Exercise vs Training: What's the Difference?
With the beginning of a new calendar year, this is when resolutions are made. And many in the health and fitness industry will try and sell their product or service, taking advantage of your vulnerability. What I would like to offer is a conversation around the difference between exercise and training. This has become a popular topic over the last few years. Language matters and it is important to know there is a difference between the two. Please understand that I am not here to say one is better than the other. In fact, there are moments when I exercise and there are moments when I train. Much of the difference has to do with intention.
Exercise: activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness. The fundamental goal of exercise is to keep you healthy. The CDC recommends 150 minutes a week of exercise. This can be broken into 10, 20, 30+ minute sessions throughout the week. I recommend 30 minute sessions most days of the week. And I understand it may not be feasible for a handful of reasons, so that’s why breaking it down into smaller chunks might be more accessible to some people.
An image from the CDC website for benefits to exercise:
Many activities help to improve your cardiovascular health, bone and muscle strength, better balance and increased flexibility. Some of my favorites are: hiking, swimming, biking, lifting weights, practicing yoga, and going for a walk around the city. I found many of these activities to be extremely helpful to me in the early weeks and months of COVID. They got me out of the house (in a safe way), when it felt like a sedentary lifestyle was setting in. This exercise kept my body and mind in check.
Training: physical activity done in a systematic way with a long-term goal in mind. “Long term progress comes from chaining up hundreds and thousands of days of incremental improvements.” This quote is from Scott Hanson of Resilient Strength and Conditioning. Having a specific goal in mind is needed before training can truly happen. This might be losing 15 pounds, add 10 pounds of muscle mass, completing a marathon in less than four hours, solving a complex problem at the rock-gym, or lowering your golf handicap by two points. In order to accomplish these goals, the body needs to be put under stress along with proper recovery. Finding the balance of how little can you do in order to move the needle toward your goal is key. This will prevent burnout, both physically and mentally.
So, should we all be training? The answer is no. It all comes back to intention. If your intention is to just stay healthy, keep on doing what you’re doing with exercise. Go for that hike or run. Attend your favorite yoga class or bootcamp. However, if your intention is set to a specific goal of building muscle mass, hitting longer drives or losing weight, training will help you reach your goals faster.
If you would like to continue the conversation, please reach out:
