Starting a Fitness Routine and Sticking to It

ByR. Duescher

Starting a fitness routine can be tough, especially in this fast paced world we live in. Everybody's busy - you have to make time for yourself to exercise. Whether it's at 11 p.m. or 6 a.m., a regular workout routine will help to make you feel more in control of your health. Having small children can make it more challenging to sneak in those workouts. Be creative! Remember, you don't always have to hire a sitter, or even leave the house to make exercise a part of your life.

Here are some ideas on how to get started, and stay motivated:

• Set goals - Make your goals realistic and attainable. A short-term goal might be to exercise for 5 minutes once or twice a day, then gradually increase as you progress. Your long-term goal may be to build up to 30-60 minutes of exercise 4-5 times per week.

• Put it on paper - What are you hoping to achieve? Lose weight? Boost energy? Sleep better? Manage a chronic health condition? Writing it down may help you stay motivated. Also, logging your exercise duration and how you feel after will help remind you that you are making progress.

• Make exercise a part of your daily routine - Schedule workouts like you would schedule anything else. Exercising first thing in the morning may help eliminate excuses that may come up later. Once you are done, you can concentrate on the rest of the day and not have to worry about trying to fit it in. Also, exercise is a mood regulator - you may find that you are in a better mood for the rest of the day after exercising right away in the morning.

• Make it fun - Mix it up! If you're not enjoying yourself, try something else. Modern exercise machines have many different options to keep things fresh. Watching TV while on an elliptical machine or listening to music while pedaling an exercise bike can also make the workout go by much faster. Workout DVDs are great - there are so many different ones out there for cardio, strength training, circuit training, yoga, pilates, etc. You can rotate them monthly, or more often, to work different muscles or just to spice things up.

• Be flexible - If you do find life getting in the way of your workouts, take a day or two off and relax. Don't beat yourself up if you slide a bit. Just get back to it as soon as you can.

• Join forces with friends, family, or neighbors - You are not alone! Try and recruit others to join you in your fitness quest. Having someone to support you and maybe even workout with can be priceless.

• Reward yourself - After exercising, take a few minutes to enjoy that exhilarating feeling of a hard workout. This type of reward can help you make a long-term commitment to regular exercise. When reaching a long-term goal, treat yourself to a new pair of athletic shoes, new workout gear, or even something unrelated, like a new dress, trendy new shoes, or whatever tickles your fancy. Never make food a reward for exercise - you don't want to cancel out all of your hard work by eating badly.

Remember - Fitness is for Life. As you progress toward your fitness goals, you will find yourself looking forward to your regular exercise routine. Also remember that eating healthy and regular exercise go hand in hand. You cannot exercise away a bad diet.

Author: R. Duescher

I have been writing for many years, and have recently worked my way into writing articles online. My personal experiences and training are the inspiration for my articles.

To further your quest for at home fitness routines and healthy living, please visit http://www.cardiofitnessshop.com.

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Starting a Running Program That Will Keep You Running All Through The Year

ByJohn J Gomez

If you've decided on starting a running program, that certainly is the best decision you could make where maintaining your health is concerned. Running is perhaps one of the finest aerobic exercises there is, and not to mention also being an excellent way to lose weight over the long term. However, when starting a running program, remember that it is also a repetitive exercise that can have a high impact on the joints of the body, so you need to make sure that you follow certain procedures when starting your running program.

One of the most important things, I think, is to begin your running program on a soft surface. Don't run on tarmac when starting a running program, because this creates repetitive stress for the joints that can lead to a chronic injury over time. Secondly, don't run too far during the first two weeks. Make sure that you ease into your routine gently, so that you don't cause excess stress for your body. Run a simple and manageable distance the first time round. Indispose your running with bits of walking. As your body adapts to the new stresses you're placing upon it, you can always increase the amount and distance that you run.

What your initial body condition is also has an impact upon how much you can run when you're starting a running program. If you're reasonably young and fit, and not overweight, then you shouldn't have any problems at all getting into a reasonably strenuous running program. But if you're carrying around a few extra pounds, then you may consider easing into your running routine a little more gently. You see, there's no point in getting injured when you start running, because it means that you'll have to break your running schedule for a few weeks or even longer, and during that time your fitness and endurance go down... and when you do start running again, you'll find that you have to begin perhaps almost from scratch.

So what sort of routine should you start running with if you are a little overweight or not too fit? Well, how about a routine of alternating walking and running? Walk for two minutes, then run slowly or jog for about a minute or so, and then walk for two minutes once again. Do this for a total period of about half an hour, it's good enough to start with. Over time, you can increase the running segments of your schedule to equal the time that you spent walking. For example, you can run for two minutes, and then walk for two minutes. As your body adapts to this, you can run for a longer period of time than you spend walking and ultimately, of course, you can phase out the walking altogether.

I would say that if you are not very fit, this process should take between two to four months. I also believe that if you are not very fit, or overweight, you should not train perhaps more than two times a week. Start out your training routine by running two times a week, and then slowly, over a period of around three months or so increase that to three times a week, and then you can add another day in after that, if you like. For a person who isn't fit there should be a break of at least forty eight hours between running routines, especially when starting a running program, and even for a person who's fit a break of twenty four hours is certainly recommended.

This article was written by John Gomez who has many years of running experience and has been training professional athletes. Visit http://www.starting-to-run.com for more information about running.

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Core Strength - 3 Huge Reasons to Focus On Core Strength Starting Today

ByAndrew R Reichelderfer

Many people hear the words core strength, and they simply have no idea what that means.

What is core strength, and furthermore how will it help you to strengthen your core muscles, and what muscles are your core muscles anyway?

These are all very common questions so don't feel bad. By the end of this article you'll have the answer to all of those questions, and then some...

What does core strength mean? I didn't even know I had a core!

Alright so when you hear people say that you should focus on core strength, what they're talking about is strengthening those muscles that make up the core of your body.

Basically, if you took your body and chopped off your legs under the pelvis, and your arms at the shoulders, that would be your core (minus your head, but let's not go chopping that off just yet...you'll need your eyes to finish this article).

The muscles that are left are the pelvic muscles, your abdominal muscles, your oblique muscles (the muscles that cover your ribs), and your glutes (your butt). There are other more interior muscles that make up the core muscle group as well, but let's keep this simple...and keep you awake.

In essence, these are the major muscles that make up the foundation of your body which protects your ever-so-important spinal cord and your vital organs.

So, with all that being said, let's get to the point of why core strength is extremely important.

3 Extremely Important Reasons to Focus on Core Strength...(and 1 maybe not so important...)

1) It's What Makes You Look Ripped (Yes, we start with the not-so-important pure vanity reason)- When you start building your core muscles, you start to build and bring out those muscles that well...let's say that the opposite sex seems to notice.

You know... the six-pack abs type of look? Well that's what happens when you put the spotlight on your core muscles. You get that sexy body and slender looks that the boys and girls just seem to love.

I brought this up first because let's face it...we all want to look better and more sexy. So now that we got that out of the way...

2) You'll Become a Better Athlete or At Least More Athletic - Whether it's running, boxing, football, basketball, or whatever sport you fancy...the athlete with a strong core will always be the better athlete.

Your core strength is what determines your speed, your agility, and your power. These three things are almost always what will determine whether you're a winner or loser in the world of sports.

3) No More Back Pain - For many this is a huge one. In fact according to experts, 80% - or 4 out of 5 people - will suffer some sort of back pain in their lifetime. It's also the second biggest reason that people visit the health clinic, only behind the common cold.

At any given time in the United States alone, 31 million people are suffering from some sort of back pain. That's pretty startling wouldn't you say?

If you already suffer from back pain, then it's probably not startling at all for you. In fact you might even feel a little better, just knowing that you're not alone.

But what's now unique to you, is that you now know that the way to both stop your back from hurting now, and keeping back pain from plaguing you over and over is to build core strength.

What this does essentially is to protect all of those smaller muscles in your back from getting too overly taxed and strained. This is most often what causes back pain, along with pinched nerves. But again, a strong core will keep these problems at bay, because you're now using the more major muscles in your body to do all of the heavy lifting, and not over burdening the minor ones that aren't meant for that.

So there you go, if you've ever needed a reason to increase core strength, you've now got three, with the last one being a huge one for 4 out of 5 people in the USA alone.

Now the issue is how to build core strength... and get all of the benefits of looking good, being a better athlete, and getting rid of back pain fast and forever. Click the link at the bottom to find out more!

Click here to find out more about your core and other muscles in your body! http://www.musclesandexercise.com

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Starting Your Weight Lifting Program - Tips

ByJordan S Scheller

Before starting a weight lifting program to build strength or to attain the shape you desire, you first need to look at four factors that affect your performance. These four factors include fiber type, limb length, metabolism, and your muscle/tendon relationships. When you become informed on these four factors you can better design a workout that will get you the results you are seeking.

Fiber Type

Humans have many different types of muscle fibers. Some people contain fibers that are great for strength and mass, while others have fibers that are more built for endurance.

Those with muscle fibers, which are best suited for endurance, have what is called slow twitch muscle fibers. These types of fibers have a rich supply of blood and oxygen that allows for a swift recovery time. As you can tell, quick recovery is extremely beneficial when it comes to activities such as walking, jogging, or swimming. Although, such fibers are not so beneficial when it comes to explosive activities, such as lifting, jumping, or sprinting. As you can derive from the name, slow twitch muscle fibers are just that, slow.

In contrast, fast twitch muscle fibers are make their owners best suited for quick and explosive actions.

Limb Length

Another factor that I want to mention is limb length. Have you ever noticed that most of the time you see someone benching a whole lot of weight, they will normally have short stubby arms? Short arms are in fact quite a big advantage when it comes to weight lifting. With shorter arms, you have less of a range of motion that you must push or pull the weight through. Longer arms must complete a greater range of motion, therefore requiring more energy and force.

As your limbs act as levers, long arms also put more stress on joints and tendons.

Metabolism

Have you ever known someone who can eat all the time and still never gain an ounce of weight? If so, this person most likely had an extremely high metabolism. When choosing a workout program, it is vital to incorporate your metabolism to obtain the correct diet you need.

Muscle/Tendon Relationship

The last factor I want to mention is the relationship between your muscles and tendons. First, tendons are the mechanisms that attach your muscles to your bones. Longer muscles will generally be stronger than their shorter counterparts. This is because the cross sectional area of the longer muscle is greater. If you are tall, you might be thinking that you have long muscles. Be warned, most tall, lanky people will have short muscles with long tendons, which is not a good combination for building strength.

Keep these four factors in mind when creating a strength-building program, so you can set realistic goals and gains.

Jordan is a avid physical fitness guru who enjoys sharing what he learns through his years. If you are interested in ankle weights, I would suggest that you follow the link to learn all you need to know about the benefits, risks, and much more about Ankle Weights. Follow me on Twitter to discover Ankle Weights Benefits.

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