Staying fit all the time could be ultimately challenging amid the busy schedule and other minor hindrances. We often neglect our daily exercise routine due to lack of time or extreme fatigue from work. At the end of the day, everything that you have started will only be wasted.
To be able to meet your fitness goals, they must be realistic and suitable to your lifestyle. When you come up with a fitness plan, you have to consider your regular activities, initial priorities, free time and budget. There are fitness programs that require you to go to the gym, pay membership or purchase equipment if you are at home.
In order to avoid such circumstances, you have to understand the fundamentals of a fitness plan. Here are some of the considerations you can ponder.
Types of Trainings
It is important to determine first the type of training program you want to engage with. There are four categories of exercises-aerobic, strength, flexibility and balance. Each of the exercise possesses great importance on your total fitness. However, you can?t just decide to do one after the other. You need to know what your body needs at the moment. To make sure, you better consult a fitness expert to help you in making the appropriate decision.
Basically, aerobic exercises help in improving the function of your heart and lungs. It also regulates your blood pressure and gives you more energy over time. You can have around one to two hours of aerobic exercise on a daily basis. Activities like swimming, jogging and dancing are perfect for this category.
If your target is protection from injuries and muscle stretching, you must do flexibility routines. It is important that you get stretched regularly, not only to be flexible, but also to increase your muscle size. Yoga and pilates are popular forms of flexibility routines. Nevertheless, you can form your personal stretching routines like what the athletes usually do.
Meanwhile, balance exercises are not appreciated since the effects take time to be seen. As you grow old, having a perfect posture will be challenging if you never perform any balance and core exercises before. Thus, acquiring a strong balance at a young age is very vital.
More than the change in the physical appearance, you must pay attention on the strength you gain after undergoing a fitness program. Strength training can be noted as the most popular among the categories mentioned above as it improves your total body endurance. It helps in building up muscles and losing fats due to the extreme force applied. Strength training may include curls, chest presses and calf raises that can be conducted at least two times a week.
Level of Intensity
When you start training, it doesn?t necessarily mean that you have to do the hard core ones to get faster and better results. That?s a wrong notion about fitness trainings. In real trainings, you have to begin with low intensity and gradually jump into high intensity. There are workouts that can be performed using low intensity only and the effectiveness is not even sacrificed. The quality and quantity of your routines does not entirely depend on the intensity applied.
On the other hand, there are specific routines that will require you to apply high intensity. These are the extreme exercises done with a supervision of a fitness guru. Most of the time, these routines are done inside the gym with equipment or sometimes these can be done outdoors but may take a longer time than the usual.
Knowing your limitation must be injected in your fitness plan. Don?t rush anything. You will eventually get there. The thing is if you push yourself too much, you might just get injuries and it will only ruin everything that you have planned.
Healthy Living
Achieving your fitness goals always work through proper exercise and proper lifestyle. If you are under a strict fitness program, you must take a look on what you do outside the gym. You must not have any vices and observe other healthy practices.
Avoid drinking alcohol and smoking. Of course, it wouldn?t be easy at first, but if you are really determined to make a change, you can do it little by little. Drinking alcohol moderately is healthy that even men aging 60 onwards are advised to take one glass a day, especially wine. Alcohol is beneficial to our body; however, excessive consumption can be dangerous.
Further to this, smoking must be stopped at all cost. Studies show that smoking destroys your entire body and lessens the efficiency of fitness routines. Continuous consumption of cigarette makes the regulation of oxygen harder and decreases the capacity of your lungs to endure daily exercises. You gain nothing by smoking, so you?d better avoid or stop it as soon as possible.
Aside from avoiding vices, you must observe proper sleeping pattern. Lack of sleep tends to lessen your enthusiasm to exercise on the next day. Also, it tempts you to eat unhealthy food, such as soda and junk food. Drop your phone or any gadgets one hour before you sleep and read a motivational book instead. Avoid reading materials which may keep your thoughts alive or which may trigger over thinking. The purpose of sleeping is to get you relaxed and gain energy; thus, don?t engage to any thought provoking activities before bed time.
Proper Diet and Hydration
Incorporating proper diet and hydration in a fitness plan has been taught over and over again, and yet others fail to remember.
More than anything else, never forget to drink enough water before, during and after each routine. The body will not function properly if it?s deprived with fluids since it is composed primarily about 60 percent of water. On a daily basis, you must consume atleast 8 glasses of water and if you are under an extreme workout, you can consume up to 15 glasses. It is important that you get hydrated no matter what activities you do. You can also get replenished with the help of sports drinks, although it is not quite advisable to take huge amount.
When it comes to the food intake, fruits, vegetables and lean meat could be your best option. Vegetables provide vitamins and minerals while fruits can be a great source of fiber. Lean meat such as chicken and fish can be your option or you can just remove the fatty edge of a pork chop. Moreover, there are a number of diet meals available in and out of the market. All you have to do is to choose which one can be beneficial for your routine. For instance, if you are under endurance training, you may consume more protein and carbs to give you more energy.
