Exercise is deliberate movement that improves your health.
Training is exercise directed towards a goal.

Exercise if you are sedentary or need accommodation. Train
for a better future if you are able.

## Fundamentals

There are no shortcuts.

Anyone who claims to have a perfect plan, a
one-size-fits-all solution, or a quick fix for body
composition and/or athletic performance is trying to sell
you something. The best thing you can do is arm yourself
with knowledge. Here are the basics:

- Training pushes your body. In response, your physiology adapts.
  - Training stimulus is the stress you put on your body during exercise.
	  - You must increase the amount of training stress over time to continue improving.
	  - Ratcheting up difficulty in training is called Progressive Overload.
  - Adaptations are the changes in your body that result from applying training stimuli over time.
  - Training adaptations showcase the wonders of the human body. Understanding specific training adaptations requires familiarity with kinesiology, cell biology, epigenetics, and biochemistry.
- Training outcomes are strength, endurance, stability, and speed. Good training outcomes improve your quality of life, lifespan, and health span. You can think of training outcomes as overarching goals.
- Training status is a qualitative assessment of your experience. You can be a beginner, intermediate, advanced, or elite.
	- Training status independently varies by training outcome. Being able to run a marathon has no bearing on your deadlift. 
  - You don't need to be of advanced or elite training status for good health outcomes.
  - Progressing beyond intermediate training status requires the discipline and commitment of an athlete. It isn't for everyone.
- All training follows a plan or a program. The act of creating a training plan is called programming.
  - Programming balances enough training stimulus to drive adaptations and enough [recovery time][1] to avoid injury.
  - Volume is the amount of training stimulus in a program or a specific exercise.
  - Consistency—as judged by your adherence to your program—is critical for long-term success. A training plan must be easy for you to adhere to be successful.
    - It must be interesting enough to keep you engaged.
    - It must be effective enough to let you see results.
    - It must modulate training stimulus enough for you to avoid injury.
  - Getting your programming "dialed in" is increasingly difficult as your training status improves. You may plateau without expert help.

## Set Achievable Goals

The amount of time and attention you commit to training will
limit your performance more than any other factor. Improving
your training status in each outcome requires a logarithmic
amount of effort. You must decide how much time you can
devote to training and invest it strategically.

As a beginner, you won't know what is realistic to achieve
in a given period of time. Don't worry about this. Your
primary goals should be:

- Staying consistent (stop making motivation a factor)
- Avoiding injury (listen to your body, rest and recover instead of pushing through fatigue)

## Personalize Your Training

Human physiology is complicated and varies widely from
person to person. What works well _for you_ may not be what
works well for:

- The average of the subjects in a scientific study
- Your friend who slams mass gainer shakes all the time
- Any given fitness influencer
- The biggest person at the gym
- Anyone anywhere saying something in a comments section

_You_ are responsible for figuring out what works for _you_.
A simple template is:

1. Follow a training program for long enough to see results, 8–12 weeks should be enough
2. Track your progress and how you're feeling
3. Make adjustments based on educated guesses
4. Repeat

## Training by Outcome

Each dimension of fitness has different training modalities.

- [Strength][2]
- [Endurance][3]

[1]: /health/recovery/
[2]: /health/strength-training/
[3]: /health/endurance-training/