Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Dr. Andy Galpin

When it comes to exercise, people generally have two major goals in mind.

Goal number one is achieving some sort of appearance, right? This is, uh, I wanna be big or I wanna not be too big, or I wanna be lean.

There is an aesthetic component to almost everybody.

They wanna look a certain way or not look a certain way.

The other one is functionality, so I wanna be able to perform a certain way.

Now, again, that definition differs per person, so I wanna be better at strength, I wanna be better at mobility, I wanna be able to have energy throughout the day, whatever it is.

So there's some sort of appeal to aesthetic, and there's some sort of appeal to functionality.

So within both of those categories, we want to be in a position where we can understand, where do I need to go with my exercise training so that I can be as fit and as healthy and a-achieve these goals that I want now, as well as be in a position where I can maintain them for a long period of time? So this blends both immediate goals, so say you're just interested in squatting a lot of weight, say you're interested in running a 5K time, the best you want, it doesn't matter.

It blends that with the abili- the, the desire to have a long wellness span, to be fit throughout life, to achieve all those things for as long as possible.

So then, then the question kind of comes back to saying, "Well, how do I know which area I need to focus on the most, and why am I not achieving these goals, or how can I get there more effectively?" And if we look at the big picture, we have to understand that there are several major components to physical fitness that are going to be required in all of these categories.

And to achieve that, there are a handful of components that have to happen.

So what I'd love to do today is, over the course of our discussion, is hit exactly what those concepts are and then cover a whole bunch of different methods, and we could do that for hours, but we'll cover a number of them for various goals.

What are the major adaptations that one can create in their body using exercise?

The physiological adaptations can be bucketed really into nine areas.

So the very first one is what I call skill or technique.

This could be running more effectively.

This could be practicing a skill, like shooting a, a ball or an implement, swinging a golf club, anything like that.

I call that skill development.

The second one is speed.

This is simply moving at a higher velocity or with a better rate of acceleration.

That's very similar to the next one, which is power, and power is speed multiplied by force.

The next one then, of course, on top of that, is force or strength.

So those are really synonymous terms, right? Uh, how effectively can you move something? Now, this is often confused, strength rather, uh, as muscular endurance.

So what I mean by that is strength truly is a marker of what's the maximum thing you can move, or what's the maximum amount of force you can produce one time.

Number five is muscle hypertrophy, and this is the first time now we're talking about an appearance rather than a functional outcome.