A lot of people are of the mindset that just going for a half hour walk in the evening is enough. Or doing their age in sit-ups every morning, or (insert minimal and ever the same effort here).

Granted, for most sedentary people, getting off the couch for a half hour walk will elicit favourable adaptation. They will see increased energy and some weight loss. So they make sure they are diligent in getting their half hour walk in every night. This is not a bad thing by any means, but it is not enough. At least it won’t be enough very soon. They will plateau.

“But why?” they ask. “I lost 10 pounds in 1 month by walking a half hour a day…” True, you did lose some weight by doing this, but then your body adapted to the stress put upon it and that is all. It shed 10 pounds of useless baggage to make walking for a half hour less stressful on the body. It did not need to lose any more then that. You need to continue to increase the stress on the body to elicit a change.

Take sun tanning for example. You decide you want to get a tan, so on your lunch break you go outside and spend 15 minutes sunning your front, flip over and do the back for another 15. The next day you’re a little pink so you take that day off, the following day you’re back out in the sun for your half hour. By the end of the week you are getting slightly browned. You’re excited by the results and you decide to continue with your program of spending a half hour at lunch in the sun. What colour do you think you are by the end of your second week? How about your third and fourth weeks? Exactly the same shade as you were at the end of your first week. Why? Because your body adapted to the stress of a half hour in the run by getting a little darker. That is all. It doesn’t know that you want it to get darker and darker, all it knows is what the sun told it, and it only has a half hour conversation. You want to get darker it needs more time talking to the sun.

The same goes for exercise. Think of your half hour walk like a half hour session tanning in the back yard. It will get you started but it will stop working very soon and you will need to put more stress on the body to elicit a response.

Those of you who are sedentary will need to start out slow by going for a half hour walk, but that will need to grow into jogging, then running, then sprinting, running hills, dragging sleds, lifting weights, and on and on and on. That is if you want to continue to make changes to your body. If you’re happy with a little weight loss and not breaking a sweat that’s your prerogative. For the rest of you, your body needs more time talking to the stress of rigorous exercise to find out you want it to change. That means sweat, blood, tears and pain.

Today’s workout I will leave you with is simple… Whatever it is you do for your normal workout, I want you to do it harder and faster then you did last time. And the next time you do it? That’s right, do it harder and faster then THIS time… If you aren’t hurting, sweating and sucking wind you aren’t making progress. (metabolically speaking that is…) Always push it harder and faster then the last time. How can you improve if you always stop short of your limit… that limit isn’t exactly going to get bigger is it?

Chris Walls is a Personal Trainer at the Crossfit Kelowna training centre. For more information on Crossfit, please visit http://www.crossfitkelowna.com