It is no secret, exercise is a topic that is often stressed about in correlation with one’s health. Ever since I can remember I have always taken an active interest in exercise. While I’ve been easily sidetracked in the past, I try to maintain a schedule and workout as frequently as possible. So with this project I anticipating an easy A while gaining very little in knowledge. Surprising I learned a large amount. From how I work best and where my weaker muscles lye, to learning about levers, contractions, and isolations that take place with each exercise. I worked out often before enrolling back into school. Soon after classes began I found myself getting out of my traditional routine of workouts. So when this project was presented to us in the beginning of the semester it was a nightmare trying to find time to fit it into my schedule. Quickly I learned I was not motivated in the morning before classes and mentally exhausted after. I learned that what worked best for me was to workout as soon as I got off of work, while my body was still in “GO” mode and before my body had time to relax. My energy level was highest this time of day and found it easier to focus on the task at hand. Also, designating an area helped a lot since most of my workouts previously took place out side my home. This provided privacy and a place to concentrate on the task at hand. Hind sight, I realize i have been cheating myself. Workouts in the past were based around the muscles I used most or exercises that came easy to me. This project gave me a new range of motions and muscles to use. Easy to say, I found some exercises to be less strenuous than others. This project forced me to pay great attention to all areas of my body. I found that my arms to be the least useful. Any task that relied on my forearms or triceps proved to be difficult to say the least. Even the easier tasks like a Modified (aka girlie) Push-up came to be difficult at the end of the rep. I noticed that the lifting component to the exercise was more difficult than lowering in the beginning. Although, that quickly changed when I applied what I had learned about about eccentric and isokinetic contractions. Which leads into my next topic, levers. Before this class or this exercise project I had never taken into account what made an exercise easy or difficult. In fact, I never truly took the time before to assess my exercises in general. Not to say that I felt they were all equally difficult or easy. Rather I attributed it to my “frail” muscles that made a exercise more difficult. Now I know it’s both! This project help me critically think about how levers alter an exercise. How someone can progress their workout over time by adding in longer levers. A great example I used earlier of the Modified Push-up applies here, as well. While I was familiar with the term “girly” push-up and aware that I could not preform a traditional push-up, I had never questioned the reasoning behind it. The knowledge of levers may be the most useful information I gained during this project. While types of contractions may or may not have been a criteria of the exercise project, I felt it to be a relevant part to
