What everyone must know about exercise

I'm answering all of YOUR questions about exercise and health in general.

• "I do have a weight loss goal-I've always heard cardio is what I should focus on to accomplish this. What type of cardio and how often should I be doing it to lose weight?"

I would argue cardio shouldn't be your primary focus. I can't say specifically what type and frequency you should be shooting for because I would need more information about you individually such as:

-has exercise already been a part of your life? If it hasn't-jumping into large amounts of cardio will increase the stress to your body significantly and slow down your progress towards your goal.

-do you have any other health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety, etc? These should be considered when planning your exercise routine. ESPECIALLY if you're starting large amounts of cardio because certain conditions can have major interactions with one another that we need to be mindful of. This isn't to say you shouldn't participate at all if you have certain health conditions-we just need to be strategic in how exercise is implemented in your life.

Cardio based exercise can be very demanding and stressful to the body. This can be totally counterintuitive to weight loss and slow your progress down. It can also be damaging to certain body structures like ligaments and tendons if you're not strengthening to support the impact of your cardio.

Healthy and balanced weight loss requires:

-strength training and an increase in muscle mass (this boosts your metabolism among many other things)

-a balanced diet and adequate hydration

-restful sleep

-managed stress

• "What is best practice for resuming exercise after illness?"

Illnesses can have varying severity of effects on the body. The key to avoiding injury, further exhaustion, burnout, and even impairing your healing process is to lean in to the way you're feeling.

Avoid shortness of breath especially post respiratory illness.

Avoid fatigue-in normal circumstances pushing towards fatigue or muscle tiredness with repetitions can improve your endurance but post-sickness can put further stress on your body's systems and slow down your healing process.

Overall-really listen to your body's signals that you're experiencing too much physical stress. Even better just make sure you're feeling good and having fun and you're in the clear!

• "Sometimes I'm really sore after exercising-other times I'm not at all. When I'm not sore does that mean I didn't accomplish anything?"

NOPE! There is new research out-that suggests muscle soreness does not correlate to an increase in muscle strength or muscle growth. To be honest-there's not a lot we know about muscle soreness. Scientists are unsure exactly what causes it. There are theories out there of why but nothing confirmed. If you're wanting something to quantify progress in a workout or class the best way is to monitor endurance (how long you can do something) and strength (how much resistance you can tolerate).