

2.9 Food pyramid, mouth vs. intestine

2.10 Emotions, body language and thought processes

2.11 Cognitive-physical performance and metabolism

2.12 Weight loss and diets

2.13 Stretching and fascia

2.14 Chronically ill vs. staying in balance

2.15 Our clothes also make you sick!

2.16 Prevention

2.17 To be honest: we ALL don't care about health.

2.18 Summary

3. Training methods and their effects!

3.1 Strength training

3.2 Endurance

3.3 Coordination, Balance and Tact

3.4 Stretching and fascia

3.5 Training structure and cycles

4. How to reach your training goals!

4.1 Training structure and planning

4.2 My proper training.

4.3 Imbalances and movement amplitudes

4.4 Endurance training (cardiovascular)

4.5 Strength training and muscle activation

4.6 Speed (maximum load)

4.7 High stress, recovery and Life in Work®

4.8 EMS, vibration plates, and more

4.9 Swimming, walking, running, gardening and housework become a workout

4.10 Strong back and clear head

4.11 Being able to pull out trees at 100

4.12 Chronic mental disorders and exercise

4.13 How to get your head on track!

4.14 Metabolism and our life

4.15 Weight loss, diets and interval fasting

4.16 Increasing brain power

4.17 Increase self-confidence and self-efficacy

4.18 Reduce stress and increase well-being

4.19 Your training start

4.20 Summary

5. We need more than motivation

5.1 The HAPA model

5.2 Community

5.3 Start with close targets

5.4 This is how you can increase self-efficacy

6. Final word

My book recommendations

7. Exercises for Fit and Active

Eliminate imbalances

Exercise block 1

Exercise block 2

Exercise block 3

Strong back

Exercise block A

Exercise block B

Exercise block C

Exercise block D

Breathing Exercise Metabolism

1. Foreword

In the areas of health, performance (fitness) and weight loss, more and more edited images, half-knowledge and misinformation are deliberately spread in the digital media by health providers in order to make money more quickly from new customers. Our hope is cleverly addressed, everything goes easily, quickly and we can continue like this. With this book, I will provide you with knowledge and practical exercises so that you can make better decisions about your performance and wellbeing through correct knowledge.

In this book, you will learn about the areas of fitness, psyche and nutrition in an easy-to-understand way, so that you can start making changes yourself. The linking of these three areas corresponds to the holistic view of us as human beings. The knowledge you get reflects the current state of science and has been practically tested in a health center in the field of physiotherapy (with sick people), in the gym (with more or less fit people), in companies with ‘active breaks’ and also by me in professional sports.

Once you have dealt with the contents of the book, you will subsequently be able to influence your fitness, health, performance, stress (with its reactions) and well-being more consciously. To do this, some of you will have to realize that, for example, your so-called sport is only exercise and not training after all, and could even cause more problems in the long term than it really helps. For the mostly unmotivated, there is guidance in chapter 5 on how to start and then persevere with new behaviors.

Each of us needs a clear awareness of the problem and the insight that we can contribute a lot to achieving our goal ourselves. In science, for example, it is assumed that we determine well over 50 percent of our health through our behavior and that our genes have a much smaller influence on us than we often think. Of course, there are genetic diseases and accidents where our influence is almost nil. However, even in these cases we can achieve a lot of positive results through conscious changes in our lives. I never say that it is always easy!

For over 25 years I have been studying the fascinating influence of physiology and psychology on our performance and thus on our health. I have always been interested in how I can train, learn or set a world record as quickly as possible. The will to compete at all costs has also led me to professional sports and two world records ‘greatest distance covered in one hour’ and ‘12 hours in indoor cycling’ (Guinness Book of Records).

My experience, education, and degrees are: Master in the field of prevention and health psychology; business psychologist (BA), Bachelor Professional of Physical Fitness CCI, NLP Master, kinesiologist, metabolic coach, forest therapist and mindfulness trainer according to SRH, aura vision, exercise leader B with focus on orthopedics (rehabilitation sport) and functional training exercise leader.

I started my active education with a degree in mathematics, computer science and economics (to the dismay of my environment, I dropped out during my thesis). I learned a lot for my life and also for the health sector through this study. If the wrong methods are used, even double and multiple efforts do not help to achieve a solution (result). If you use the right methods without the right basic knowledge, you might get a result, but the wrong one. Only if we use methods correctly, we will usually achieve our results in all areas more easily than we previously believed.

I am a generalist with some special skills and I get excited about life when things don't go according to a pattern and special solutions have to be found - for example, when psychology and physiology suddenly don't seem to follow the laws of nature and a holistic approach is required.

What does what has been written mean to me? To me it means taking responsibility for my heart valve operation at the age of 47. I could speak of a genetic disposition in the family in the area of the heart, of a lot of bad luck - as I am otherwise in perfect health - because three tooth root inflammations can be blamed for the heart valve defect. But the tooth root infections did not come without reason, during this time I forwarded and worked in my health center with gym, physiotherapy and company health promotion, started my Master's degree, began to build up a European sales company and shortly afterwards my son was born. I had overworked myself and my body responded with the inflammation in my mouth. I had to learn that at some point all compensation strategies also reach their limits, then conscious sports training, conscious nutrition, self-hypnosis and a positive world view can no longer help.

It also means taking responsibility for my son's health and teaching the son alternative courses of action that he will eventually take responsibility for himself.

We still cannot explain many things scientifically, even though we know, for example, that laughter has a positive effect on us. Much more often we should do something that also makes us happy in the long term.

In this book, I will share the current knowledge and what you should learn from it for yourself. Moreover, I will use scientific terms (statements) that you can easily search for on the internet. I will also occasionally allow myself to be a little fuzzy scientifically. This means that my explanation is correct in terms of the statement, but I have deliberately added or omitted individual details in the description. This has always been done with the aim to have the content facilitate your understanding and not confuse you as much as possible.

This book gives you many possibilities to make and lead your life even more active and attractive for you.

In chapter 2 you will find important information to help you better assess yourself and others in terms of performance and health. Here you may also have a rude awakening, but you will find solutions and their implementation in chapter 4.

Chapter 3 gives an overview of different types of training and what they should be used for.

Chapter 4 is about how to train correctly! To better understand the idea of the methods, you should have read chapter 2 well.

Most implementations are much simpler than we want to accept because we often expect an extremely complicated solution to OUR problem.

In chapter 5 you will find methods on how we can specifically change our motivation or implementation at certain ‘weak points’. You will also learn that it is not the relapse but the stagnation in the relapse that is problematic.

In chapter 6 I sum up the book for you and for me. It is very important to me to fulfil all the promises I make to you and to surprise and inspire you. The résumé will give you a nice starting point for more activity and reveal more about me as an author and about writing.

Chapter 7 gives you effective exercises to eliminate imbalances and strengthen your back. You can do this training at any time without equipment while standing. 5 minutes a day is sufficient.

Each chapter and its subsections are independently readable and comprehensibly structured, so that jumping through the chapters is possible. The idea of the book is particularly noticeable in the ‘normal’ continuous reading through and many things become even clearer and easier to implement.

2. Why should we care about directed training

... because it is simply about your well-being, happiness and performance.

This cannot protect you from accidents caused by others, but it will help you to have fewer accidents yourself and to be healthy again more quickly. For me, my directed training saved my life before the end of October 2020. It did not save me from the mistakes of others, but it made me considerably more resilient to the consequences.

For me, directed sport is a synonym for training, otherwise it's just movement. When I do sport for a goal, I have a structured training plan that I stick to and that is also adapted to training principles in terms of the amount and type of load. Sport equals movement when I do sport according to the pleasure principle without a plan. Movement is always better than doing nothing and it also often has positive effects.

"The organism needs strain and directly resulting stress in order to develop and maintain all tissues and organs structurally and, on this basis, functionally, as well as to organize and constantly secure the economic interaction of the organ systems. Stress and strain are also important so that the organism as a whole becomes, is and remains healthy and efficient throughout the entire lifespan (ontogenesis) in order to resist frailty as a result of the physiological aging processes for as long as possible.

(Klein D./ Laube W./ Schomacher J./ Voelker B.: Biomechanics, Theory of Movement, Performance Physiology, Training Theory)Evolutionarily, we still need a lot of different movements for us or our bodies to function. Conscious movement has an influence on our fertility, our metabolism, our intolerances, our nutrition, our immune system, our perception of stress and depression, cancer, age-related diseases such as dementia, on how happy we are, how successfully we can manage our tasks, how attractive we appear to others and much more.

Nutrition is more than just the energy we have and together with movement an important point also in this book. Movement, thoughts, and nutrition always belong together and so these topics are also always considered together in this book, with the emphasis on directed movement and thoughts.

The first important connection between exercise and nutrition is the following:

Our daily consumption (kilojoules) is measured based on the energy (heat) we radiate. For the following example, we can thus directly set energy equal to heat.

In the example, we compare the generation of energy in the body with the heating of a flat. In both cases we want to generate heat, on the one hand to maintain the operating temperature and on the other hand so that we do not freeze in winter.

Therefore, we can equate energy with heat and food with wood and ask the question: "Can only wood warm us?" Whoever answers yes to this has already thrown the wood into the fire. Wood can only warm us when it burns. So we need a fireplace, a chimney or some other device where we convert wood into heat with the use of fire and oxygen.

It is the same in our body: the suitable environment in us is the mitochondria, here energy (ATP) is produced from our food with the use of oxygen. Mitochondria are bacteria in our cells that are responsible for the production of energy. This energy gives us strength and keeps us warm.

A lot of food makes for nice fat deposits, but not for a lot of energy.

As with wood, not all wood burns equally well and some woods produce more smoke than heat and can even have a lasting negative effect on the stove. Anyone who has ever filled up their car with the wrong fuel knows what such a mistake can cause.

Most of us eat more than enough, our energy power plants, the mitochondria, can burn almost anything if they get enough oxygen. Oxygen intake has a direct correlation with our fitness level. If you exercise less specifically, you have less oxygen and therefore much less energy. If there is oxygen, we still need many mitochondria to provide the energy we need. Most mitochondria are found in the active muscles. If we have few muscles, then the number of energy power plants (mitochondria) is reduced, so that we have considerably less energy for activities. Those who (properly) exercise too little have much less energy for their activities and their immune system and are therefore much more susceptible to many diseases.

Just as most of us cycle, walk, run or swim, they build almost no muscle and only minimally improve mitochondrial expansion and oxygenation.

Losing energy is like becoming long-sighted or short-sighted. Only when our arm's length is no longer sufficient to hold the mobile phone or book far enough away from our eyes, or when we can already operate the touchscreen with our nose without any problems - only then do very many of us notice that their eyesight has changed.

Very few, or rather almost none of us, are the first to recognize our own limitations and performance losses. For this reason, we should pay attention to indications from friends and other people who say something about our behavior and not simply sweep them aside.

With directed exercises or training, we can get more out of our lives. More energy means that we can complete our tasks more easily and quickly, and then have more time for our loved ones or hobbies.

A question about what you have read: Did you know that food only becomes energy through mitochondria and that we need muscles for this?

Yes, it was clear to me:

No, it was not clear to me yet:

2.1 Grow or die

Let's take a look at nature, because we are a part of it. In nature, something is growing or decaying, always changing in one direction or another.

Again and again I hear from people in my health center or in workplace health promotion: "I just want things to stay the same. If everything stays like this, I'm happy!"

So the kidney inflammation that is just starting should continue to develop like this, the diabetes that is starting to progress, the cancer that is just starting to develop should continue to flourish ...

This is exactly what is meant by the status quo ‘shall remain so’. Everything is in motion in our body, our breathing, our blood and much more, so should it be stopped (we want to die) or what should happen now with the permanent changes?

Even death cannot stop the status quo, it is the start of the even more continuous degradation of our body.

There are only two states in life:

1. Something is growing and being born (this also applies to diseases).

2. Something is degenerating and dying (including our performance and our ability to perceive beauty).

You get to decide: Do you want to grow or degenerate? Staying is NOT an option!

Those who choose to grow can increase their inner vitality through better energy supply and exercise and at the same time ensure the degeneration of disease processes.

Those who decide too strongly (extremely) for performance enhancement (growth) in sport and profession will often tacitly approve the degeneration of many recovery processes and thus have to accept negative processes within themselves.

It is important that old mitochondria are broken down in order to be able to build up new performance strength. We renew ourselves every second of our lives, so even birth and death are not status quo in our lives.

Our muscles need regular conscious stimuli, otherwise they degenerate quickly. If the stimulus is too little, too short or too long, then the adaptation processes of the muscle change significantly. It can even lead to the degeneration of muscles. Degeneration can also occur if the stimulus is suitable but the supply of protein and other building materials for the muscles and nerves is lacking.

Please choose to grow consciously, otherwise the degeneration processes will start.

Drugs massively support destruction in YOU, such as alcohol or smoking. They damage the rebuilding of cells (mitochondria) and increase the chance that cell malformations (cancer) and other harmful processes will take place in you while the drugs are in your body.

Sorry, even a glass of wine is not healthy. A low-risk dose for one day is 8 fl. oz. of wine or 0.8 oz. of pure alcohol for a man and 4 fl. oz. of wine or 0.4 oz. of pure alcohol for a woman, with at least two days of not drinking anything alcoholic. The low-risk dose does not change even if one drinks alcohol only one day a week. There is no such thing as completely risk-free consumption. For example, a very small amount of red wine has a vasoprotective effect, but this is more than destroyed by the damaging effects on a cellular basis.

Of course, it is allowed to numb one's senses once in a while, but please not under the guise of it being healthy! Rather, we should be aware that we have just actively harmed ourselves and should seek compensation for it. Enjoying something in the community and having fun is very important. But just as the third schnitzel is no longer eaten for enjoyment, the third beer or glass of wine is no longer taken for taste, but to deliberately numb one's senses. Or even worse, to give in to one's addiction.

Something about cigarettes: Nicotine is only one of about 4800 chemicals in tobacco smoke, about 90 chemicals of which are proven carcinogens. These include arsenic, lead, cadmium, formaldehyde, benzene or nitrosamines. Over the years, nicotine and tar in cigarettes have been reduced and replaced by carcinogenic additives, some of which we cannot break down at all. Even a cigarette at the weekend is not harmless.

It is a wonder how much our body can compensate for and how much we deliberately damage it without directly feeling any health consequences.

Paracelsus is credited with the saying: "The dose makes the poison!” However, the correct saying is: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; it is the dose alone that makes a thing not a poison.”

Too often, our behavior supports our inner destruction more than the building of new efficient cells.

A question about what you have read: Did you know that there are only two processes that take place in our bodies, and thus no direct preservation is possible?

Yes, I knew that:

No, I hadn't known that yet:

2.2 Movement is not training.

Training takes place when we consciously trigger change processes in our body.

If we always walk, run or cycle the same distance every day, the initial training effect is reduced and eventually no longer exists. Over time, our body gets used to the strain and from that point on, the training effect is reduced considerably.

If you cover the same distance with the same intensity every day (several times a week), you're still doing sport for the first few weeks but after that it's just movement.

Very often people come up to us and say: "How can it be that I walk 6 miles (or cycle 12 miles) every day and still have such problems with my circulation?"

The answer is: because your body has become accustomed to the load and thus needs fewer and fewer resources to perform the task. This economization in the body makes us more efficient, we can do more and more with the same energy consumption.

So the strain on nurses, carers, craftsmen, construction workers, etc. is also high, but at some point no more training, just movement. With the consequences that less and less energy and muscles are needed for the load and that we move more and more economically over time and thus even important muscles are broken down. This degradation of muscles is etiological for many orthopedic problems and pain. Conventional treatment of pain in physiotherapy, without surgery, aims to reactivate degenerated muscles and include them in the daily movement profile.

Moving is better than doing nothing, but it is still far from doing enough for ourselves. We need alternating controlled loads to continue building our muscles. Maintenance - as described before - is not possible.

Movement is always better than not exercising at all, it just doesn't have the positive effects on our well-being and performance that we would hope.

As promised, there will be solutions later.

A question about what you have read: Did you know the difference between movement and training?

Yes, I realize that:

No, I'm surprised by it:

2.3 Swimming, hiking, running and gardening

I'm sure I'll get lots of nasty messages after this section. I used to love to swim (I can't any more due to chlorine intolerance), I also like to go hiking a lot and I'm looking forward to being able to run more soon.

Each of these movements has its advantages and therefore also disadvantages. When we talk about ‘being fit’, we must also always talk about ‘growth’ as a training effect. What are the positive adaptations of swimming, hiking and running? When do these adaptations end or turn into the opposite? All these movements support the current supply of oxygen by improving blood circulation.

Swimming

Swimming is very good for people with high weight, little strength or joint problems, because the water does not put so much weight on the joints and many movements become possible in the first place. Swimming is also good for people with back problems if the swimming is done correctly and is predominantly backstroke. When swimming breaststroke, on the other hand, the neck muscles are often overloaded because the head is permanently held in the air. Correctly, the head should lie straight with the back in the water and only be lifted briefly to breathe.

Many swimmers believe that swimming builds muscles, and then point to the muscles of competitive swimmers. Competitive swimmers have to work these out in gyms, so even some world-class swimmers are said to spend more time in the weight room than in the water. To what extent this is true is unclear, but clearly a very large part of the training takes place on weight machines. With the increase in water temperature for competitive swimmers, the body fat percentage of professional swimmers has also been reduced because otherwise the insulation was lacking in cold water.

If you always swim at the same pace, to the same extent and within the same range of motion, you increasingly lose the stimulus for your growth every day and at some point this positive growth stimulus is no longer detectable.

A question about what you have read: Did you know that swimming does not build muscle in the long run?

Yes, I was aware of that:

No, this information is new:

Hiking

When hiking, we mainly train our connective tissue (fascia) instead of our muscles. Many people also walk too slowly or at a constant pace, which is not enough to cause continuous adjustments of the cardiovascular system. In addition, we often only move our joints (feet, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows and hands) within a limited range of motion, which can lead to reduced mobility in the long run if no compensatory movements take place.

When we talk to other people while hiking, the topic of conversation is decisive for the health effect. When we talk about annoying things, cognitive stress triggers negative processes in the body and almost completely reduces the positive effect of fresh forest air and exercise.

However, if we talk just briefly about something annoying and then focus on walking and the beautiful surroundings, we can use hiking to reduce stress.

A tip for hiking: The stress reduction is particularly effective if we consciously walk through the landscape (the forest) and immerse ourselves in the surroundings. We should consciously perceive the sounds, look closely at the different details of the environment, notice the changing smell of the air and consciously feel the wind on our skin.

If we ignore the peculiarities of the landscape, it is as if we were moving in a room with only one open window.

A question about what you have read: Did you know that your topic of conversation while hiking can kill the whole recreational effect?

Yes, I knew that:

No, I hadn't known that yet:

Running

Many runners mostly run the same route, predominantly at the same pace, or always try to complete a distance as fast as they can. This is my experience from several thousand conversations with different runners who eventually found their way to physiotherapy or the gym because of problems (knee, hip or back pain).

Running is a predominantly fascial movement with the advantage that as we get better and better at it, we need less and less energy to run a certain distance or at a certain pace. It is a springy movement in which the Achilles tendon makes an important contribution to running. In the process, the supporting muscles in the legs, hips and parts of the back are broken down because we don't need them to run directly - so again and again the principle comes into play: what we don't use degenerates and dissolves. The more muscles are broken down and the more economically we can run, the more we have to run to achieve the same training stimulus or energy conversion.

Some use running to relieve stress after work and then very often run fast to really exhaust themselves. At first we get a lot of happy hormones (activation of the sympathetic nervous system) for the price that we have too little recovery time and many purification processes under the parasympathetic nervous system cannot take place or only to a limited extent.

Thus a slow walk, without music and other electronics for entertainment, can be a much better recovery effect for us through the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

If you almost only run and do too little balancing, you significantly increase the risk and duration of injuries in the legs, hips and back.