A Beginners Guide To Exercise: Five Great Ways To Help You Get Started

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Are you considering starting a fitness regime? Have you noticed the bathroom scales creeping up? Are those jeans getting tighter? Do you think your diet, lack of exercise and general morale needs improving? If so, you are already considering a change in lifestyle. This article will help introduce  five great pointers to help you get the most out of your healthy and active lifestyle through exercise (and therein diet) to help you achieve your goals.

Let’s look at five elements that can help you get Exercise-savvy:

 

#1 – Assess your FITNESS

Are you new to exercise? Perhaps, you should begin first by assessing your needs and requirements. First, you should always consult a doctor. Your doctor will be able to tell you if you have any medical conditions which could be exacerbated through certain types of exercise.

Therefore, make an appointment now to find if any of your past or current illnesses could impact upon your workout regime.

 

#2 – Plan your WORKOUTS

You will need to get a workout plan – you can use a notepad, word document or any online resource. This is an important and often ill used approach. The plan looks at your short, medium and long term goals. You need to be specific here! So writing down ‘loose weight’ is not good enough – because after 2 weeks of 30min runs on a gym treadmill two or three times a week could result in the loss of a few pounds.

There your goal has been hit, and you can quit! By being specific, you can see and explore your progress over time. So I want to lose x number of kilograms or stone is a specific target. This way you can, over time, use the benchmark target as something to aim for. So sit down with your notepad and think about what you want out of your workouts. Similarly, you need to plan your workouts – life is hectic.

You need to make time for your exercise so think about your life and your commitments and focus on free/space time that could be utilised to undertake your workout requirements.

 

#3 – Start Off SLOWLY

Many, many people start off too quick and too fast. This will cause you to ‘burn out’ quicker which could result in you losing the psychological edge to help you continue to motivate yourself to achieve your goals and aims. Therefore, start slowly. If you are swimming, start with 5 laps not 10. If you are running, start off with a 15 minute jog not a 30 minute jog. In reality, you should be comfortable, so you need do the activity until you can’t do it anymore – not because it’s hard but because your body can’t continue because of pain or fear of injury. So you need to understand your body and not over exert yourself.

 

#4 – The importance of HAPPINESS

Be happy in what you are doing! If you are not happy, then you won’t get the most out of it. If you are embarrassed or shy, then you need to think about what you are doing in terms of exercise. If you want to go swimming but feel ashamed in the pool, choose something else? Why not try cycling, jogging or even aerobics? There are a lot of different activities you can try.

Why not think about, during the summer months, avoiding the car and walking more? Therefore, put your happiness first because, without it, you will not get the maximum results from your endeavours.

 

#5 – Always be COMFORTABLE

You will need comfortable equipment from running shoes, clothes, swimming costume or bike depending on your type of exercise. Therefore, don’t make do with any old pair of trainers or equipment. They need to be comfortable because they could cause you injury, which could set back your endeavours and make your targets seem further and further away.

Therefore, go to specialist’s stores like JD Sports or Sports Direct and find the right trainers, the right tops, the right shorts and the right equipment to help you be completely comfortable in the workouts and exercises you are undertaking.

 

Conclusion

Therefore, if you take the above five points – being comfortable, taking it slowly, being happy, assessing your fitness and planning your workouts – you should get the maximum benefits from your workout exercise regime. Remember you need to understand why you want to do this – be specific! Then be happy and comfortable only by being like this can you achieve any goals and targets within a realistic timeframe.

So heed this advice and go forth and enjoy your workout endeavours?