Creating a Workable Fitness Plan

When most people think of self improvement fitness is usually one of the first things that comes to mind. This makes a lot of sense because improving fitness is the most obvious form of self improvement. The body changes in a way that is undeniable. Despite being an obvious form of improving one’s life, people still have trouble getting the recommended amount of physical activity done. This is apparent from the fact that less than a quarter of adults fail to get the expert recommended amount of physical activity. So the purpose of this post will be to give you the resources needed to take the first step towards starting and maintaining an active lifestyle. I’ll be going over the pros and cons of multiple categories of exercise in terms of health benefits, utility, and convenience. This way you can create a fitness plan based on your own individual circumstances.

Different Categories of Exercise

Weightlifting

Weightlifting is a pretty self explanatory concept. It mostly involves exercises geared towards increasing physical strength through use of weighted objects. The basic principle is to increase the weight lifted, repetitions done, sets done, or speed of repetitions over time. Weightlifting generally involves equipment such as dumbbells, barbells, or weight machines.

When starting weightlifting for the first time you should start at weight you can do a lot of repetitions of in good form. For creating a weightlifting routine there are a lot resources by people with a lot more experience than me such as this. Ultimately I would suggest searching for a routine that will work best with your specific circumstances. This is especially true if you don’t have easy access to a gym or equipment. In general you should lean towards routines that emphasize use of free weights over machines since free weights have much more advantages in comparison, and compound movements over isolation since compound movements target more muscle groups in the same amount of time. Also make sure to study on what proper form is for each exercise.

Calisthenics

Calisthenics is a form of exercise that involves weight training using only your own body. This is in contrast to weightlifting which involves moving separate objects. Some basic calisthenic workouts are pushups, lunges, pullups, leg raises, and planks. Like with weight training there are a lot of free resources online for beginners such as this. Unlike weight training, it is more difficult to add weight to calisthenic exercises than it is to simply increase reps. In order to deal with this people who have achieved a high repetition count for a calisthenic exercise should progress to a more difficult form of that exercise (such as going from regular pushups to diamond pushups to explosive to one handed).

Cardio

Cardio are aerobic exercises that emphasize consistent moderate intensity work over a longer period. The most common types of cardio exercises are running, cycling, and swimming. Most cardio exercises are pretty simple to do. When starting a cardio routine you should go at a consistent intensity that leaves you greatly fatigued after 30 minutes. As you get more used to doing cardio adding short intervals of increased intensity during your workout. It is also good to add variety to cardio workouts by doing different types instead of just doing the same type over and over.

Yoga

Yoga is a practice that developed in India involving physical, mental, and spiritual discipline. For the purpose of this post I will discussing the physical aspects of yoga. Yoga as an exercise involves moving between different poses for the purpose of improving balance, flexibility, and breathing. A good beginner routine can found here. As you are able to perform the basic poses easily you should move on to more difficult ones in order to progress.

Comparing Types of Exercise

Each of the different types of exercises have their own benefits based on how they improve your life. By comparing the different benefits of each exercise you develop a routine that suits your specific needs.

Utility

Utility here will be defined by observable benefits of the exercise such as practical ability.

In terms of physical strength, weightlifting is most beneficial. This is evident from the fact that with weightlifting you can train all different possible movement patterns as opposed to calisthenics which are limited based on moving your own body. With weightlifting you can gain the most amount of strength for general tasks like moving furniture or carrying things.

In terms of endurance cardio grants the most benefit due to being about doing an exercise over a longer period of time with little rest. Endurance can be useful for some blue collar jobs that require long shifts but otherwise generally doesn’t have much practicality in day to day life.

Ultimately based on some simple analysis the ranking of exercise categories in terms of utility seems to be 1. Weightlifting 2. Calisthenics 3. Cardio 4. Yoga

Health

Health here will be defined by elimination or prevention of physical or mental diseases. Most health benefits are shared between each of the exercises such as reducing risk of obesity, stress, blood pressure, diabetes and heart health as well as improving self esteem. However there are some benefits that are specific to certain exercises. For example high weight bearing exercise (so weight training and calisthenics) has been shown to increase bone density thus preventing osteoporosis and susceptibility to fractures. Cardio has been shown to significantly improve immune function even in the elderly. For mental health yoga seems to have the greatest benefits as shown by being able to improve symptoms of depression, ADHD, and schizophrenia. Ultimately most health benefits are shared even though each exercise category has its own benefits and there doesn’t seem to be one with with any significant edge over the rest. However there are still some unique health benefits to each category so you can take those into account when making your routine.

Convenience

Convenience is a basic measure of how easy it is to start each type of workout. If a performing a certain workout has other costs for equipment then that will reduce convenience. From this definition it is clear that weightlifting is least convenient as it requires either a gym membership which takes money and time to commute to, or space to store equipment in your own home. The second least convenient would probably be calisthenics due to needing to get some extra equipment to do pullups and other pull based exercises despite not needing as much equipment as weightlifting. Yoga and cardio are about even since both don’t have very high equipment costs and most equipment is not entirely necessary for them.

Creating and Executing a Plan

Setting Goals

Before creating a routine you should keep in mind what you want to achieve by creating and following a fitness routine. Your short term goal should be something you feel confident you are capable of. Your long term goal should be something that is generally measureable such total amount of time you spend working out or amount of weight you can bench. Ultimately by setting specific goals you give yourself something substantial to strive for rather than just a nebulous concept of better health.

Creating a Generalised Exercise Routine

First create a table like the one below to act as a general plan

Day of the week	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Exercise type	Weightlifting	Cardio	Yoga	Weightlifting	Yoga	Cardio	Weightlifting
Time	4:30-6pm	6:30-7pm	8-9pm	5:30-7pm	8-9pm	6:30-7pm	4:30-6pm

Try to keep up with the plan you make for yourself. If you find yourself missing scheduled workout times try and update your routine by either replacing the ones you miss with more convenient options or shifting the times. This way you can respond systematically to failures to keep up with your routine.

Avoiding Potential Pitfalls

Despite following a routine it is still possible to make some mistakes that are just as bad as missing a scheduled workout. When I was first started to do some kind of workout every day I was very strict in the times I exercised. This meant I would try and complete the exercise even if I was performing poorly. After learning about the cab driver’s fallacy[9] I wondered if this behavior self defeating since better performance is known to lead to better gains from exercise. So I decided to be more lenient with my time and spend more time on my exercise if I was performing better than average and less if I was was performing worse. After a few weeks I noticed a slight increase in how much I was gaining and overall I felt much better about exercising in general.

Lastly, it is important to note that gains from fitness don’t come while exercising but during recovery. So make sure you’re sleeping well.

Optimizing Sleep for Self Improvement: Part 1

A lot of the concepts and processes in this post are based on material in the book “Quiet your mind and get to Sleep” by Colleen E. Carney and Rachel Manber. If you want more information on solving any sleep issues you have, I would recommend getting that book.

Why is Sleep Important for Self Improvement:

Benefits of Proper Sleep:

Sleep is an essential process for humans just like eating or breathing. As such, sleep plays an important role in nearly every aspect of people’s lives. This includes emotional control, memory, cognitive performance, strengthening immunity,  and reducing daytime fatigue. Lack of proper sleep can also exasperate other physical or mental problems. Given the heavy physical and mental toll bad sleep can have, anyone looking to improve their life should look towards improving their sleep. Even if you don’t have any specific sleep disorders like insomnia, there are still likely ways you can improve your sleep for mental and physical benefit.

Prevalence of Sleep Related Problems:

The modern environment has lead to an increase in sleeping problems for many people. As much as 40% of the population of the United States has some kind of sleep disorder. Despite affecting so many people there aren’t as many resources to help people with sleep as there are for other habit based health issues like obesity. Not only are there not as many resources but much of the advice people are given regarding sleep is not only wrong but can be detrimental to forming good sleep habits.

Dispelling Myths about Sleep:

Myth 1: Time Spent in Bed is what Matters

Since the time I was young I was told things like “humans are supposed to spend a third of their life sleeping” or “You should get at least 8 hours of sleep”. These statements seemed to make sense. When I had more sleep I felt and performed better, when I had less sleep I felt and performed worse. This concept made me very anxious about my sleep which in turn probably made my insomnia worse despite my attempts to improve my sleep. The reality is that in addition to quantity there is also a quality to a person’s sleep. Someone who believes they need to get a specific amount of sleep will likely try either going to bed earlier than usual or sleeping in more if they think they aren’t getting enough sleep. Unfortunately both these approaches are more likely to lead to more sleep issues. If someone tries going to bed earlier they will likely go to bed when they don’t feel sleepy and thus spend more time awake in bed until sleeping which can lead to taking longer to fall asleep after going to bed in the future. Alternatively someone who tries to sleep in longer in the morning will shift their circadian rhythm forward meaning it will take longer for them to fall asleep next night. Ultimately there isn’t a specific number of hours a person “needs” to sleep every night. How well someone sleeps is a function of more than just the time from when you fall asleep to when you wake.

Myth 2: If you have Sleep Debt you have to Sleep Longer to make it up

Relating to the idea of needing a specific amount of time spent sleeping is concept of sleep debt. Sleep debt is the concept that bad sleep across multiple nights accumulates into more intense problems while awake and that more good sleep proportional to the amount of bad sleep must be had to offset the effects of bad sleep. This leads people to believe that if they don’t sleep more after a night of bed sleep they will forever have symptoms of sleep deprivation. However as discussed in the previous section trying to get more sleep one night by either going to bed earlier or sleeping in later can cause more sleep problems down the road. So the best way to get rid of sleep debt is to increase the quality of sleep. Fortunately the body can do this automatically in response to sleep deprivation. This is evidenced by a study where subjects who were deprived of REM sleep one night would increase the amount of sleep time spent in REM the next night despite sleeping the same amount of time. This effectively means that losing sleep one night makes you sleep more deeply the next night. Although the study showed a 26 minutes increase in REM sleep after being deprived of 30 minutes of REM sleep implying that sleep debt won’t be paid off after a single night of deeper sleep, maintaining a consistent sleep cycle is more effective to long term improvement in sleep than paying off sleep debt as fast as possible.

Improving Sleep:

Ultimately the best way to improve sleep is to track your sleep in a sleep log and modify your habits based on what you record.

Keeping a Sleep Log:

A sleep log should be filled out as early as possible each day after waking up. A basic sleep log should include the times you go to bed, when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and when you finally get out of bed. A sleep log also works as a way to plan when you want to commit to falling asleep and wake up and seeing how well you stick to that commitment. The sleep log can either be kept in a booklet or on a digital spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. In a later section there will be a sample sleep log with additional options.

Activities Before Going to Bed:

There are multiple things that people do before bed that can disrupt sleep. Before going to bed you should spend at least 30 minutes away from bright sources of light. This includes laptop or mobile phone screens. If you feel you need to do something on one of these devices you can turn down the screen brightness. A good way to tell if a screen is to shine it on yourself in front of a mirror in darkness and see if you can make out any features. If you can make out all of your facial features then the screen is probably too bright. You should also do an activity that is relaxing such as reading or meditating. You should also avoid eating or drinking anything within an hour and a half of going to bed and avoid anything containing caffeine, alcohol, or nicotine about 4 hours before bed since these substances can disturb sleep.

Activities After Waking Up:

The most important aspect of waking up is getting and staying out of bed as soon as possible. Keeping an alarm clock away from the bed so you have to get up to turn it off. After turning off the alarm clock people are usually tempted to to go back to bed. In order to prevent this you should plan out something to do right after you wake up. This should be something you want to do and is comfortable like sitting on a couch watching netflix. If you still have trouble staying out of bed after waking up you should write a reminder and put it next to your alarm clock to remind you what you planned to do after waking up.

Get Started Now:

Recording Sleep:

As you’re reading this open up a new spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Fill out the spreadsheet like the sample below.

Date	(Today’s Date)	(Tomorrow’s Date)	Etc...
Time I went to bed last night:
Estimate of how long I was in bed before falling asleep
Time I woke up:
Time I finally got out of bed::
Total Time in bed	(Row5 - Row2)
Weeklong average
Total Time asleep	(Row4 - Row3)
Weeklong average
Sleep efficiency (time asleep per time in bed)	Row6 / Row8
Weeklong average

Additional Options:

The above table is very basic and doesn’t take into account individual factors. There are some additional options if an you have additional sleep issues. For example if you wake up periodically during the night you should put a row for amount of times you woke up last night and a row for the average time it took for you to fall back asleep. If you find yourself consistently waking up earlier than you planned you should put in a row for that so you can adjust your future bedtime.

Planning:

In order for this to work you will have to continually fill out the sleep log so you can adjust your habits based on where you are having difficulty. In order to commit to filling the sleep log out you should write down a note to remind yourself and put it near your computer. You should also set your alarm for the same time every week and have something planned to do as soon as you wake up.

What to do Next:

As you fill out the sleep log you should think about how to adjust your habits to improve your sleep. For example if you find that you are spending a long time in bed before falling asleep you should start to go bed later until you fall asleep quickly after going to bed. As time goes on your habits will improve and you won’t need to take as many precautions. You will be able to wake up at the same time every day without an alarm clock and fall asleep quickly after going to bed.

Part 2