If you’re concerned about your body’s well-being but don’t know quite how to begin your fitness journey, this article is a great place to start. It’s perfectly normal to have questions; and, after all, knowing is half the battle! Here are some informative, easy to understand tips to guide you on your way to a healthy, physically fit lifestyle.
If you are looking to get more fit, find a friend that will make the commitment to get in shape with you. With someone on your side, you will be held accountable for accomplishing your fitness goals. You can keep each other motivated and try new work out classes together. Finally, a friend can motivate you when you start slacking off.
To improve the effectiveness of your stretches, adjust the amount of time you hold your stretches to account for your age. Why? As you age, your muscles lose pliability, so you need to spend more time stretching them. The recommended duration for people under 40 years old is 30 seconds, while people over 40 years old should hold stretches for twice as long.
When starting a new exercise regime, have a plan! Make a list of your goals in an exercise journal. Choose a workout that you enjoy, and begin by performing a low intensity version of this. With each week, increase the intensity and add an extra five minutes to your workout. Remember to make a note of your progress in your exercise journal, as this will only encourage you to stick with the plan.
Aerobic exercises are not the only way to burn calories. Strength training is an important part of a healthy exercise regime. Lifting weights, using resistance bands and similar activities help build muscle, which pound to pound burns more calories than fat. Plus, proper strength training gives you a lean and fit look.
If you’re looking to get in shape another thing to consider is to gradually increase the difficulty of your regimen. If you increase it too fast you will lose your motivation, and too slow, the results will be too slow. For example if you used to walk 30 minutes a day at a rate of three miles an hour increase it to thirty minutes, or increase your speed to three and a half miles per hour.
Try joining sites like Fitocracy or My Fitness Pal to log your exercise and calorie intake. Not only are they good for seeing where you need improvement, but it’s also a community of people with the same goals as you and can give you tips and ideas as well as encouragement.
Get great abdominal muscles by not exercising them every single day. You need to treat this area like you would any other muscle group in your body, by giving it rest in between vigorous workouts. Try to limit your ab exercises to about 2 to 3 times a week, for the best results.
Make sure you’re using the proper forms when you’re exercising. If you try to cut corners, you’re only cheating yourself. Cutting corners means you’re not going to get the full benefit of your workout. Not only that, but you risk injuring yourself and putting your fitness goals in the toilet.
You can build your run time by changing the way you breath. While running, when you inhale, breathe so that your belly rises. When you breath likes this you are ensuring that your lungs are fully inflating with oxygen. This will help you to run for a longer period of time.
Pay your fitness trainer in advance. This makes you much more likely to follow through on your workout, because most trainers do not give refunds. Paying them in advance will likely give you a heads up on the other clients as well, because your trainer will pay more attention to you.
Play a game or two. Video games, and tabletop games like foosball, table hockey, and ping pong, have all shown to be excellent ways to improve your hand-eye coordination. If you play a sport of any kind, you will need to improve on this, so pick up your game remote or a paddle!
To stick with your workout routine, find a fitness friend. People who are trying to lose weight have much more success if they have a workout buddy. Knowing that someone is counting on you to be at the gym or outside for your morning run keeps you from skipping out on your sweat sessions.
Ankle flexibility is a key focus for development when swimming. You can swim faster and more effectively by increasing your “flipper” capability in your feet. Seat yourself on the ground; shoes off. Extend your legs to the front with heels firm on the ground and then simply point forward with your toes as far as you can, then point them back towards your shins. About 1 minute a day will do the trick.
Getting yourself some rollerblades is a great way to get more physically fit. Even though it’s not as popular to roller blade now as it used to be, it’s still a great exercise. Rollerblade skates can still be found in many sporting good shops.
Don’t try to become a fitness guru overnight. Focus on spending a reasonable amount of time exercising every day as a baseline and then work from there. It’s easy to become burned out and discouraged when you try to go from no exercise to running a 5k, so just work up to walking 15 minutes a day first and then improve gradually.
While you are working out and getting better fitness in your life, it is important to get the proper protein that you need for your muscles to grow to their full potential. If you are working out, your muscles are starving for protein and will be held back unless they receive the amount that they need.
Now that you’ve studied up on some tricks on how to achieve a great body, you can start implementing them in your everyday life. With your new wealth of information and also some motivation and confidence, you’ll be able to meet your fitness goals in practically no time at all!