Exercise is probably one of the most impactful things you can do for your health, and unfortunately, too few people actually engage in meaningful exercise. Most people are aware of how important nutrition is, and they can more immediately see the effects of poor sleep and poor stress management, but most people are unaware of how important exercise actually is. In fact, most people tend to overemphasise the importance of the effects of nutrition on health, and drastically underemphasise the importance of exercise on health.

Now, this makes sense, because we all have to eat, but we don’t all have to exercise (or so it seems). Exercise, in the modern world, is seen as something that you choose to do. It isn’t necessary, but it is good if you can do it. A “nice to do” rather than a “need to do”. Unfortunately, this thinking has led many people to struggle with their health, their body composition and their performance in everyday life. Exercise is actually a foundational component of what makes a healthy human and it should be viewed as such, if you wish to be your best self.

The goal of this exercise page is to give you a resource you can use to learn how to set up your training program using good evidence-based information and the latest science. However, we want to not only show you why exercise is so important, but to then also help you to understand the fundamentals of training, so you can actually engage in an effective and enjoyable exercise program that is tailored to your specific needs. 

We believe in empowerment through education, so we think it is important to have some understanding of the why behind various training principles. Most people unfortunately only really learn to engage with exercise in a choreographed manner (i.e. they follow specific movement choreography and follow specific programs), and this tends to hold most people back from actually achieving their goals. 

Most people get too caught up in fancy or advanced protocols but they don’t actually have the foundational understanding of why certain things work or what they should be focusing on. As a result, they don’t have a plan that is actually sustainable for life. They jump from one program to another, they aren’t able to ever get the results they desire, and most of them just end up dropping out of exercise altogether. 

Ultimately, we want you to be able to engage in exercise for life, and the only way we can ensure that, is if we help you understand what goes into making an effective training program. The more you understand, the easier it will be to tweak your exercise habits to get results, and actually accommodate the other things that are going on in your life. If you learn the principles behind exercise, rather than just learning about specific protocols, you will be able to make much better exercise decisions, and you will be less likely to fall for fitness marketing. 

This is the very same way we coach people, because we ultimately want all our coaching clients to not need us by the end of coaching. We want them to be able to coach themselves, and the only way we can ensure that they can do that is by ensuring they have a good understanding of the principles behind exercise. They don’t need to be experts, but you would be surprised at how far you can go with just a fundamental understanding of exercise principles. 

Exercise does tend to be the area that generates the most confusion (compared to nutrition, sleep or stress management), so don’t be discouraged if you feel there is a lot you don’t know. It will all come together with time. 

This page is part of our fundamentals series, where we house our content on the key pillars of building “your best self”. Being your best self means you are able to engage with the world how you want to engage with the world and ultimately, accomplish the goals you have in life. Regardless of what that actually looks like for you, if you can get the pillars set up correctly, you give yourself the best opportunities to accomplish everything you want to in this life. 

The foundations of the broader society you find yourself in also matter, as do the genetics you were born with or the biology you were born with or acquired (your “biology” could change due to accident or injury, for example, you may have become paralysed, and thus your “biology” has changed), as does your mental and spiritual health, and of course, the health of your local community and support systems. However, much of the foundations are out of our active control, but we can work to set up the pillars as best we can, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. On this page, we discuss exercise, but we do also have pages on nutrition, sleep and stress. 

If you want more free information on exercise, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast, where we discuss all the little intricacies of exercise. We also offer coaching if you need help with your own exercise program. Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email. You can always stay up to date with our latest content by subscribing to our newsletter.

Foundational Exercise Knowledge

The following articles will give you a very good baseline understanding of exercise, from why it is important all the way to designing an effective exercise program. You can view this as something like a foundational textbook of how to design an effective exercise program. There is obviously a lot more information to know, but after reading this section, you should have a very good understanding of how to design an effective program and how to tailor it to your needs. 

• Why Is Exercise Important
• The Goals Of Exercise
• Types Of Exercise
• Exercise Guidelines

Resistance Training

• Resistance Training For Muscle & Strength
• Exercise Selection, Variety and Ordering
• Understanding Reps
• RIR & RPE (Do You Need To Train To Failure)
• Rep Tempo and Time Under Tension
• Training Volume (How Many Sets Should You Do)
• Rest Periods
• Review of Resistance Training Guidelines

Cardiovascular Training

• Why Do Cardio Training?
• Cardio Programming
• Foundational Cardio Protocols
• Review of Cardiovascular Training Guidelines

Flexibility & Mobility Training

• Understanding Flexibility and Mobility, and How To Train Them

Plyometric Training

• Understanding Plyometrics

Foundational Program Design

• Designing An Actual Workout Program
• Training Progression (Progressive Overload)
• Periodisation
• Exercise Program Design Overview

Additional Exercise Knowledge

We have a lot of additional exercise content in the pipeline, including a comprehensive exercise database, additional articles, case studies, and much more. If you want to stay up to date with everything as it is built out, please sign up to our newsletter. The newsletter will keep you informed of all our work, and it also gives you an opportunity to interact with us and help guide the content we create. Ultimately, we want this page to be a resource that actually helps YOU, so your input is incredibly valuable. 

You can subscribe to our newsletter HERE.