Getting up early in the morning and exercising is great. It keeps you in track regarding health and get you to be active and stress-free. But for some, it might not be an easy one and there would be obstacles that will be of great hindrance.
Right now, you need some positive thinking and throw away those unnecessary excuses.
Getting the Time for Exercising
Let’s assume you decide to exercise. What is the best time to do this health-driven activity? Well, you could try it first thing in the morning. Just combine some of the major physical activity with those tasks which are simply a part of your day-to-day activities like doing household activities or walking the dog.
It doesn’t need to be a 30-40 minutes activity which needs to make you active. Just look for three or four ten-minute periods. And most importantly, as you progress, you can continue to add some 5 to 10 minutes to the sessions to hit your needed goal.
Following the Exercise Plan
Not many individuals know that exercise can be enjoyable as well as interesting. It simply means you must do things that you enjoy. However, you shouldn’t compromise on the pace and keep in mind that you must try for new activities for making your interest alive. You can easily avoid the constant boredom that most people go through in exercising by being creative of the physical activity plan and trying new kinds of exercises. It is a good sign if you can stick with the creative and interesting exercise for six to eight months. That means you are making great progress and the physical activity will become a regular habit for you.
Importance of Exercising
Regular exercise regime is needed for having a happy and healthy lifestyle. By doing all kinds of physical activities, you can maintain a healthy and required weight range, improved fitness and body strength and have a great amount of psychological effect. In addition, individuals who exercise regularly have a happier life and are less stressed compared to other who don’t do any kind of physical activity.
Irrespective of whether you are at the hardcore peak of being a fitness expert or the beginner doing satisfactory exercise regime, there are various necessary procedures to be followed while doing, before or after exercising for getting protection against sports related injuries and other types of physical discomfort.
Getting Medical Advice Before Exercising
Sometimes, you might have been inactive for 6-8 months, and in this scenario, it is better to take advice from medical professionals before going on to the track and running for marathons. This is especially if you have or had muscular, or cardiovascular or weight related issues. A sports trainer, physiotherapist, or doctor will easily be able to identify and assess the fitness level of yours and even make you on track of achieving your goals.
Selecting A Good & Beneficial Exercise Regime or Program
Keep in mind that before you go ahead and choose an exercise, you need to have a basic idea of what you are going to gain from following the exercise regime. Sometimes, you might be exercising for improving your muscles, stamina, fitness or body appearance. Chances are there that you might be going to a new city and in desperate need of making some new friends. Whatever is the goal or aim, there are plenty of sports (various kinds) you can do to be able to achieve them.
Exercising Without Spending A Huge Amount of Money
Now being active won’t cost anything. All you must do is go for simple brisk walking and that too in a comfortable shoe. Regarding strength training, you can make savings on the weights by using water bottles or soup cans. It is better if you check with your local recreational department or local park or the senior center to know about low cost or free exercise programs in your area.
Increasing the Body Energy
No doubt, moderate and regular exercising and physical activities will reduce tiredness and sometimes can help in managing stress. There are various studies which support that exercise reduces the chances of feeling depressed and can improve one’s mood and emotions. So, once you are active, you will have more energy than previously. Most importantly, as you do more and more exercise, you can easily do things faster, easily and with more endurance than previously.
Exercising for Health
Weight Loss
For losing weight, the amount of energy you consume from beverages and food must be less than the amount that you burn from exercising. Keep in mind that exercising will burn energy. The more intense the exercise is the more energy you will burn. Some of the best weight loss activities are ones which will easily increase your heart rate. Most importantly, these activities will start from low intensity and can be easily built up. Some of these activities are –
- Riding
- Running
- Aerobics
- Swimming
Fitness
For increasing your fitness, you need to constantly push yourself for making improvement from week to week. For example, if you are running one to two kilometre in seven to eight minutes, you need to run the same distance for a shorter period.
Now after running for seven-minute kilometre for a week, you need to run it in about 6.5 minutes, the next week. So, once you can do this comfortably and in an easy manner, you can improve your time again. Keep in mind that you need to constantly increase your speed, distance or weights so that you can be active and fitter. Some of the fitness activities you can perform are –
- Kick boxing
- Endurance training
Other Exercises
There are various exercises which are basically designed for improving your muscular strength, core stability and flexibility. Some of these exercises are –
- Yoga
- Weight Training
- Pilates
Toning
Lifting weights is the best exercise for toning your muscles. There are various women who shy away from doing weight training because of the fear that they will bulk up. This will only occur if you are taking steroids. If you are lifting medium weight two times each week, you will easily tone your muscles. So, just go ahead and check out with your personal trainer for getting a specialized program.
Swimming provides one of the best cardio workouts, however, it is one of less sports activities which uses all the major groups of muscles. So, it is one of the best shaping activities. Some of the toning activities you can do are –
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Resistance Training
- Dance classes
- Swimming
Developing Muscles
Do you know the best method of building muscles is by lifting weight? You need to use heavy weights with lesser repetitions or exercises for building muscles. For example, if you are planning to tone your bicep muscles, then you need to use a medium intensity weight and do about 50-60 bicep curls. Also, if you are planning to bulk up your muscles, you must use heavy weight and try to do about 24-32 bicep curls.
However, keep in mind that you need not begin weight training without taking the advice or suggestion of trained or experienced professionals. They will assist you in creating a personalized program and will even display how one can lift weights in perfect manner. Sometimes weight training will lead to serious damage to muscles, bones, joints, and tendons if not done in a correct manner.
Doing Exercises to Make Friends and Have Fun
Exercising doesn’t always need to tedious and hard work. Frankly, you can make it fun and is one of the best methods to meet new individuals while becoming fit at the same time. Some of the exercises you can do to make friends are –
- Soccer
- Netball
- Dancing
- Hockey
- Netball
- Soccer
- Other team sports
- Dancing
One of the best methods to improve body image and fitness is cross training. Cross training is nothing but a mixture of all kinds of various exercises. Frankly, it will stop you from getting bored with a single program and will even prevent from putting extensively amount of strain on the same bones, muscles and joints. Keep in mind that being a good runner won’t necessarily make you a great cyclist or swimmer and that too without any kind of training. You can improve your overall fitness through cross training.
There are various gyms providing personal trainers for members for assessing the current body composition and fitness levels. Some of them will even sit down and even discuss the aims you have in terms of weight loss, fitness and muscle toning. Here trainers will design a program extensively for you and it will enable you to achieve the required goal in the necessary amount of time.
Optimizing Sports Performance
Now once the necessary medical assessments are made and you have selected the required exercise program, there are various steps you can easily follow for optimizing your sports performance. You can take pointers on the kind of food and drinks you need to consume and even regarding about rest. By doing so, you can easily achieve the set goals and become motivated which will avoid all kinds of injuries.
Hydration
While exercising, it is easy to become tired as well as dehydrated. So, it is necessary to consume required fluids after and before doing any kind of physical activity. Dehydration will reduce the blood pressure and the heart rate, which will in turn make you feel sick. High chances of dehydration increase the risk of having exercise related health conditions like heat illness and cold stress.
When we are sweating during exercise, we lose huge amount of electrolytes. Electrolytes play a major role in modulating the water balance of your body. If the levels of electrolyte are low, then your exercise will be impaired, and you will be very much susceptible to various kind of exercise-related injuries and even heat illness.
It is necessary that you ingest good amount of fluids after and before exercising in order to reduce dehydration and replacing electrolytes. You must ingest around half litre of water just two to three hours before exercising and it will make you hydrated even though the required amount of fluids often depends on the required duration and the intensity of the workout. If you are exercising for longer periods of time (i.e. cycling, long distance running, or footy games), then you need to drink good amount of water while exercising as well.
The below fluids are the best ones for hydrating and replenishing your health –
- Water – This is necessary for maintain the water balance of your body and even replacing the one that is lost while sweating.
- Milk – Like all supplements and nutrients, milk provides enough hydration for recreational exercisers and athletes. It even builds lean muscles and speed up recovery.
- Sport Drink – These are quite useful if you are doing intense exercises. An average sport drink has about 250 kilojoules of carbohydrate in each serving (which is in the form of sugar) and is not recommended if you are doing low intensity walk. The basic purpose of sport drink is for replenishing blood glucose, electrolytes and glycogen which get depleted while doing intense exercise. Now if these carbohydrates aren’t used up while exercising then consuming sport drink will lead to gaining weight.
Nutrition
To get maximum benefits from exercising, your muscles must have the required energy for sustaining the workout. Without required energy, the muscles will fatigue fast and the workout will end up being shorter and less intense.
You need the required energy for maintaining, repairing, and growing tissues after exercising. A healthy balanced diet must be required for maximizing the available energy. With the right amount and type of food you can get the required benefits from exercising.
Conclusion
There is no harm in getting help before exercising. But you need to make sure that you get it from the experienced and knowledgeable individuals like physicians, health experts and health coaches or dieticians. We at Ezfit are here to help you in Singapore as well as globally if you travel a lot.
