When we are young, fitness comes easily. We play sports or are active in our daily life. But sometime during middle age, our fitness tends to decline. And in our retirement years we may begin to really pay a price for letting our fitness wane. This doesn’t have to happen. Here are some tips that will help to make your story a happy one of continued fitness throughout life.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help at the gym. If you don’t know how to use a machine, go ahead and ask. Understanding how to utilize both the aerobic and strength building machines will give you the confidence to actually use them. The more comfortable you are, the more likely you are to keep up your workouts.
Remember that your fitness needs change as you age, especially regarding flexibility. When you reach middle age, you need to devote even more time to stretching before and after your workout. This helps keep your muscles pliable and prevents cramping after workouts as well as helping reduce the risk of injury.
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.
Pay up front for the gym and your trainer! Sometimes money is the best commitment we can make that will insure we will exercise regularly. If we have already paid the fees for the gym and for our trainer we will be much more likely to take advantage of the services we’ve paid for!
If you want to have bigger calf muscles, you should do both seated and standing calf raises because you will achieve better results. This is because the calves are made of two different muscles. You have to do both straight-leg and bent-leg raises in order to hit both of these muscles.
You can build up your physical strength through the use of lighter weights. Your muscles will have just as much force as when you lift heavier weights, except you will be going much slower. These are especially great for bench-presses. Go with about 40-60% of what you usually lift and do 8 sets of 12 repetitions pushing the weight up quickly. Have a 30 second rest period between sets.
Try to avoid burnout during your workout sessions by keeping track of your pulse the next morning. If your pulse appears to be 10 bpm or much more than the normal pulse, it means that your body is still in a state of recovery and that you must take it easy.
Don’t just focus strength building on machine weights. It takes a couple of years to actually see an increase of strength on these types of machines. Studies also show that many older adults who rely them had a 3.5% loss of strength in everyday activities.
If you want to run or walk your way to fitness, be sure to take safety precautions to keep yourself and others safe. Try running in the opposite direction of traffic so you can see oncoming cars in busy traffic. It is also safer to run or walk during the day so you can be seen more easily. Having a partner also adds to safety. But, try moving in a single-file line to avoid large groups that could endanger members.
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.
Exercise when your mood is bright. When you are in a really good mood, take the time to go exercise. The better you are feeling, the more you will likely push yourself. Exercising can also help you feel better than you already do, so going when you feel good is only going to make you feel even better.
An elastic exercise band can be a good low resistance way for someone to work on their fitness. The bands also have the advantages of being highly portable so you can take them with you when you travel and use them in many different locations. An exercise band is another good fitness tool for someone to have.
If you have a finger that constantly stays jammed, you should try taping that finger to a finger right beside it. The reason is because this makes both fingers stronger when they are together, and you are far less likely to bend the jammed finger at an odd angle, which would jam the finger even more.
Make sure that you don’t get addicted to working out. By this I mean, you have to make sure you don’t go to the gym all the time or feel the need to constantly work out. This leads to you believing that you need to get bigger and turning to other sources to help.
As you get older, you need to devote more time to stretch during warm-ups and cool-downs. Your body’s muscles become more stiff as you age. This is irritating but unavoidable. Fortunately you can take steps to counteract the effect by holding each of your stretch positions a little longer, as you get older.
If you injure yourself while exercising, it is important to ice the injured area. Ice helps reduce inflammation and can numb a degree of the pain. You want to make sure that you are icing the injury long enough that your muscle is soothed, but not so long that you cause frostbite to your skin. 15-20 minutes has been proven to be an ideal icing time frame.
We hope these tips on fitness have given you a lot of good ideas. Applied well, this knowledge can help you avoid debilitating conditions later in life or to minimize the conditions that cannot be wholly avoided. Fitness is like holding a rope taut, not letting it go slack. Keeping fit throughout life is its own reward.