charlesatlas.com

Every day would not make any sense if you did it by the modern maxim: No Pain, No Gain. But, the Atlas mantra is: Don't strain, just train. Therefore, exercise every day makes good sense.

Atlas also advises exercising the whole body, every day. There is good reason for this. It burns lots of calories without injury. This is vital to the success of any program.

Sadly, the approach most taught today appeals to people's desire for instant gratification. As a result, they make resolutions to hurriedly get into shape by spring, etc.. The result is always the same: They get exhausted or injured and stop exercising. They fail to achieve their goals because they have sabotaged their program by an unrealistic plan.

Many fitness schemes demand the use of only one set of muscles. Its a rubber band gizmo, or an ab roller, or a simulated skier, or treadmill, or running, or tennis, or bicycling. All of these are wonderful additions to a fitness regimine, but are guaranteed recipes for failure if they are the sole means to achieving total fitness.

If you try to use one group of muscles to burn up literally hundreds of thousands of calories (I think there are about 2500 calories in a pound of fat) --only by the use of knees, abs, feet, etc. -- you are certain to become sore or injured, and you will have to quit before you accomplish your goal. No one bodypart is able to burn up that amount of calories. Other plans might emphasize the whole body (i.e. weightlifting) but they are based on destroying it so that it can rebuild. Weightlifting requires a rest day between body parts and it does make muscles grow, but at the cost of injury so serious that they usually stops you from exercising sooner or later.

Gentle exercise that uses the whole body, practiced morning and night, with an afternoorn walk emphasize using the whole body -- gently. You cannot injure yourself with DT because you are using the body's own strength limits. Joints are nourished, not punished.

As a result you can keep with this plan daily for the rest of your life, become strong at a reasonable pace, without injury, and successfully.

It only takes one back injury, pulled hamstring, or case of tennis elbow to sideline most fitness plans -- sometimes forever. You will never have any of these things on the Atlas program even if you do it every day, but I personally rest on Sundays.

It's the greatest mantra in fitness, and makes the most sense, "train don't strain." It is really hard for many people to adhere to this mantra, being bombarded over the years with the "no pain, no gain" mantra, and constant pressure from "trainers" and so-called jocks to always do more and more, just one more rep, just one more set, until as Curdog points out, one becomes burned out, or worse yet injured. I'll try to give you an example that expresses very simply the difference between the two concepts. If you want to get a good suntan do you spend hours in the sun from day one of a hot summer, or do you spend ten minutes or so the first day, and gradually add more time, of course wearing proper sunscreen protection. Doing a little exercise every day is better than a lot of exercise a few times a week, especially if you really push yourself hard on those days. Eventually your body, especially your central nervous system gets strained to the point that you are at least excessively sore, require days to recover, or you risk injury. Morning and night exercise is hard for me, but I exercise either every morning or in the evening, and like Curdog take off on Sunday and just generally relax and unwind. I wish to extend to everyone a Happy And Healthy New Year.