Everybody wants to feel fit and healthy, but sometimes it’s so hard to get in to the right habits to reach our goals. To help you get going on efforts that will pay off, we’ve put together this list of fitness tips that will get you into shape in no time.
Even if you don’t feel like working out on a given day, at least try for five or ten minutes. You might find that once you get going, you can do more than that. Even if you don’t gain a second wind, a few minutes is better than nothing at all.
One way to maximize your fitness routine is to join an online forum that deals with fitness. This will help in a number of ways that you might not have access to otherwise. You can get tips from pros, get ideas that you might not have come up on your own, attain a group sense of acceptance, have a way to brag about your workouts and show off what you have done.
Don’t put all of your efforts into doing only crunches when working out abdominal muscles. It’s been proven that crunches don’t burn much fat; one study even resulted with only one pound burned after 250,000 total crunches! Therefore, you are not maximizing your time if you are strictly doing crunches. Work out your abdominals in other ways, as well.
A great way to get fit is to stop drinking whole milk and switch to non-fat milk. While whole milk does provide quality nutrition, it’s high in fat, which won’t aid you if you’re looking to get fit. Non-fat milk is a much better alternative to whole milk.
Jumping rope is usually associated with children but it is actually an ideal ” and fun – way to lose weight and improve your health. Jumping rope is a cardiovascular exercise that can also tone your muscles. It gets your heart pumping, burns calories and works out your entire body. Make sure you jump on an exercise mat or a wood floor to reduce the impact on your ankles and knees. Carpeting is soft, but it’s very easy to twist your ankle on this surface when wearing running shoes. Research has also found that jumping rope over the course of many years can help to prevent osteoporosis, so grab that rope and start jumping your way to a thinner, healthier you.
By joining a program or getting a video exercise guide one can learn new techniques and get fresh work out ideas. Learning new exercise strategies can improve results greatly as the body is being subjected to something different. A new technique learned from a program can increase fitness to another level.
Dancing is a fun way to get fit! To dance in the comfort of your own home, find an open area such as a living room or basement. Turn on the radio or find some music on your computer that you would like to dance to. Listen to the beat and let your body move in any way or form that feels comfortable. Nobody’s watching, so let loose and don’t feel embarrassed!
Using a treadmill can be the way to go for those who want to improve their aerobic fitness while being able to stay in the same room safely at home and not out jogging or running on a sidewalk somewhere. The treadmill gives one an always available always ready to use option for maintaining fitness.
Use light exercise to recover from a hard muscle workout the day prior. Make sure you are exercising the same muscles as you did the day prior. Light weight is about 20% of what you originally used for lifting at one time. Use these light weights to do two sets of 25 repetitions to create more blood flow to repair your hurt muscles.
Learn what Kenyans do to train to run and win marathons. They train at differing speeds which pick up as their training progresses. You need to start slowly for the first third of the run, go at a more normal pace for your middle third, and then much faster for the last third of your run. Increase your speed by gradually starting off faster and faster, which will eventually increase all of your speeds.
Take care of your runner’s calves by changing your sleep position. This will help to better stretch them out during the night. Begin by sleeping on your stomach with your feet hanging off the bed; this will cause your legs to stretch out your calf muscles all night. This will prevent painful calf stiffness the next morning.
If you injure one of your body parts, you should not stop working it out, but instead continue to work it out. For example, if you injure your right leg, you should continue to work out that leg because some of the strength will actually be transferred to the leg not working out.
When you stretch, you should aim to spend about twice as long stretching tight muscles as you do flexible muscles. The reason you should do this is because you need to have flexibility in all parts of the body. Otherwise, you have a greater chance of injury. For men, these areas often include shoulders, hamstrings, and the lower back.
Wear the proper shoes for your sport. To prevent injury, instead of just throwing on your cross-trainers for every activity, invest in shoes made specifically for each sport. Sport-specific shoes are designed to support your body for the types of movements made in the sport. For example, forward movement and cushioning for running or side-to-side and ankle support for tennis.
Make sure to check your body for any signs of injury or disease. Go to your doctor regularly and have a check up and perform some tests with your doctor. This will ensure that you are keeping nice and healthy and nothing will pop up and surprise you
What’s better than setting a goal, sticking to your plan, and then seeing the great results? We hope these tips will inspire you to get going, get fit, and feel better than ever. Come back and read these tips again when you feel you need a bit of motivation. You can do this!