When you think of fitness, do you just see it as something that you have no time for in your schedule? If is the case, then you have a very narrow view of the subject. Fitness is so much more, and it can be personalized so that it works with your own schedule. Read on to find out how.
When designing your fitness program, focus on strength and endurance, not just muscle mass. Increasing muscle mass doesn’t make you healthier and it doesn’t make you more attractive. Better fitness comes from a well-rounded exercise program that will increase your functional strength, raise your heart rate on a regular basis, and increase your lung capacity.
When looking for another way to improve fitness sometimes one needs to look no further than their pet dog. By taking the dog on walks around the neighborhood or specific trails an individual can increase the amount of exercise they and their pet get. Apart from all the extra exercise and the benefits from that one will strengthen the bond between owner and their pet.
For healthy fitness staying hydrated is vitally important. The benefits of getting plenty of water do not end at the gym door, though. Besides powering an exerciser through a tough workout, a plentiful water intake improves overall health and aids in digestion throughout the day. Total hydration is another part of a plan for overall fitness.
Push yourself, try and see how many push ups and sit ups you can do before your body just gives up. Try and do this every time you workout and see if your endurance has gone up over time. You should be impressed with what your actual limits are after a few weeks of constant exercise.
You should keep track of all of the calories you’re consuming on a daily basis. It’s one thing to work out to get into shape, but monitoring your diet also takes a toll in how fast you get fit. You have to work hard at getting into shape by exercising both your body and regulating your eating habits.
Invest in a quality pair of workout shoes. Your feet are actually smaller in the morning when you wake up. In order to find the optimal fit, go shoe shopping after you get off work or in the late evening; by this time, your feet are at their largest. The perfect fit will allow you approximately one half inch between your toes and the shoe’s end.
You can actually fool your body into thinking that it has lifted more weight than you actually have. You can do this by shifting your focus entirely to your dominate hand. This somehow causes a mentality that you are stronger and that you can lift more weight. Thinking that way can cause you to actually be able to lift more weight so that you can increase the benefits of your workout.
To achieve quicker and better results from your exercising your calves, work them while both standing up and sitting down. This ensures that you are using both the muscle types in your calves, providing them with a thorough workout. You can even add ankle weights to amp up the results.
Don’t anchor your feet when doing situps. Anchoring your feet can cause you to “cheat” on your situps by using your legs instead of your abdominal muscles, limiting the effectiveness of your workout. Anchoring your feet can also cause injury to your back. Instead, try doing situps on a medicine ball.
After reading through all of that, do you still see fitness in the same way? Do you now see that it is so much more, and that they are very simple things that you can add to your schedule to help improve your appearance and health? It doesn’t have to be hard work; it’s whatever you make it.
