SAS Urban Survival Handbook (73 page)

Don’t drop drink cans, ice cream cartons or chocolate boxes on the floor. If smoking is permitted, be VERY careful to stub out cigarettes properly – in an ashtray, NOT on the floor.

SPORT

Awareness of the benefits of fitness has risen greatly over the past couple of decades and increasing numbers of us regularly play some form of sport.

A fit body can be your most valuable urban survival
equipment. On the other hand, participating in sport with inadequate discipline or training can easily lead to injury. A basic understanding of how your body works, together with an awareness of your limitations and a thorough knowledge of your sport, will enable you to avoid all injuries but the purely accidental.

Why be fit?

A fit body feels good and lasts longer! Regular exercise increases suppleness, strength and stamina and keeps weight down. It helps control hypertension (high blood pressure) and diminishes the risk of heart attacks, diabetes and strokes. When you’re fit, you are better able to fight off the effects of poisons, or to defend yourself against physical attack. A fit person not only remains mobile longer—evidence suggests that they live longer too.

Fitness is literally being in a suitable condition to perform a given task. Nowadays, it has come to mean an improved level of efficiency in the muscles and cardiovascular system through physical exertion. Overall fitness can be broken down into three categories:
strength, stamina
and
suppleness.
Different types of activity lead to improvement in each of these areas to varying degrees. Weightlifting, for instance, will not on its own improve your aerobic capacity (stamina), or flexibility (suppleness)—as squash will—but will greatly increase your muscle bulk (strength).

WARNING

Do you suffer from any of the following conditions? If so, they put you in a high-risk group and you should seek medical advice before embarking on ANY exercise programme.

• ■
  High blood pressure
  
• ■
  Heart trouble (angina, irregular pulse, previous heart attack, family history of heart disease etc)
  
• ■
  Respiratory disorders (asthma, bronchitis etc)
  
• ■
  Blood disorders (anaemia, haemophilia etc)
  
• ■
  Muscle or bone disorders (arthritis, fibrositis etc)
  
• ■
  Obesity
  
• ■
  Additional risk groups include:
  
• ■
  Anyone over 40 after a period of inactivity
  
• ■
  Pregnant women
  
• ■
  Women on the pill
  
• ■
  Convalescents
  
• ■
  Anyone taking certain drugs
  

IF IN ANY DOUBT CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR

REMEMBER

Specific kinds of fitness are needed for specific sports, and anyone taking up a new physical activity should be aware of the potential risks. If you throw yourself too strenuously into a new activity without preparation, you are courting disaster. Take an initial fitness assessment to pinpoint areas of weakness, especially if you are over 40. However unfit you may be, there will be a sport you can undertake safely.

STRENGTH

All physical activity will increase your strength to some degree. Muscles convert energy into movement. They do this most efficiently when plenty of oxygen is present, during
aerobic
exercise. If you continue to demand work from your muscles when there is no oxygen present, they are able to produce energy anaerobically—but only for a short time.

Anaerobic
exercise produces waste products, chiefly lactic acid, which leads to unpleasant ‘burning’, usually followed by stiffness and cramps. In building strength, you must gently teach the muscles to work more efficiently without oxygen, and with fewer undesirable side effects.

REMEMBER

A well-built musculature protects vulnerable body parts. Strong abdominals (stomach muscles), for instance, help protect the lower back: quadriceps (front of thigh) help support the weak hinge-type knee joint. Strong muscles mean you are less likely to suffer injury through everyday tasks (gardening, lifting, housework etc.). Complementary cross-training can greatly improve your performance in your chosen sport.

Training for strength involves short periods of intensive work interspersed with longer periods of gentle exercise or rest. There are NO short cuts. Increasing your workload too fast only leads to lactic acid build-up, bunched, strained and torn muscles with undue stress laid on the tendons which connect muscle to bone.
ALWAYS
warm up adequately before working out to enable your muscles to work efficiently and to reduce the likelihood of injury.
ALWAYS
stretch after weight training to help disperse lactic acid and to lengthen bunched muscles which could limit movement.

STAMINA

Stamina means endurance and relates to cardiovascular fitness. For maximum efficiency in converting energy into movement, you must be able to deliver the oxygen in the red blood cells to your muscles quickly. Aerobic fitness is essential for many sports—squash, tennis, football, rugby, for example.

At rest, an adult heart pumps five litres (about nine pints) of blood round the body. During exercise, the amount of blood pumped can increase to as much as 40 litres (70 pints) per minute in a super-fit person. The heart of an unfit person will supply perhaps 25 litres (44 pints) per minute, despite beating far faster! The more efficiently your heart works, the longer you can endure exercise, and the sooner you will recover from it.

Aerobic exercise should keep your heart working at 70-80 per cent of its full capacity. If you build up a sweat and are breathing faster, yet still able to hold a conversation, you are exercising at about the right level. Keep this up for 20 minutes, at least three times a week, and you will improve your stamina gradually and safely. As you become fitter, you will need to increase the frequency and/or duration of the exercise in order to maintain or carry on increasing stamina.

• ◑ ALWAYS stop exercising if you feel dizzy, nauseous, short of breath or tight in the chest. These are signs that you could be overtaxing your heart.
  
• ◑ NEVER stop abruptly after aerobic exercise. Walk around as you cool down.
  

REMEMBER

As your heart becomes more efficient, the risks of hypertension and coronary heart disease are reduced. More blood passing through organs such as lungs, liver, kidneys and brain increases their efficiency too. Aerobic activity burns calories, converts fat to lean tissue and speeds up the metabolism, helping you to control your weight. Improving your stamina makes you feel more energetic and more confident.

WARNING

TOO MUCH TOO SOON CAN LEAD TO INJURY. If you are unused to exercise, begin SLOWLY. Try walking upstairs instead of using the lift. Get off the bus one stop early and walk. Walk/jog to the newsagent, instead of having the paper delivered. Incorporate exercise into your daily routine, and you will quickly start to feel the benefit.

SUPPLENESS

However efficient the heart and lungs, however strong the muscles, the body is useless if it can’t move freely. Flexibility is the third component of overall fitness, and is essential for good performance in most sports—you will also be less likely to suffer strains and ruptures from the sudden reaches, kicks and jumps. Gymnastics, dance and martial arts demand and encourage great flexibility. Aerobics classes should involve a stretching sequence.

To encourage suppleness and avoid bunched and torn muscles and strain on the heart, adequate
warming up
and
cooling down
periods are essential. Each individual’s level of suppleness depends on the length and flexibility of muscles, ligaments and tendons. Women are naturally more supple than men. You must always work within your limitations. Again, there are NO short cuts—the muscle will stretch when it’s ready. If you try to force it, it will tear. Swimming is excellent for lengthening muscles.

THE WARM-UP

Moderate exercise – jogging, walking, cycling, swimming – is a warm-up in itself. Most racquet sports and some team games include a ‘knockabout’ period, which warms the muscles and raises the pulse. IN ALL OTHER CASES, OMITTING THE WARM-UP IS THE EASIEST ROUTE TO INJURY.

DON′T stretch a cold muscle. Begin the warm-up with a period of ‘cardiovascular’ exercise to get the blood flowing to the muscles and to avoid sudden strain on the heart.

DON′T exercise after a meal. A large proportion of your blood will be circulating around the stomach and intestines during digestion, and trying to divert it elsewhere can lead to stitches and cramps – potentially lethal in watersports. Allow 90 minutes for digestion.

DON′T ‘bounce’. Alternately stretching and contracting is more likely to tighten than lengthen the muscle, and it puts strain on the tendons.

Ease into the stretch. Get into position, relax and breathe. Concentrate on the muscle groups which will do the most work – hamstrings and quads for a footballer, for example. Be especially careful to warm up ANY muscle which is stiff, aching or has suffered a previous injury.

Increase the time you spend warming up and cooling down and incorporate more gentle stretches to encourage longer, more flexible muscles. ‘Little and often’ is the key.

THE COOL-DOWN

Prepare the body to return to its normal state. During exercise, your muscles help the heart by pumping blood to the lungs for re-oxygenation. If you stop too suddenly, blood can pool in the muscles, starving other areas and making the heart pump faster to compensate. Dizziness, trembling and even blackout can result if you come to an abrupt halt.

Cooling down and stretching are essential to disperse lactic acid and discourage the formation of inflexible scar tissue over tiny tears in contracted muscles (which lead to stiffness). Slow down GRADUALLY and repeat the warm-up stretches after exercise.