Initiating – Fitness Program
August 3, 2009
If you have decided to start a fitness program, you have taken one of the best decisions of your life. Once you get your physician’s go ahead you can maintain a healthy life, get immunity from disease, and feel better; besides of course losing weight.
Additional benefits are improvement of sleep habit and it will help boost your confidence. To initiate an exercise regime all you need to have in place are the following steps:
Check the level of your fitness
You might know how fit you are but you have never tried to assess it. To check how strong your muscular & aerobic strength is; how flexible you are and what your body composition is like you need to check the following:
Pulse check before and after walking a mile
How long did you take to cover the distance?
No. of pushups you can do in a go
Sit on the ground with knees flat. How far can you take your hands now?
What is your waist circumference?
Your BMI
Customized Fitness Plan
People might just suggest exercise for 30-60 minutes every day of the week, but since we are different as individual our fitness needs are also different.
See what do you want to achieve from exercising, and then see what plan will suit your requirement. Make sure you incorporate both aerobics and strength training in your workout.
Progress slowly and steadily, if you are new to exercising start with a low intensity workout and then built up your level of intensity.
See how you can take up an exercise program daily or at least 5 times a week, make sure you enjoy your exercise and don’t force yourself into working out.
Make sure you play with your exercise, change the kind of activities and incorporate new forms of exercise.
Give your body some time to recover. People in excitement workout too intensely for long hours and damage their body, Have sessions for rest amidst your exercise regime.
Keep a written plan and stick to it.
Selecting and assembling equipments
To begin with what you would need are the right pair of shoes and exercise socks (which are essentials).
If you have decided to buy something for exercising, select something that is easy to use, approved and fun.
Make sure you try these fitness equipments before making a decision.
A good decision would be buying used equipments, which are in nice condition.
Let your creative ideas flow and make some dumbbells or ankle weights at home.
Start your program
As you are all set for action, you can initiate your exercise program.
Make sure when you initiate your exercise, a warm up is a must and end your session with a cool down. This would be useful for your body as it will give you time to stretch, increase flexibility, prepare you for the session and normalize your body post the exercise.
If you can’t take out 45 minutes at a stretch, break the session in three 15-minutes or two 20-minutes workout.
Be aware of how your body reacts and what is it saying, if you start feeling out-of-breath, dizzy or tired; take a break. If you are sick then take a break for a day or two before starting your exercise.
Track you progress
Check your fitness after every 3-6 months. Increase your intensity or the time you. You would be pleasantly surprised to see the changes your body undergoes due to regular exercise.
If you become de-motivated or bogged down with your exercise, change your exercise regime. Try ball room dance, water aerobics, kick boxing etc.
It is very important to stick to your exercise program and re-invent it to bear maximum results. All the best and start sweating.
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