Fitness Tips For Everybody
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5 Fitness Fundamentals For Everybody

1. Start Now

You engage in fitness either because

a) you want to (good choice)

b) you have to.

Waiting until you “have to” because of immobility, disease, or health risks is never the best choice but it’s never too late to start.

It just might mean you have to start small and work your way up to a better and fitter you.

While a healthy diet and lifestyle may not guarantee a long life, it can often make the difference of living a pain- and medicine-free life versus one regulated by a pill.

2. Determine what motivates you

Whether it’s winning a race, losing weight, gaining flexibility, looking good in a bathing suit, or living a long life, knowing and owning your motivation is key.

Motivation is the magic bullet that will help you stick to your fitness regimen and knowing what makes you tick is crucial for your success.

If you’re motivated by others, doing solo workouts in your basement might be less successful than attending group classes at a gym, working out together with a buddy or joining a group run.

3. Be aware of your Physical Limitations

Always be mindful of your health and wellbeing and understand your fitness limitations and weaknesses. Do you have an arthritic joint? A bad back? A lopsided gait?

Piling fitness efforts on top of some form of dysfunction (or doing a movement pattern incorrectly) can actually make your condition worse. Doing exercise without some form of assessment is a bit like a doctor prescribing medication without first giving the patient an examination.

So how do you assess your limitations?

If you can afford it, it’s worth the cost to get a professional assessment done. For example, having a professional trainer perform a Functional Movement Screen (FMS) allows the trainer to identify your

asymmetries and learn where you need the most improvement.

If a professional assessment isn’t possible, do a self-assessment:

  • Check out your resting heart rate and blood pressure
  • Do a mental body scan to identify your aches, pains, and weaknesses
  • Record your weight, height, crucial body measurements, and BMI
  • Evaluate your range of motion in all of your major joints
  • Look at your posture: Head pitched forward? Shoulders rounded? Pelvis tilted forward or back?

Even a rudimentary self-assessment provides you with a baseline so you can monitor how you are doing and if things are improving or not as you progress in your fitness plan.

4. SET REALISTIC GOALS

Being overambitious about your goals can set you up for failure and derail your best intentions. Start by asking yourself: “How much time do I really have?” And be honest when you answer. Then set goals on your realistic assessment and work within your available time windows.

Whatever your goals (lose weight, be more active, eat healthier), you should start with small, achievable steps. As you progress, you can increase your workout time, distance, or intensity and/or gradually decrease or change your caloric intake and diet.

Rather than just one big goal, it’s important to have short- and mid-term goals on the way. Even if your ultimate goal is to run a marathon, but you’re new to running, your first goal should be to run around the block, followed by making it up to 2 miles in 3 weeks. Having those smaller, incremental goals provides you with motivation and victories all along the way.

5. Seek Out Accountability

Being accountable to someone or something can make the difference between success and failure.

It can be a friend you meet every morning for a run, a gym class you attend regularly, an app you use to track your exercise and nutrition, or an online community of like-minded individuals or friends.

To make accountability tangible, keep a log. Record your workouts and caloric intake every day to monitor your progress and to stay on track.

This also helps you make course corrections on your food intake or exercise without giving up in defeat if you miss a workout or eat too much.

 

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Fitness Tips Every Man Should Read
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5 Fitness Tips Every Man Should Read

1. Work On Your Flexibility

One of the key differences between a man’s and a woman’s body is that men are generally less flexible than women. You may not think flexibility is important, but it is. Stretching your muscles regularly will help you move more efficiently, it can also help you stay injury-free and can relax your muscles, in turn reducing stress. Attending yoga or Pilates classes can help you improve your flexibility. Remember, as a general rule, men’s hamstrings, shoulders and lower backs need to be worked on more than other areas of the body, so pay special attention to these parts in flexibility sessions.

2. Go Slower

It may be something of a cliché, but men do tend to have a healthy competitive spirit. While this is great for your motivation and encouraging you to push yourself, it can also lead to problems. For example, many men fall into the trap of thinking that in order to be better and achieve more they have to perform all of their exercises at a super-fast pace. Although that’s true when performing some exercises, for others this is just not the case.

Take weight-lifting for example. When lifting slowly, say for 10 seconds in total, you increase the amount of time your muscles are tense, and simultaneously increase the blood flow. That means you help to develop and increase your muscle mass. So next time you train, remember faster is not always better – take the time to find out what speed you should be working at for each different exercise. 

3. Try New Things

In most cases, it would appear that men are terrible for sticking to the same fitness routine. If this sounds familiar, perhaps you need to explore new ways to get fit. Doing different types of fitness activities means that you work different parts of your body and in so doing you improve your core strength, your flexibility and your balance. Working up the courage to try new things is one of the biggest obstacles most men face when it comes to trying different workouts. But if you don’t fancy going into a Pilates class or joining a boxing club on your own, why not take a friend with you or try a training DVD before going to a class.

4. Holistic Approach To Fitness

Another thing that women seem to be better at than men is taking a holistic approach to fitness. That means they engage physically, mentally and emotionally with their fitness programmes. Taking this approach to fitness has many health benefits, and studies show that some holistic training techniques can improve fitness. One of the other benefits of the holistic approach to fitness is that your stress levels can decrease, and it is also thought that certain types of holistic practises, such as Tai Chi, can improve bone health. So, to take advantage of these and other benefits, explore some of the many different holistic fitness techniques that are out there. 

5. Take A Break 

Another fitness tip that men should put into action is to properly rest and recover between sessions. Doing back-to-back sessions may make you feel like you are doing the best thing for your body, but not giving yourself a break between workouts will lead to you suffering burn-out, losing motivation and generally doing more harm than good. Furthermore, taking a rest day will mean that when you train again you’ll be more likely to train harder. Ideally, you should take a day off from exercising every two to three days as a minimum. And make sure that on those rest days you stay hydrated and avoid doing anything too strenuous. If you’re really struggling not to do anything on rest days, you could try a few flexibility workouts. 

Finally, if you’ve been lifting weights or exercising certain muscle groups, make sure you don’t train that same muscle group again the following day.

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Fitness Tips for a Better Lifestyle

5 Simple Fitness Tips for a Better Lifestyle

Hydration is the key!

Drinking fluids, in general, will help you keep healthy. A hydrated body delivers more energy, improved stamina and alertness.  If weight loss is your particular goal, drinking ice water burns extra calories due to the body having to warm up to counter temperature change. Avoid drinking fizzy drinks as much as possible; a lot of people are unaware of actually how much sugar is in them, which is subsequently stored by your body if you do not have an active lifestyle.

Variety is the spice of life

Combining cardio and weight training is a very effective way to keep healthy. Cardio training is the best way to burn fat during activities but effective weight training creates an afterburn effect, which means your body burns calories even after you’ve finished exercising.

Interval training

Finding enough time to work out can be an issue. Interval training is based on higher intensity work for shorter periods of time. This method is far more time friendly and can offer better results than steady workouts done at one particular speed.

Procrastination kills

If you wait for the perfect conditions you’ll never get started, equally, you need to enjoy your exercise if it’s going to become a permanent part of your lifestyle. Remember there is no one set path to achieving your goal. Find what works best for and stick with it! The most important thing is getting started, ‘80% of success is showing up’ – Woody Allen

What motivates you?

Find a workout partner to train with, interaction with people whilst exercising can distract the brain from the activity and help you go for longer. Set yourself realistic goals over specific periods of time.

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Fitness Success Tips

5 Simple Tips for Fitness Success

Congratulations on taking a forward step to get in shape and feel great. Many people are guilty of wishing they could get a sculpted body from eating junk food and watching TV all day. But that is just not going to happen. Even though getting in shape sounds like a long, time-wasting process, the effort put towards being in shape has many positive effects. If you want to start your journey to having a better body to feel great, here are some tips:

1. Exercise Daily

Exercise daily for at least an hour. You do not have to kill yourself from running, jogging, etc., but you should have some sort of moderate physical activity in your everyday life. If you’re looking to shed a few pounds fast, do a higher-level intensity workout. For example, go on a walk at a brisk pace for an hour. Or, you can jog and set certain intervals to sprint during that hour. Make sure you’re not in severe pain during your workout. Just a warning, your muscles will ache after a high intensity workout. It may be irritating, but that means your body is changing for the better. Be sure to stay hydrated, stretch, and eat foods with a decent amount of protein after each workout. The protein will help keep your muscles, not fat, rebuilding.

2. Eat the Right Foods and Portion Each Meal

No matter how bad your stomach is telling you to go for candy over healthy food, try to stay away from sweets. Sugar from candy will not help you get in shape. Even if it’s just a single candy bar, one will eventually lead to another. Fruits and vegetables are the best thing to eat when getting into shape. Apples, for example, do a good job at making the stomach feel full for up to 3 to 4 hours. Green vegetables such as green beans and broccoli keep the digestive system clean and running.

Also, stick to lean meats like turkey and chicken. Seafood, such as, shrimp, and tilapia are also great alternatives. These foods are full of protein and healthy nutrients to help keep muscles fit and ready for workouts. In addition, be sure to portion what you eat. Having a good metabolism comes from portioning meals. Try to plan out eating six times a day and setting smaller portions, rather than having three large meals throughout the day. This will also help you find yourself breathing smoother when working out rather than huffing and puffing for air. This is because you will have less food in your digestive system, which means more energy is used toward your exercise.

3. Keep Track of Calories and Food Intake Per Day

Keeping track of how many calories you eat in a day will be helpful in planning out your physical exercising. Ever wonder why body builders’ body masses are so big? That’s because they plan out their meals and take in more (healthy) calories than the average person. On the other hand, losing weight and striving for a skinnier physique will involve more physical exercise than calories you ingest.

4. Be Sure to Get Sleep

Even though most of us have eight-hour jobs during the day or night, it is crucial to get enough sleep to recharge the body’s batteries. Six to eight hours of sleep will keep the body going throughout the day, but if you happen to feel tired at any point after coming home from work, by all means take a small nap before exercising. You should only nap for about a half hour. This will prevent you from staying up later in the night.

5. Stay Motivated

An important key to being in shape is to set goals and keep a positive mindset. If you stay positive, you will be able to push yourself to get that fit body you’ve always wanted.

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