Fitness and exercise are an important part of leading a healthy life. People who exercise regularly have healthier hearts, and are less prone to problems related to obesity as well as depression and other mental illnesses. Read on to find out how you can set up your own fitness program and start to feel great!
If you are a woman and uncomfortable working out in front of men, check out the many new chains of female-only gyms. Many women are self-conscious of their image, especially those who may be just beginning to take fitness seriously. It can be intimidating to go to a gym filled with the opposite sex. By keeping groups small and female-only, many of these new gyms are perfectly suited for a woman starting out on her fitness journey.
A good tip to help you get fit is to invest in a shaker bottle. Shaker bottles are great because they allow you to make a protein shake on the fly. By bringing one with you to the gym, you’ll always be able to get your proper post-workout nutrition.
Using a treadmill can be the way to go for those who want to improve their aerobic fitness while being able to stay in the same room safely at home and not out jogging or running on a sidewalk somewhere. The treadmill gives one an always available always ready to use option for maintaining fitness.
Bench presses are a simple weighted exercise that you can do to work out your chest muscles. All gyms have bar weights for doing bench presses, but if you have one at home, you can do it there, or use dumb bells to replace a bar. Simply lay on your back on a weight platform and lift your arms into the air while holding the weight. Then lower your arms.
It is possible to speed up recovery time from a particularly hard workout. The day after your hard workout, lightly exercise the same muscles. Use weights which are about twenty percent of your max weight and do two sets of twenty-five repetitions. This will help to deliver nutrients and blood to muscles to help them recover at a faster rate.
As you prepare for a strength training workout, skip the pre-workout warmup on the treadmill. Instead, increase the efficiency of your workout by spending those fifteen minutes warming up the targeted muscle groups that you will be working on during your session. You can then spend those fifteen minutes on the treadmill, after you complete your routine.
Sometimes it can be difficult to determine whether or not your training program is too strenuous for your cardiovascular system. Prior to starting or intensifying a workout program, measure and document your heart rate immediately upon waking. This should be done for at least five days leading up to the change. After you have started or intensified your program, continue to take measurements on the days after your workout. An increase of more than 10 beats per minute indicates that your body may not be recovering from the change as efficiently as it should be.
As you can see, staying fit isn’t as intimidating as it seems. Fitness is very important, and now you can join the millions of people who exercise and reap the health and mental benefits. Follow these simple fitness tips and you’ll be well on your way to looking, feeling, and being great!