When you are feeling fit, it makes everything you do feel easier and achieving your personal goals seems like a breeze. But getting the information you need may seem like a difficult task and you feel you could use some help to get going. Try some of the fitness tips below to get started.
Reduce stress on your muscles and avoid injury by warming-up before working out. Adequately warming-up will loosen up stiff muscles and get the blood flowing to them. Sudden movements on muscles that have not been properly warmed-up prior to exercise can result in pulled muscles, strains, and even tears.
If your goal is to become more physically fit, but don’t know where to start, try meeting with a personal trainer. Good trainers know how to get you started on activities you will enjoy, how to keep you motivated, and get you to the next fitness level, injury free.
If you tend to walk a lot, a good rule of thumb in replacing your sneakers or shoes is replacing them every 250-500 miles of walking. Doing so will ensure that you get the most out of your exercise regimen and you won’t hurt your legs by wearing shoes with missing parts or poor support.
There is always another option to get a workout in no matter how busy your life is. Are you dragging the kids to and from soccer practice? Why not get in your own walk or run while they are busy at practice. Do you love reading? Try downloading some audio books and going on a walk while listening to your favorite book.
A great fitness tip is to strengthen your abs. To do this, you do not need to work them out every single day. Abs are like all the other muscles of the body. They need recovery time. Therefore, you should aim to train your abs around two or three times per week.
When pursuing your fitness goals, you should aim to strengthen your back. Your back is one of the largest muscles in your upper body. You do not need to neglect working it out because if you do not, you are bound to injure it. Perform pullups and lat pulldowns to increase the strength of your back.
Standing arm curls are a great exercise for your arm muscles. To get a full range of muscle workout, flex while lifting. At the end of each repetition, straighten your arms completely by flexing your triceps. Flexing will ensure your muscles are worked through the entire range of motion.
When playing baseball and trying to hit a home run, hit the ball with a slight angle and an upper cut towards the center. This will make the ball have more hang time in the air, and the more probable chance of you scoring a home run than a line drive.
A great fitness tip is to use safety pins when you’re bench pressing or performing squats. You can set up safety pins at a spot where you don’t want to lift any further. The safety pins will hold the weight if you don’t have the strength to finish the lift.
Playing baseball is a great fitness activity. If you are playing on a sunny day, you can actually use your glove to block the sun from your eyes when you need to catch a pop fly. This will protect your eyes, and allow you to see what you are doing to avoid injury
For those who are trying to gain muscles in their legs, try both sitting and standing calf raises. Because your calves are made up of two different muscles, it is crucial to do both bent-leg and straight- leg calf raises in order to properly tone your legs. Doing both of these raises will bring better results.
Get yourself some good fitness and workout DVDs. These can be incredibly motivating, and varying your workout to include different exercise routines will keep you from getting bored. Also, it will never matter what the weather is outside. If you have a few high-quality workouts on DVD, you can stay fit by working out anytime you like.
Stick to a schedule when you are serious about your fitness goals. If you cannot commit to a block of time, then you may stand almost no chance of success. Make an investment in yourself if you want to see real results. Try to keep your time blocks the same every week.
When lifting weights, try and keep your sessions under an hour because if you lift weights for too long, your body will start producing cortisol, a stress inducing hormone that can block testosterone production. This in turn, will waste the extra time your are putting into your workout so keep your workouts brief.
Fitness is more fun when you vary your workouts. By doing the same workout everyday or even a few times a week, your mind and body are bound to get bored quickly. If you vary your workouts several times a week, it not only gives your mind something to look forward to but it also gives your body a nice change. By doing different exercises, you are working different muscles each time, which in turn will result in maximum weight loss and a more toned body.
Give different muscle groups a break. Working the same group of muscles, such as your abs, can become counterproductive if you don’t give them some downtime to recover. Design your workout as a circuit of training that focuses on alternate areas of your body each day. This allows more recovery time and keeps your workouts more interesting.
If you want to improve your fitness, don’t forget your core. These are the muscles which support your trunk. Good core fitness will improve balance, stability,and appearance. One simple move you can do is the bridge: simply lie on your back and raise your hips until they line up with your knees and shoulders.
As you can see, feeling fit is not as hard as you thought, now that you have the right tips to get started on your path to personal fitness. They will give you a good foundation that will get you closer to your personal fitness goals and feel great each and every day.