Questions: Describe the aspect of your goal(s) you were most successful in achieving and the benefits experienced throughout the program. Describe the aspect of your goal(s) you were least successful in achieving and why you felt you were not successful. Did your diet change during the course of your program? Why and how? What was the most important thing you learned about yourself?

I feel that all of my goals were accomplished to a certain degree this semester. I figured out that the kind of exercises that suit my lifestyle and my schedule at the moment would be any sort of individual sport. I found that one of the sports I would be interested in continuing doing would be badminton. My close friend participates in the sport on a weekly basis so I feel that it would be easy for me to join the group with her. The goal that I found I was least successful in accomplishing this semester was making the types of workout videos wider in variety and I struggled with increasing the intensity of my workouts as the semester progressed. I feel that the research I did throughout the semester while answering the weekly questions definitely made me consider my lifestyle choices with my diet, so I felt that it helped me eat a more balanced diet throughout the program. The most important thing that I learned about myself through the progression of the program this semester was that I should always make time for myself to stay physically active and that there are a large variety of exercises and sports you can partake in to maintain an active lifestyle.

Questions: What will motivate you to continue to be active in the future? How do you see yourself living an active lifestyle? What are three benefits of a healthy active lifestyle? What are three possible consequences of a sedentary lifestyle? Give two examples of healthy fats.

What motivates me to continue being active in the future is that I will be able to live a longer and healthy life. Working out and eating healthy have so many health benefits and I feel that that is what’s going to keep me exercising in the future. I see myself living an active lifestyle in the future by running, swimming and maybe joining a city team sport like soccer. Three benefits of a healthy active lifestyle are that it improves your muscle and bone density, which prevents diseases such as osteoporosis, it can improve your sleep and can control some of the risk factors for heart disease like hypertension. Three possible consequences of a sedentary lifestyle are that it can increase the risk of certain types of cancer, it can contribute to anxiety and depression and it can cause a decrease in skeletal muscle mass. Two examples of healthy fats are avocados and chia seeds.

Questions: What’s the point of doing a warm up? What constitutes a successful warm up? What’s the point of doing a cool down? When is the best time to stretch and why? Why is stretching important? How much sleep should you be getting every night? Are you getting that much? If not, what could you do to ensure that you do get enough sleep? What are there serious health effects related to insufficient sleep? Give two examples of healthy snacks that you can munch on while studying.

Doing a warm-up is essential in fitness in order to gradually prepare your cardiovascular system to perform a workout by raising the temperature of the body. It also reduces muscle soreness and increases the blood flow towards your muscles. A successful warm up constitutes of 5-10 minutes, doing an exercise/activity similar to the one you’re about to be doing, and involving all the possible muscles in your whole body. Cooling down after a workout allows you to recover from your increased heart rate and blood pressure from the workout. Stretching is important to do while cooling down because the limbs, muscles and joints temperatures are still very warm. It can help prevent muscular stiffness. You should be getting between 7-9 hours of sleep a night. I try my best to get that amount of sleep every night but I find it challenging to get that with my workload at school and work. Not sleeping enough can cause you to feel increasingly drowsy during the day and affect an individual’s performance in their daily lives at school and/or work. Two examples of healthy snacks you can munch on while studying can be either mixed nuts or any type of fruit.

Week 7 Questions: Do you need to revise your original goal(s)? Are/is your goal(s) still realistic? Why or why not? State your new goals if they’ve changed. What is working in your program? What do you need to change?

After revising my goals for the semester, I feel that I have accomplished what I said I would do for the semester (run twice a week for 30 minutes). I found that my fitness goals have been realistic, but I would like to add more variety into my workout sessions because I’m finding that I’m repeating the same workout videos week after week. I think that I will film a different sort of workout video the following week to change up the pattern.

How many servings of vegetables should you eat each day? Are you getting enough? If not, how could you ensure that you do? What are your three favorite vegetables?

You should eat at least 3 servings of vegetables each day. I feel that I eat enough vegetables per day, as I am a very health savvy individual. My three favorite vegetables are broccoli, carrots, and tomatoes.

Questions:

How does your exercise program fit into your weekly schedule? Comment on how easy or hard it is to find the time to exercise. What are your stress levels before and after exercise?

I’m a relatively busy person so I usually am either at school from Monday to Friday or at work all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Finding a workout time has been a little challenging for me, but I’m still finding the time to exercise. I usually exercise on weeknights, except for Wednesday evenings in which I’m working. My stress levels are usually pretty balanced but I am finding that my levels of stress seem to decrease at the end of my workouts.

VIDEO LINK

Week #4 Questions:

What are the ACSM guidelines for effective cardiovascular training (cardio)?

The American College of Sports Medicine’s guidelines for effective cardiovascular training are that adults should get 150 minutes or more of moderate-intensity exercise on a weekly basis. They also state that the exercise recommendations can be met through 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five days a week or 20-60 minutes of high-intensity exercise three days per week. Furthermore, they suggest that one continuous session or multiple shorter sessions of at least 10 minutes are both acceptable to accumulate a desired amount of daily exercise. They also recommend a gradual progression of exercise time, frequency and intensity is recommended for best adherence and least injury risk and that people unable to meet these minimums can still benefit from some activity.

How long and how intense should a session be for health benefits?

Exercise recommendations can be met through 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (five days per week) or 20-60 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise (three days per week).

Give an example of something that counts as cardio and something that doesn’t (but some people might think it does)?

Something that counts as cardio would be running (long-distance). Something that doesn’t count as cardio but could be mistaken for it would be running within a short distance (sprint).

How many glasses of water should you drink each day?

You should drink eight to ten 8oz glasses of water per day.

What is progressive overload and how does it work?

The progressive overload principle states that in order for a muscle to grow the human body must be forced to adapt to a force that is above and beyond what it has previously experienced. If you are doing an exercise that increases the demands that your body needs to meet, then your body will implement the principle.

On Sunday, February 17th, I went to iSaute in Kirkland with one of my friends. The cost for an hour of trampolining is 16$ at the park and 10$ extra for each added hour. We decided to participate in one hour of trampolining. The schedule for Open Jump Time at the iSaute we went to is the following:

Before the workout, I felt pretty exhausted from my day because I had just finished teaching music from 9:30-4:30PM. However, I was looking forward to going to the trampoline park. When we were working out, I felt quite energized and since my endurance is pretty strong, I was able to jump for the whole hour without feeling too tired. When the workout ended, my friend and I were both pretty tired from this activity. My friend seemed like didn’t really expect that he’d be that exhausted by the end of the workout. This experience challenged me to step out of my comfort zone, in the sense where I tried out several activities I hadn’t performed before (rock climbing wall, obstacle course, etc). I had a great experience at the park and I would definitely recommend it to a friend.

https://isaute.ca/en/kirkland/

Week #3 Questions:

I like performing endurance and cardiovascular workouts, such as running and swimming when I work out. I usually work out at home in my spare time. For the remaining weeks of the semester, I think that running 2x a week for thirty minutes will be a popular workout of mine. I will also probably do yoga and swimming. Some exercises I see myself doing for the rest of my life would be either swimming, skating or running.

This week, I visited the Dorval Aquatics and Sports Complex with one of my close friends to take a badminton class. My friend has been taking badminton classes at the complex for several years now, and I was extremely interested in trying it out. I went to the fitness class on Thursday, February 7th at 8PM. The schedule of the sports complex can be found online at https://www.ville.dorval.qc.ca/en/leisure-and-culture/page/gymnasium-activities. This sports complex offers badminton classes three times a given week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 8:00-9:50PM, as well as Tuesdays at 6:00-7:50PM and on Saturdays from 4:30-5:50PM for families with children under fifteen years old.

Before my friend and I began our workout, we both felt exhausted from our days at school, as our classes had ended at around 6PM. However, once we started working out, our adrenaline was pumping and our exhaustion faded completely into an energized state. I had never attended a fitness class where they offer to play a single sport for a large amount of time so I found the experience quite exhilarating. It was fulfilling learning how to play the sport and I feel as if this was a great start to my fitness journey!

I would definitely like to go back to the complex in the near future to participate in this sport again and I would recommend this activity to anyone looking to increase their level of fitness.

Week #2 Questions:

Personally, I feel that my fitness program will help me figure out what kind of exercises I would be interested in being a part of in the near future. I would like to find a sport where I am able to socialize with new people and have fun playing. I would be motivated to participate in and stick to a regular exercise routine if I were to be registered in a weekly fitness class, where I can exercise with a group of people that are positive to be around, that I enjoy being a part of and that I feel that I am maintaining a level of fitness that is highly satisfactory to me. Three specific barriers that would prevent me from sticking to a regular fitness routine would be my stress level about school projects and work, not managing my work out schedule properly and not keeping up to date with my fitness level evaluation.

On January 31, I had the opportunity to try out Econofitness, a public gym in the West Island for free. The gym offers free trials every last Thursday of the month, so I thought it would be great to try out a public gym that is in my area and is highly accessible to me. I found out about the gym through one of my guy friends who already holds a membership to Econofitness and he recommended it to me. Before the workout, I’d just finished a full day at school at 3:00PM and had gotten a large workload of material to study for my classes so I felt quite stressed. However, when I met up with my friends at the gym, my stress level diminished quite a bit and I was excited to try it out. It was my first time visiting a public gym chain, I usually work out at my home so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it.

I started my workout with some cardio. I ran on the treadmill for 30 minutes and ended up reaching 2.5km. After this, I used several of the machines targetting the leg muscles, such as the seated leg curl machine (3 sets of 20 reps at 65lbs), the leg press machine (3 sets of 15 reps at 80 lbs), and the leg extension machine (3 sets of 20 reps at 45lbs). I finished my workout by stretching. I was glad that I went to the gym because I felt quite energized after I completed the workout and going there is making me consider getting the membership there in the near future. I like that the location of the gym is close to my area so I’d be able to go anytime I’d like and I like the amenities the gym provides, such as their 30min quick workout circuit. I would definitely recommend Econofitness to anyone looking to join a public gym at a reasonable price.

Econofitness offers four separate membership options. These include the weekend option, the Econo option, the Platinum option, and the extra option. You can find the amenities of the specific options below.

The gym’s schedule is the following:

You can find Econofitness’ webpage at https://econofitness.ca/en/gym/montreal/950-chemin-herron