Principles for Exercise and Training

Physical fitness and exercise have become, as previously discussed, an increasing concern at nearly all levels of American society. The goal of attaining peak fitness has existed for centuries yet two problems continue to obfuscate understanding. The ability to assess strength and/or to exercise has occupied centuries of thought and effort. For instance, Milo the Greek lifted a calf each day until the baby grew into a bull. Since this particular procedure is not commonly available, humans have attempted to provide more suitable means to determine strength levels and ways to develop and maintain conditioning. Technology for assessing human performance in exercise and fitness evaluations, in both theory and practice, exhibits two problems. First, a lack of clearly defined and commonly accepted standards which results in conflicting claims and approaches to both attaining and maintaining fitness. Second, a lack of accurate tools and techniques for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of a given device touted to diagnose present capabilities for exercising or even to determine which exercises are appropriate to provide "fitness" regardless of age or gender. Vendors and consumers of fitness technology have lacked sound scientific answers to simple questions regarding the appropriateness of exercise protocols.