Surpassing limits and why it's important to push yourself.

 Scientific evidence of physiological changes due to sports and athletic training

Here is an article that outlines all the positive things that can happen when you are doing regular exercise and when you are training for endurance sports.  

Here's what the US government has found from scientific evidence of how much exercise is required: 

Adults should do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) to 300 minutes (5 hours) a week of moderate intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) to 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity.

Combining vigorous and moderate-intensity workouts means your body is induced to make adjustments and become stronger, more flexible or faster, depending on the exercises you are doing.  Using muscle confusion is one way to encourage the body to adapt, which means changing up workout routines often.  (See an earlier blog about muscle confusion.) 

How do we know how much exertion?  

Heart Rate is one measure that is a lagging indicator of your effort.  The HR measurement can take a few seconds to read the actual heart rate, and the heart can take a few seconds to respond to demands for oxygen so this indicator may show that your HR is rising even after you have stopped sprinting for example.  However, it is a great measure to use for racing and for knowing your upper limit by using the Maximum Heart Rate.  If you don't know your Max HR, you can calculate it for an estimate or check your HR after and all out effort.  Many athletes have Max HRs well above the predicted age based formulas.  

For example, I'm 66 this year.  My Tanaka calculated Max HR would be 208 - .75 X AGE or for me would be 208-.75X66 = 158.5.  Another calculated Fox Max HR formula is 220 - age or 220-66 = 154.  

So a range of Mx HR for me would be between 154-159.  My actual Max HR is 188.  Even after cancer and everything that I endured last year, my max HR is very high for my age.  

If I just exercised using the calculated Max HR, my zones would be too low, and I'd never improve my conditioning.  

Another way to check exertion levels if you don't have a HR monitor is Perceived Exertion.  

You can check your perceived exertion in real-time and know if you are achieving your maximum limits.  

As you might guess, there are several ways to measure this, and this article shows you the variety of scales that are in use.  

Conclusion

Pushing past your limits must be planned and done regularly with periods of rest and recovery.  Activities like FTP testing, racing, and sprints are ways to help you achieve your goals to improve your athleticism and push your limitations further out.  These activities often result in small improvements that add up over time, so patient and perseverance is necessary.  Skipping one workout in a week isn't harmful to achieving your goals, but skipping weeks or many days can stall your progress and actually begin to decay.  Three days of inactivity and your body starts to lose muscle tone.