Body & Health; Physical Training & Appearance, Self-Acceptance
PHYSICAL BODY - The House You and God Live In
"I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows right well." (Psalm 139:14-15)
David knew that his body was fashioned and shaped by the design of God. You and I are not the Maker; we only hold this temple in trust for our Owner. Your body is not the most important thing of your life, nor the whole of the real you. Yet it is still the most wonderful, astonishing mystery in all the Universe outside of God. It is the first thing people see when they meet you. You naturally want it to be choice.
"Don't let someone else create your world for you, for when they do, they will always make it too small" (Ed Cole).
How do you make the BEST OF WHAT YOU HAVE? No man or woman is the same. God made us all different. Because we are all unique, there is no one best way for everyone. Since so many young people hurt their bodies trying to get them to change into someone else's idea of what is right, we will start with physical training. Do you want to improve your shape? Do you want to build up or slim down? Then ask yourself:
What have I got to work with?
What do I want it to look like?
"Your eyes saw my substance, yet unfinished; and in Your book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them." (Psa 139:16)
Your body, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, is a home for the living Presence of God. His gift to each of us is our physical talent, our genetic potential. We all have a measure of genetic talent that we cannot change, some greater than others. Skills are the mechanics of how you use your body, say to run, jump, throw, kick or hit a ball. Although talent is a gift, you learn skills. PHYSICAL CONDITIONING and TRAINING improve those skills. Although your body is only a house for the real you, and physical exercise has limits, physical training will build your energy, increase your alertness, sense of dignity, and self-worth. God wants you fit and well. It not only benefits your body, but your mind. The first component in bringing your body up to its Divine potential is to "discipline it for godliness." (I Cor. 9:24-27)
O.K. then. Deep breath. Strip down to your birthday suit. Take a look in the mirror.
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
Be honest. What is O.K.? What can be changed? Note what needs help. To help you see yourself physically the way you actually ARE, get a tape measure. If you can't see what needs to change, the tape will tell you the truth. Measure your biceps (flexed) chest (not expanded) stomach (not sucked in) hips, thighs and calves. A rule of thumb for a well-toned slender body is that your chest should be 8-10" larger than your stomach. Your hips should be 5-8" larger than your stomach, your biceps and calves the same measurement and your thighs 7" larger than your calves. (If you have a fat gut, your goal is not to blow up your chest but to slim down your waist!)
Your genes give you long or short muscles. Short muscles react more quickly to anaerobic exercise, gaining bulk and size quicker. Long muscles are easier to define and tone. GUYS, if God gave you the shell for heavier weight training and you want to build a bigger body, go for it. If what you have is not like that, work instead on a superb slim body. Don't waste your time on what won't work. GIRLS, you have a higher fat ratio in your body than men, so battles of the bulge will always mean more.
You want a workout made for you, not someone else. Do you want to lose weight OR put on a few pounds of muscle somewhere? Do you need to improve your general health? Do you want to gain more stamina and strength for a particular sport or work? Now you decide what you want to change. Not just mental assent. You must see it and say it, even put it into written words. Stick it on your mirror or clothes closet.
EXERCISE BASICS
You can do four things to help your body; condition it with aerobics, tone it with exercise, sculpt it with free weights and keep it flexible with stretches.
(1) CONDITION: Aerobics: For stamina, endurance and quick recovery.
Conditioning primarily affects your heart, lungs and blood flow. Every day your heart has to beat 100,000 times to pump 1,600 gallons of blood through 60 miles of blood vessels. Aerobic exercise expands the air and blood vessel surface areas. It lowers the work your heart and lungs have to do. A CONDITIONED heart beats at a rest rate of around 60 beats a minute. If you are out of shape it will be closer to 80, and if you don't exercise at all, over 80. A healthy heart cruises at 190 beats a minute without strain but badly conditioned one may kick as dangerously high as 220 a minute. If you cut your heart rate down from 80 beats a minute to 60 by aerobics, you save your heart 30,000 beats a day and eleven million beats a year! The more efficiently your body delivers oxygen to your muscles, the longer you can work or play and the less time you need to recover. Aerobics builds your health.
Build LIFE-LONG EXERCISE HABITS. Learn to keep moving during the day, even when you have to sit for long stretches. Swim. Walk or bike when you can. Climb stairs instead of using an elevator. Any exercise is better than no exercise, even if it is only a walk of ten steps. Get that blood moving, and air surging through your system.
Your body is like a car. It is hard to start if stalled, but once moving, it tends to keep on going. If your goal is to lose weight, you lose little just walking, running, swimming, dancing or climbing alone. But get your body warm and moving and it tends to go on in this mode. Food you eat then converts to energy instead of being stored as fat. Three to five times a week of thirty to forty-five minutes a day sustained air/blood moving exercise will help give you more energy and endurance than anything else you can physically do.
Anyone who has cardiovascular fitness feels better, happier, more confident and sleeps better. Your goal is longer distances and slower repetitions for longer times. Warm up first by jogging in place two minutes, and cool down afterwards slowly for the same time.
(2) TONE: Anaerobic exercise enhances speed, strength, agility and self-esteem. The chief benefit of this form of work is to build muscle and strength, and condition your body for less recovery time and less injury under stress. Building lean muscle is one of the best ways to lose fat. Each pound of muscle uses 40 calories a day, so a gain of five pounds of muscle translates to an extra 200 calories a day burned. Speed sprints in running, cycling, swimming do increase your competitive speed but create oxygen debts that force you stop and recover. You don't need them just to stay fit.
You need more aerobic energy training if you get tired easily, hurt yourself over and over again when you exercise, or have problems losing or using fat properly. Your cells get too much food and not enough oxygen. People with bad circulation, low blood sugar, hormonal imbalance, depression and anxiety also need a good aerobic training program. What happens if you do? Your lungs, heart, blood vessels all enlarge. Although it may take a time of some 2-8 months to develop a good aerobic base, your body will actually change and climb to a whole new level of ability. You'll get a better red blood supply, and healthier, oxygen-rich cells. You eat, digest and eliminate better. You sleep and feel better both physically, mentally and emotionally.
Weight-training for strength (heavier weights, fewer repetitions) and endurance (lighter weights, more repetitions) does build muscle, but if you want to build up a specific muscle group you must be careful. Do it wrong and results will be limited or even hurtful. You might use free weights that are too light to help a set of muscles to respond and build. Or you may use something too heavy, or in the wrong way so it strains or damages them. You may even use (without knowing it) muscles for that exercise you did not plan on working.
For FREE WEIGHTS, first find the maximum weight you can lift once in a particular exercise. 60% of that will be your starting weight for your program. If your limit was 25 lb., start with 15 lb. Increase your weights from there in the smallest increments available. Only train muscle sets alternate days, so they can rest & re-form.
Remember if your body isn't inherently designed for big muscles, all the work in the world won't change it. You are better off using weights to get the most out of what you have, sculpting and defining.
For instance to develop biceps, after you do a regular biceps/triceps workout with free weights, pick up a lightweight barbell and pyramid. Stand holding it with both hands and curl it up to the chest. Lower it, wait for a count of five, then curl the barbell twice. Wait another five count. Continue adding another curl until you reach ten repetitions. Then starting at ten, work your way back down. This principle of slowly increasing tension, or adaptive stress is just one example of a significant secret we will look at later. There are many weight programs in clubs, charts, books or computers that will help you develop the particular training that is best for you. We give you an excellent one in the appendices.
(3) BALANCE: Calisthenics: These tighten, tone and balance your body by using its own resistance. Sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, jumping jacks and trunk twists help train and equalize your muscle sets, but don't build muscles as effectively as anaerobic exercise nor increase your heart rate as well as aerobic. You build and strengthen stomach muscles by sit-ups, not flatten them. Extension movements like leg-lifts, thrusts and scissors are better if you want to lose weight in this area. See the appendix for some good calisthenics exercises.
FLEX: Stretches: A longer muscle is a stronger muscle. Stretches are suitable for all body types and are the only universal exercise. They are vital to warm up the body before any other kind of training. Stretches reduce soreness and the risk of injury, especially muscle tears or rips during hard exercise. Watch a cat. STRETCH SLOWLY. Never bounce in a stretch; hold each one for a full 25-30 seconds before you gently release it (less than that and the muscle doesn't properly lengthen) Warm up slowly a minimum of 12-15 minutes. Cool down the same way afterwards.. The most important stretches in athletics are for the low back and hips, Achilles tendons and calves, hamstrings, quads, groin and shoulders.
Covert Baily says fitness is LOST if you exercise two days or less a week; KEPT if you exercise four days a week; and IMPROVED if you exercise six days a week.
What else do you need to keep your body fit and in the best health you can be? You need fresh air, plenty of clean water, the right food and sunshine. Lets take a look:
AIR
"The wind blows where it pleases; you hear its sound but can't tell from where it comes or where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit. " (John 3:8)
The work of the life-giving Spirit in Scripture is compared many times to wind. (Gen. 8:1 Ex. 10:13; 14:21; Num. 11:31; Ezek. 37:9) Wind is air in motion, but in strong motion; the power of the Holy Spirits' presence shown more like a blast than a breeze! On the day of Pentecost, God signaled His coming by a sound like a "rushing, mighty wind". That God's life of the Spirit is like a strong, deep draught is also true in your physical being. The greatest primary need of your body is air. You cannot live for more than a few minutes without it. If you don't get enough, you die.
Cell energy comes from ATP, a wonderful substance you use each time you move a muscle, think a thought, or get a cell healed. You make and use up about the same amount of ATP each day as your entire body weight! Where does it come from? OXYGEN is its vital ingredient. What happens if you don't get enough? You get tired, sick, upset and start looking and feeling old too soon. All 75 trillion cells of your body need lots of air every single day.
According to Sheldon Hendler, when we breath shallowly (only from the upper chest) we neglect the primary muscle to bring air to the body - the diaphragm. When we don't get enough air, our breath is rapid, shallow and we will sigh and yawn a lot. What counts is not how much you breathe, but how you breathe. If you don't breathe deeply enough each day, you gradually hurt your whole body.
Your lymph immune system has no pump like the heart, yet you have four times more lymph fluid in your body than blood. A lymph system kicks on oxygen. Get in enough deep breaths and you boost its power 10-15 times! Cells die when they don't get enough oxygen. Overload of toxins into the blood pushes up the pressure in your veins. This pushes cells away from capillaries that need to feed them oxygen. Cells not getting enough air start to die. Brain cells without oxygen begin to die within five minutes. When you don't get enough air, your cells start to die.
Signs of oxygen starvation can be a stiff neck, shortness of breath, sneezing and sniffling, tiredness, depression and a poor immune system. Bad breathing habits can give you heart, lungs and stomach pain, headaches, anxiety, dizziness, seizures, increased susceptibility to infection, sleep disturbances and even hallucinations. Futile breathing can seriously disturb blood chemistry; it alters its akaline/acid balance. At least three times a day you need to stop and take at ten deep breaths. INHALE counting how long it takes you to fill your lungs, hold your breath for four times as long and EXHALE SLOWLY taking twice as long as it took you to inahle. Also make sure your room gets enough fresh air. Open the windows daily and let the breeze blow through. Air out your whole room, especially if you are recovering from an illness.
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