Energise With Exercise

A lot of people will find it hard to believe that exercise will give you energy. How can an activity which depletes so many of your body’s stores give you more energy? Well as a personal trainer for many years I can tell you that it really does.

I know if you’re tired the last thing in many people’s thoughts would be to go to the gym or to go for a run, but if you do go for it you will feel just as energized if not more so than you would if you had taken a nap.

Sadly the world we live in brings us to react to fatigue with a cup of coffee or an energy drink rather than putting on our trainers and off we go. Especially in the mornings, exercise is a brilliant way to kick start your day. I can almost guarantee that you will feel physically as well as mentally better if you start your day with a good breakfast and a workout as opposed to getting up an hour later having a cup of coffee and dragging yourself to work.

If you compare a perfectly normal person who goes to the gym 5 times a week with a sedentary person who does no form of physical activity, who would you say has the most energy?

If we then took this sedentary person and started he/she on an exercise programme it is more than likely to produce less feelings of fatigue and more energy. Exercise really is a wonderful thing with so many benefits. Just the mental boost you get after a hard session is second to none (for me at least)!

Exercise works as a great stress buster, after a long week in work a nice gentle run/swim or cycle is a great way to unwind and take your mind of things. Exercise can be very therapeutic, the happy hormones and endorphins it produces improves our mood a lot.

The science behind feeling energised as you exercise is this:

When we exercise blood flow is increased, our muscles demand oxygen which causes the rate of blood flow to increase to carry oxygen to the working muscles. Oxygen is needed to create energy, so the fact that there is more oxygen in the body will leave us feeling more energetic.

As we know the days seem to be getting shorter, it is definitely getting a lot colder, it can be quite a dark and gloomy time for some of us if we let it. I like to spend my day working hard, getting in a good workout then being able to fit some down time in the night relaxing with my family. I really do feel that exercise helps me to be as productive as possible. If I had a week off exercise it will really leave me feeling lousy, as well as guilty for not exercising.

Being 100% committed to an exercise programme can give you such a sense of achievement and you will make the gym session part of your day rather than the mental ‘Shall I’ ‘Shan’t I’ mental battle that it often becomes for new exercisers.

I believe that the human body is one of the most mind blowing things on this planet and I firmly believe that it was not designed to sit at a desk or slouch on the sofa all day, it is built to be mobile and to be active.

As a personal trainer I am constantly as active as possible and I fully reap the rewards, you should make sure you do the same.

Thanks for reading,

Richard Clarke