Tips to Help You Plan a Fitness Regimen

By Pinky Arnisola


You need to look at the overall picture in order to fit a serious fitness regimen into your life and get back into shape. To be successful with your exercise program, it will have to become a habitual, routine part of your life. A lot of times people pay scant attention to the reason for this.

As you begin to exercise your body, it will respond to the changes relative to what you do. Each new change you add to your health routine will impact your body somehow. We'll talk about some areas that will change based on your new exercise program. For example, generally just taking better care of your body and eating healthy foods will make a difference.

The one thing you want to avoid is depriving your body of much needed nutrients. If you don't eat adequate calories, your body will feed on itself to have enough energy to exist. This is not what you want to happen. If you deprive yourself of what you need, then your energy levels will plummet. Athletes involved in intense workouts have learned to pay attention to their body. Your body will give you continuous feedback as to what it needs and if there is a problem anywhere. All you have to do is pay attention to what is going on inside of you. The main benefit will be you - you will be better able to take measures that can prevent injury by listening to your body. Of course, you have to follow through on your intuition. Instead of being macho and pushing through inappropriate pain and causing further damage, do the right thing and stop. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is either stop what you are doing or take positive measures based on feedback.

It doesn't matter what method of fitness training you choose, you must become limber. Stretch out your legs also. One good way to do this is to walk briskly for 15 minutes and then do some standard leg stretches. You can easily use many different stretches to warm up your leg muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Despite the fact that you may consider yourself fit, when you are first starting you need to take it slow and easy. You can easily stretch out your hamstring muscles by bending over from the waist. Don't worry if you cannot bend all the way down. It will come in time. Just don't force yourself to go further than is comfortable without any pain. Don't bounce or jerk when you stretch. Gently stretch to the point of tension and then hold.

To have better health for your children, you need better health for yourself, as the parents. Children tune out parents pretty fast when they hear things being said that aren't being done. You need a family meeting to set the ground rules, which everyone should follow. Exercising should be fun for all members of the family, so there might need to be some compromise. When you choose to exercise as a family, the health benefits will be great. Anything done together that encourages communication and togetherness, will improve the family life. In the final analysis, you usually can't come up with a good excuse for not beginning, and maintaining, a simple exercise program. The plan you choose has to include exercises you enjoy doing and will stick to. You must be naturally attracted to any form of exercise you choose so you don't lose interest. After you figure out what you can do to become fit, visit your doctor and get clearance to proceed. After visiting your doctor and getting the OK from him or her, assemble any equipment or gear you might need and put your plan into action. Remember, if you haven't worked out for a long time, don't try to exercise like you did when you were younger. You are only inviting injury if you do that.




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