With Darren Barnes, the Director of Fitness for MS Fitness Challenge, I have developed what we call the NaturalBody HD Training System:
H=Hypertrophic (building muscle)D=Definition (losing fat)
We created this exercise method through a trial-and-error process of working out together as I trained to overcome MS. Over the past eight years, we have adapted it for all types of disabilities or challenges people face in the gym or at home in trying to get fit. Whether you are living with rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, type 2 diabetes, or cancer, you should try to incorporate exercise into your lifestyle at the level you can sustain it. The NaturalBody HD Training System is a high-intensity, calorie-burning workout that will help you build lean muscle mass at the same time. The NaturalBody approach to training has been proven to be very effective for people with physical or emotional limitations. But before we begin the workouts, I’d like to explain some of the terminology involved in setting up your program. Here are eight terms you will need to understand to fully engage and make progress:
Term 1: Repetition (or Rep)
A rep is one sequence of a particular movement from the start position to the finish position. It’s a movement from start to finish.
Term 2: Set
A group of consecutive repetitions to complete the exercise before moving on to the next set or next exercise. Rest time between sets in this program should be approximately 45 seconds unless otherwise specified. If an exercise is listed as 3x12-15, the athlete will perform three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions of the exercise.
Term 3: Adaptation
Your body will try to adapt to any stress that you put on it. In other words, it will fight you every step of the way and try to stay exactly the same as it is right now when you try to change your level of physical fitness. Simply put, your body does not want to change! You will have to force that change to happen.
Term 4: Resistance (or Weight) Training
This is where it all happens. Resistance training — also called weight training — has many health benefits, including increased strength, which helps you avoid muscle loss, or atrophy, and delays bone-density loss that occurs due to aging or lack of use. This is where we build muscle to regain strength to perform activities of daily living. It is also where we stimulate the body’s metabolism – the rate at which we burn fat.
Term 5: Cardiovascular Training
While muscle is the body’s primary fat-burner, cardiovascular training (also called cardio) definitely helps. It is a method of training designed to raise your heart rate and burn more calories, as well as train the heart muscle to become stronger and work more efficiently. I recommend starting slowly. Again, how slowly depends on your fitness level and limitations. But always remember, cardiovascular training without resistance training often leads to muscle loss and can significantly slow down your metabolism. The NaturalBody system combines the benefits of both types of training into a complete and efficient workout.
Term 6: Circuit Training
Circuit training is a method that involves grouping exercises together in a way that causes you to move quickly from one exercise to the next with little or no rest in between. This keeps your heart rate up and in effective calorie-burning mode. Everybody seems to want that beach body or to look like their favorite celebrity, and this is one way to do it. Let’s get out there and burn some calories!
Term 7: Mini Circuits
Mini circuits are exactly what the name implies: small circuits grouped together to combine and form a larger circuit. The NaturalBody system incorporates mini circuits to use a variety of exercises, keep the workout fun, and avoid overtraining on any particular movement.
Term 8: Supersets
Supersets are two exercises performed back to back with no rest in between.
Owning Your Limitations – and Your Goals
People face many different kinds of limitations. It would be impossible to address them all, so I will instead provide you with some important information and guidelines on how to adapt my program to your specific needs. The program is designed to take you to a high level of fitness and intensity if and only if that is your goal. No two people who choose to take on this program will have the same limitations, and we want to provide a higher level of training for those who are capable of or wish to achieve a higher goal. In my next blog, I will provide step-by-step program details with pictures to guide you through some of the upper body exercises in the NaturalBody HD Training System. Until next time…Never Quit!
