Chapter 4
The Importance Of Exercise
In this chapter, I will tell you about different types of exercises and their effects on different aspects of your life and health.
Exercising
Exercising and dieting are two things that go hand in hand. If you just diet without exercising, you may not see any result at all because you are not losing calories fast enough in your diet. Also if you do manage to lose weight without dieting, you would look thin and frail as you lose your fat. So it is better to exercise to keep your body fit while you diet. There are also other reasons to exercise.
“A recent survey showed that seven out of ten adults do not exercise regularly and close to four out of ten are not physically active. If you do not exercise, then you will risk getting stroke, diabetes and heart disease. This has lead to death for about 300 000 people.”
Before you start exercising, you should consult a physician. This is to know your current body condition and see if you would risk injuries if you perform tiring exercise activities. When you first start out exercising, do it slowly. First start off with only 10 minutes which then is increase to 20 minutes then to 30 minutes and so on and so forth over the period of months. This will help avoid your body to feel very sore after each work out and decrease any injury risk.
You should at least do 30 minutes or more of moderate cardiovascular activities each day. You do not have to do all 30 minutes together; it can be even short bouts of intermittent activities. Then twice a week, do exercise that would train your muscles. You can incorporate this physical exercise into your daily life. For example, take the stairs to the office instead of the elevator; go for a jog during your lunch time or park further away from your work place.
If you feel this is a too much of a chore, why not try to make your leisure time more active. Instead of sitting at home only, ask your family out for a bicycle ride, join a rock climbing club or just stroll the park every evening.
Pick out exercising activities that you would enjoy to do, find it satisfying and gives you a feeling of accomplishment. A successful run will motivate you more to be physically active. Make it easy for you to be active by picking exercise that is easier accessible so you will not be unmotivated every time you want to perform your exercise. Lastly, pick out exercise that is compatible with your body and current age.
The 3 Main Types Of Exercise
First of all, you need to know that there are three kinds of exercise plans which are available and all four of them have different advantages for your physical health.
Exercise To Improve Bone and Muscle Strength
These exercises are also called strength and resistance training. Most of the people take body building as strength and resistance increasing exercise but you need to know that body building is another category of exercise in which the primary goal of the person is to enhance muscle growth.
You can add some weight lifting and body building in your fat burning and weight control plan but you should do it to an extent where your body can bear it without any problem. If you over tried this exercise then, your whole body can be a mess. I have seen people joining gyms and doing hard exercise just by watching other people doing it. This is not the way to go instead consult your trainer personally and ask him about appropriate exercises which can fit in your needs. If your weight is under control and you need just light exercise to keep your healthy system going then, you do not need to lift heavy weights.
Flexibility Increasing Exercises
Second type of exercise plan can be to increase your flexibility and in more common terms you can say that if you used to have pain in your arms, legs, lower back, neck and other similar areas of your body then, you need to make your body more flexible. Flexibility will increase resistance and you will be able to cope with more difficult positions and postures easily. You have to go through different postures in daily life for example if you work in an office then, you can be given an uncomfortable chair at times or you may be given some work in which you have to concentrate hard on computer screen and you cannot rest your back with chair. In these situations, if you do not have any flexibility in your body then, it will create problems but regular flexibility exercises which will not take more than 10-15 minutes of your time, will increase this flexibility and will make you feel better and active.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardio means heart and vascular means the vessels of blood and this whole phrase means that these exercises improve the functionality of your lungs and make the use of oxygen more effective and rectify any heart problems which you can have. These exercises are little time consuming and should be properly learned from your doctor or trainer. Most of the times, people who already have got some heart problem perform these kinds of exercises to avoid any future problems.
Finding Exercises To Be Done At Home
A major change has been observed in the tendency of workout freaks, which is changing their exercise locale from gyms to home. Reason being, the soaring membership prices and binding contracts. As a result, they have started to opt for home fitness programs.
Finding exercises to be done at home is not a complex job, rather a much more convenient option. There are many great cardio exercises which can be done without much cost to the users. The main money spent is in a good pair of walking, jogging or aerobic shoe, depending on the kind of activity desired. Besides, a jumping rope is also a great addition for skipping at home because it provides users added alternatives of aerobic workouts that can include rapid work interval training. One can do it while watching TV or may be by playing music alongside. One should jump for a duration of thirty seconds to a minute as fast as possible and rest in between for sometime before starting again. You can always perform it during ad commercials and watch the rest of your show calming your body. Today, video and DVD market is flooded with exercise, aerobics and yoga CDs and DVDs which can be purchased for a favorable fitness exercise regime to start at home.
This gives more alternatives to people in case jogging or walking becomes mundane or if the weather does not allow you to go outside and run. Running and walking can actually become all the more interesting if done with a partner, provided no chit-chat and gossip hours begin and win over your fitness schedule. '
Varying the ground of the running or walking area can also add change to the daily workout process. Remember, it is very essential that you enjoy what you do to keep yourself fit if you actually want to feel the change in your health and body. Besides, age does matter while selecting the kind of workout that you do. An adult person may be capable of losing weight using particular equipments and build muscles as well, but an elderly may not just get the same results from the same regimen. It is simply because of the quality of performance and not the utilization the expensive and similar machines. Thu, it’s advisable that you always choose a kind of fitness regimen that goes well with your body, age and needs keeping the various health constraints that age brings along.
Exercises that you can perform at home
Leaving you with no excuses of not finding the right type of exercises that you can do at home, here is a list of the appropriate home fitness based program exercises for you-
Prior to starting these exercises you must warm up yourself for minimum of five minutes by jogging or brisk walk around the block or by skipping on the spot. You must perform multiple sets of the exercises mentioned above depending upon your endurance level and requirement. Also, taking intervals in between is equally essential. You can combine two exercises that use diverse muscle groups alternating between two things that provide each muscle group some rest while you perform another.
To get the best results, perform these workouts at least three times a week, with no less than a day between exercises for sufficient recovery. You must always strive to increase the intensity or load and to increase your fitness growth. Once your fitness improves, you can undergo this routine without bothering much and start with a more superior program. Use your creativity and find more things to use for working out at home.
Using buckets, filled with the amount of water you want can be employed for squats and stepups. Filling up milk bottles with 2 liter water makes it equivalent to a 2 kg weight to be used for overhead triceps extension, bicep curls and bent over rows. Shopping bags and backpack filled with items can be used for lunges, stepups and squats. Utilizing bricks by breaking them in half in case of lower weight is appropriate for pushups, bench press, lateral raises and front raise.
Then comes the age old forms of exercises that come under the practice of yoga asana. A lot of people not just perform these exercises for the sole aim of relieving mental stress but to get and stay fit as well. If you look at the fitness regimens of every famous celebrity today including the big names like Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, it is yoga that has worked wonders on their body to get the envious figure every girl wants. Not only women, even men have also started incorporating this form of fitness to build up muscles using their own body weight. This is the most natural way of dealing with your body and respecting it as well.