While you come across hundreds of tips to help you make your training more effective, Women Fitness brings you top 10 that will help you stick on for a long time to your fitness routine.
Be Around People Who Share Similar Goals.
Surround yourself with friends at the office, school, or in your personal life who are committed to health and fitness. People who choose healthy lifestyles will engage in behaviors that will rub off on you. Similarly, if your friends are just the opposite, they’ll likely reinforce the wrong kinds of behaviors.
Embrace Physical Challenges Outside Your Comfort Zone.
Our body holds a tendancy to avoid challenges, but workouts produce the best results when they make a little—or even more than a little—uncomfortable. Your body adapts to changes when you ask more of it than it’s used to giving. To see improvements, you must push just outside your comfort zone. Adjust your mindset to seek greater challenges over time, and you’ll see your body respond.
Track Your Progress with Apps
Gone are the days in which you needed to log your workouts and meals in spiral-bound notebooks; today, smartphone apps like MyFitnessPal handle the work with no messy calculations. Logging your training sessions and daily calories helps keep you on track and motivated. You can now track your meals, training goals, and physique pics on the net.
Fitness is about more than big muscles. Flexibility, cardio-respiratory fitness, muscular strength and endurance, and body composition are elements in determining how fit you really are, and there are activity and exercise prescriptions for each one of them. Ultimately, a balanced approach that addresses each item is essential to being truly fit.
Start off With Machines or all Body Workout
Learn movement patterns on machines first, and then try to duplicate them with barbells and dumbbells. Once you’re in proper position on a given machine, the machine balances the weight for you, which is much easier to control. Free-weight movements are harder to control because there’s no predetermined path that the weight must follow. A whole-body workout is another good option to start with as it hits the major muscle groups: glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, back, shoulders, triceps,biceps, abs, and calves. Choose one exercise for each muscle group (multijoint exercises hit multiple body parts), training every other day.
Rest 60-90 Seconds Between Sets.
Because muscle growth is determined in part by the accumulation of substances that build up over the course of your workout, taking rest periods that are too long allows them to dissipate. But cutting your rest periods too short means your body won’t be recovered sufficiently. That’s why exercise scientists recommend that you take about 60-90 seconds between sets.
Follow a Plan.
As it’s hard to understand all essentials of fitness, so it’s easier to just follow one of the beginner workouts we’ve created that closely matches your time commitment, goals, and level of ability. Knowing exactly what you want to do each workout—and why you’re doing it—will push you in the right direction better than walking into a gym and following a random approach to your training. Few people find their destination by instinct; following a roadmap will help you get to yours.
Focus on Building a Balanced Physique
Many people focus on the so-called mirror muscles—chest, arms, and abs. Over the long term, that can lead to strength imbalances, posture problems, and increased risk of injury, not to mention ridicule. Training legs is hard work, and working back isn’t necessarily sexy, but these two muscle groups in particular are among the body’s largest and will help you burn more total calories when you train them.
Connect with Others Via Social Media.
Posting your progress photos and engaging with like-minded folks can be incredibly motivating. Many of them are going through their own weight-loss journeys and are a great source of real-world tips.
Say NO to Sugary Drinks, Tea and Soda.
Majority of people consume almost 20 percent of their daily calories via liquids, so if you’re struggling with your weight, here’s a golden opportunity to cut a bunch out. Drink flavored waters that contain BCAAs or a squirt of Mio or Crystal Light. Also note that, you consume more total calories when you eat out, and many of those calories are empty, in the form of sugary beverages and desserts. If you crave, dine out only once a week this will prevent you to be tempted to indulge during a weak moment if you’re eating at home and no junk food or soda is present.
Once you’ve got the fundamentals down, a positive attitude that embraces each and every minute of the journey will take you further than ever before.