Fitness

A New Year Means New Workout Tips: Slow and Steady Wins the Race 

A Perfect Snack to Take You All the Way Most people can try procuring small bites before and even during their exercises. The main answer lies… Trista - February 14, 2020

Staying healthy is not an option these days but a necessity because of high junk food consumption among people, especially youngsters. If you are feeling mentally low, a good work out is all that you need to cheer up your mind, body, and soul. Even if you aren’t used to exercising in your everyday life, you can slowly start to form a habit. You can either work out at home or visit a gym — whatever is best for you and your lifestyle. However, when you finally decide the make the change toward a healthier life through exercise, you can’t over do it. There is no need to jump into a massive workout headfirst, only to end up with sore, pulled muscle. Keep reading to learn about exercise tips that will help you make the most of your work out.

Exercise provides a wide range of benefits, both physically and mentally. Pxfuel.

Benefits of Exercising

Experts would always recommend the teenagers to get a minimum practice of 60 minutes or even more, for that moderate or vigorous physical activity. There are multiple reasons behind that, of course. Exercise helps in benefiting every body part, and even your mind. Working out will cause the body to create chemicals to help the person feel well and sleep better. It will help people with low self-esteem and depression to get their lives back on track. Moreover, exercise will present that real accomplishment sense to help procure a goal. Let’s not forget how working out can make you look better and hotter than before! Get the opportunity to burn away some calories and look more toned down. It helps you to maintain that healthy weight.

Not just helping you to lose weight, but proper exercise will lower the risk of falling into the hands of certain diseases. Exercising regularly will decrease the risk of people developing some disorders like type 2 diabetes, obesity, and even high blood pressure. Moreover, this method helps a person to age well. You may not think it that important now, but with growing age, you can feel its positive effect. Exercise helps in keeping osteoporosis at bay, which is a common disease in older people. Catching up with some weight-bearing activities like brisk walking, running, or jumping can always help maintain stronger bones.

Aerobic exercises get the heart going and helps your body to burn more calories. Pxfuel.

Aerobic Exercises

Your muscle is not the only part that needs to feel healthy, but your heart does too. Aerobic exercising forms will help your heart get pumped up and feel breathing harder. If you can present your lungs and heart with such a workout regularly, they will get stronger and better at gaining oxygen more to other parts of the body, in the form of some of the oxygen-carrying blood cells. In case you are a part of team sports, you will get a minimum of 60 minutes or more of moderate and vigorous activities on your practice days.

Some sports will help you get the best aerobic workouts like soccer, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, and even rowing. What about those people who are not into sports or haven’t been a part of any sports team? Well, there’s nothing to worry about as there are multiple aerobic exercises for them to try out. These kinds of activities will include running, biking, dancing, swimming, in-line skating, cross-country skiing, and more. If you love tennis, walking, or hiking, you can do that too as part of aerobic exercises. But for walking, make it a fast one and not your leisure walk in the park.

Exercises in flexibility will keep your joints and muscles in tip-top shape. Pxfuel.

Flexibility Training

Even though working out helps in strengthening your muscles and heart, but that’s not everything you want from it. Exercise is a perfect way to help your body stay flexible. It means your muscles and joints will stretch out well and can even bend pretty easily. If you are flexible enough, you might get to improve your sports performance to an entirely new level. Some of the activities, like martial arts, dancing, and more, will need greater flexibility. But the increased form of flexibility can further help people perform better at some of the other sports as well, including lacrosse or soccer.

It isn’t effortless to come across some activities and sports which are purposely designed to encourage flexibility. Some of the martial arts like karate might be your good choices. If martial art is not your cup of tea, you can always try out gymnastics, ballet, and even yoga as some of the best substitutes to find. The best part is that exercise is not gender-specific anymore like it used to. So, whether a man or a woman is dreaming of a stout body, anyone can enroll in such classes. Stretching after you are done working out will further help in improving your flexibility note.

Feeling fatigued is challenging to get over, but exercise can increase energy levels. Pxfuel.

Increase Energy Levels

Exercises are the real deals whenever you are planning for an energy booster for healthy people. Even for some medical conditions, working out can be the perfect medication to follow. One study also found out that six weeks of exercising regularly reduced fatigue for around 36 healthy people who reported suffering from persistent fatigue and tiredness. On the other hand, exercise can also increase present energy levels for those people, who are the unfortunate victims of CFS or chronic fatigue syndrome and some of the other serious illnesses.

Moreover, some studies have found out that exercises can be quite effective at combating chronic fatigue syndrome than any other treatment. It will further include some passive therapies, such as stretching and relaxation. In the same way, exercise has been proven to increase the present level of energy within people dealing with some progressive illnesses such as HIV or AIDS, cancer, and even multiple sclerosis.

Exercise increases blood flow, especially to the brain, so you get a boost in memory. Pxfuel.

Improve Memory and Brain Health

Exercise can always help improve brain functions and protect memory and thinking skills. To start with it, some of the chosen practices will increase the preset heart rate and promote the blood flow and oxygen to your brain. This means it can also be the perfect choice for stimulating the current hormonal production, which further helps in enhancing the present growth of the said brain cells. Your ability to exercise will prevent chronic diseases and can prove to be beneficial for your brain. It helps in translating the negative implications into positive ones by addressing the best needs promisingly.

Regular kind of physical activity is essential in people with growing age as aging promotes changes in function and brain structure. Aging, when combined with inflammation and oxidative stress, can lead to some difficulties in usual brain functionalities. You can keep that in the bay with regular exercise from the early stages. Yoga has been the cause behind the hippocampus, which is a part of your brain, perfect for learning and memory, to grow in size. It helps in increasing the present mental function among older generations. Lastly, it is not hard to state that exercises can reduce changes in the brain, which are otherwise reasons behind some dreadful diseases like schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Don’t overexert your body, as that can result in serious injury. Pxfuel.

Avoid Intense Exercises, Especially If You’re Not Ready

According to some clinical directors, there are so many people suffering from injuries and burnouts because they are taking working out too literally. Working out too much, more than what your body can take, will give rise to exhaustion, which is not the exact result you want with the service. Moving towards New Year with this resolution to have a Barbie-like body is good, but trying to get that within weeks or a month is not always the best decision to take. Exercises will take time to show some results. So, planning to overdo anything won’t help you much.

Overdoing any exercising norm will not just burn your body out. However, it also becomes quite unsafe, leading to overuse injury, which will only set back the time further to get a picture-perfect body. If your muscles are not used to exercising, then chances are high, they will get strained faster than usual. With passing time and after gaining a workflow, you can start improving the workout regimes and increase the timing as well. It is always easier to exercise in the wrong way than to follow the right path. That’s what leads most people towards the path of injury and prevents them from sticking to a perfect fitness goal.

You don’t always have to pay for a gym membership; you can exercise at home. Pxfuel.

Exercise at Home

Yes, it’s true that you are busy with your daily life schedule and can’t just take some time for a workout. But that’s going to change once you know how to fit-in practices at home. There are some simple means to follow for that. For the first step, try making your to-do list. Create a checklist of things you need to do and the time dedicated to each task. Try finishing tasks within that allotted time and use that extra saved time to start exercising at home. On the other hand, you must try setting up a new walking goal. Try curbing down the use of cars and public commutations to those places where walking will do the deal. Try aiming for 8000 steps per day as that’s a good start.

Hydration is vital for your body, and you must not forget that. When the weather turns cold, you seem to lower the water intake, which will hit your health hard. Keep track of the bottles of water you drink daily and make sure to follow that count, no matter what the weather is outside. Be sure to get out of your selected groove. It is effortless to track workouts you have done millions of times and are good at. It is time to break that comfort zone and try something a bit hard but worthwhile. Your muscles will take time to adjust to new moves, but it will work out eventually.

You don’t even need equipment to get an excellent workout. Pxfuel.

Homemade Exercises Without Workout Equipment

If you know the right workouts, you don’t have to bother to spend hefty money on gym equipment. There are some ideas for ways to get exercise indoors for free or under your budget. Get a jump rope for a start. It is super cheap and can be procured from any mart nearby. If you want a proper cardio workout, jump rope seems to be a great choice to follow. Even stair-stepping is a perfect exercise to do at home, also when you don’t have a set of stairs available. Get an essential book or sturdy chair and put it in front of the TV. Watch your favorite show while stepping up and down from it, and that will give you some sweat for sure.

In case you don’t have enough time but planning to build core muscles, this exercise is perfect for you. Get into a push-up position. However, in place of bending arms and moving towards the floor, hold that position for long. Start by holding for 30 seconds and then add an extra 10 seconds daily. See how long you can survive without falling, and that helps in building the active core muscles you have always wanted. Apart from any of these options, you can try out dancing for a change if you like it. Dancing is a complete body exercise, which adds a fun element to it. So, try that out as well for the lean and entirely flexible body.

Vacuuming and sweeping can surprisingly burn many calories. Pxfuel.

Simple Household Chores Will Help

There are plenty of household chores that have exercises hidden within. You have no clue about it. For example, let’s take cleaning for your understanding. Cleaning can prove to be physical, mainly while mopping the floor or vacuuming the upholstery furniture and every nook and corner of the available space. If you can’t go out for a run, then you might set up a household cleaning schedule and try cleaning the house instead. You won’t just get a great body at the end but a perfectly clean home without a speck of dust.

If you want to lift weights but don’t have enough money to buy dumbbells, you can always use water bottles instead. Fill up those bottles to the brim, lock in the cover tightly and then start using it as an excellent dumbbell substitute. If you think water bottles are way too easy for you, try changing it with milk jugs. You have every control to tailor the exercise according to your level by filling up jugs to exact weight that you want. For that more significant challenge, you have to increase the amount of water a little bit every time to improve the workout regime.

There are plenty of online workout videos that you can follow along at home. Pxfuel.

Watch Exercise Videos

Thanks to the world of the internet, you now have the liberty to check multiple workout routines over there. It just takes you to click on the computer mouse button, and a list of workout videos on YouTube will pop up on your screen. Just type the exact words like “workout” and “workout at home,” and you are good to go. If you have been eyeing for a particular workout and don’t know the right steps to follow, these videos will gladly turn to help you big time.

There’s no need to invest money on workout DVDs anymore as you can learn all those tricks free of cost, only if you have a host device and a reliable internet connection to go with it. You even get the chance to mix up multiple exercising routines to avoid boredom and to lose weight fast. These online videos are perfect for trying out some of the traditional workouts with squats, push-ups, and even crunches. There are multiple videos available, which will instruct you to use the proper exercising form for your body.

Be sure to clear a big-enough space that you can work out to avoid injuring yourself. Pxfuel.

Maximize Your Workout at Home

Setting up one mini-gym at the corner of your room is a perfect way to ensure that you get the most out of your home workouts. At first, you need everything under one spot so that you don’t have to spend time looking for stuff. You can cover most of the workouts on the yoga mat. If you need to move anything out of the way, do that before starting the exercise. Moreover, always create a checklist of the items that you will use daily and not just keep at the side of the room to accumulate dust on top.

Create a training room with all the items by your side so that you can start using it whenever you need it the most. It further helps you to ensure that you don’t use the excuse of not using the items you bought. Always purchase the essential equipment only. When you are not into mood swings and all set to increase resistance, it is time to invest in the kit. But, you don’t need everything that a gym has. Most of the kettle bell exercises can be covered using a heavy dumbbell. So, heavyweight and few sets of lighter weights will do the drill for you. Make sure to invest some bucks to purchase resistance banks as they are pretty versatile and won’t take up much of your room for sure.

Don’t turn on the television; you’ll be more tempted to sit down and watch your favorite shows. Pxfuel.

Eliminate Distractions

Complete concentration is a must whenever you are planning to perform home exercises and freehand ones. Eliminate distractions as much as possible, and that calls for everything from your mobile to the dog. Let your loved ones know not to disturb you for that moment when you are exercising. Keep your phone on silent mode and inform others that you are busy. To improve the level of concentration, you can try playing some soothing music for yoga or some hardcore rock for your muscle and core exercises. Concentrating on music will level up your speed and energy and help you perform daily activities without feeling bored or drained out.

Make sure to mute all kinds of notifications. Being in that right mind frame is essential and can help you get the best service as and when asked for. It is beneficial to be in a perfect mindset while trying to work out, mainly when you are alone at home and feeling lazy. Prepare your mind by stating that for the next 30 minutes or an hour, you will focus only on yourself and no one else. Turn your mobile to airplane mode and keep it out of your site for the time being. These steps are pretty simple and can instead help you get the exercises done daily, even when you don’t feel like it.

Give yourself time to have a break so that your body can recharge and heal. Pxfuel.

Make Room For Cheat Days

You are indeed planning on a great figure, but exercise should never feel like a punishment rather than doing your body a favor. As mentioned already, getting yourself exhausted from tiring activities is the last thing you want. It is always mandatory to keep an allotted time for activities daily and use that time mode only to exercise. Working out at the same time regularly will help your body to adjust to these stretches and training, and you will get used to the pain shortly. Just because your body is in pain after a day of exercise, don’t stop exercising. Bear the pain and start exercising on top of that, to get used to it.

There should be a cheat day, of course. Even the professional bodybuilders will have a cheat day, which can be once or twice a month. The rest of the days comprise a healthy diet and the right amount of exercise. But, on a cheat day, you can have anything you want, from sugary stuff to junk food high in carbohydrates and even get to exercise less. It is a way to treat yourself after you have done an excellent job of working out.

Eating healthy will give you the energy you need to work out. Pxfuel.

Maximize Your Workout with These Food Items

If you tend to exercise in the morning, get up early to finish breakfast at least an hour before starting the workout. You have to be super pumped and fueled up before hitting a workout. Eating or drinking carbohydrates before exercising can always improve workout performance and might help you to work out for long or at a higher intensity. If you failed to ear, you might end up feeling lightheaded and sluggish when not exercising.

In case you are making plans to exercise within an hour right after breakfast, eat something light or drink any sports drink. Your focus will be on carbohydrates for maximizing the energy level. A good breakfast option will always include low-fat milk, whole-grain bread or cereal, juice, yogurt, a banana, a pancake, and similar such items. If you do have coffee generally in the morning, a cup before hitting the gym is okay. Anytime you are trying out a drink or food for the first time, you are risking an upset stomach. So, following the same niche, every time is a sure shot winner.

Pass up the opportunity to snack on junk food and pick healthier snacks instead. Pxfuel.

A Perfect Snack to Take You All the Way

Most people can try procuring small bites before and even during their exercises. The main answer lies with how you feel after munching down a meal. Everything depends on you and what works best for you. Snacks that you plan to get, just before you start exercising, won’t do you any good. It won’t give you any energy if your workout lasts less than 60 minutes, but what it can do is prevent any distractions coming from hunger pangs. In case you have a workout regime longer than 60 minutes, then you might want to indulge in carbohydrate-rich food or drink during the workout.

There are some good snack options available, and you can try anyone you like. For example, you have a banana, apple, or other fresh fruits, an energy bar, yogurt, and a fruit smoothie. If these options are not tickling your senses, you can try a whole-grain crackers or bagels for a change. Some of the manufacturing units will gladly present you with a low-fat granola bar as well to try out the taste, mixed with health quotient. Otherwise, you are most welcome to try out the peanut butter sandwich as well, which is just perfect. Some diluted juices or sports drinks can even do the trick for you well. If you are planning for a workout several hours after a meal, then a healthy snack is mandatory.

Working out for hours is actually counterproductive to getting healthy. Pxfuel.

Triple Your Workout Effectiveness

Are you trying to triple the effectiveness level of your exercises? If so, then following some simple tricks can run a long way. First of all, make sure to limit your workouts to around 30 to 40 minutes. Some people tend to lock them inside the gym for hours. But the real truth is that after 30 to 40 minutes, the benefit won’t be of any help. Make sure to lower the intensity of the workout and move out of the gym too. It is always a smart choice to work at a higher intensity for a shorter period.

In case you are starting with exercises, it is always better to take it slow. If you are cycling or running, start creating up endurance for a minimum of a month before you can get into anything intense than that. It means going at a pace when you can easily talk without running out of breath. Well, when you have the endurance bases all set, you can hike up the intensity to improve the workout’s effectiveness. Make sure not to miss out on protein and water intake while exercising. Keeping your body hydrated through the entire exercising procedure is essential. Furthermore, for helping your muscles to rebuild and grow, you need protein in your diet.

Having a small snack of protein between workouts provides the fuel your muscles need. Pxfuel.

Slow Lifting and Proper Shaking

It is better to have a carbohydrate or protein shake before a workout and just after you are done with one. Taking it before starting to exercise will increase the flow of amino acids to muscles while training. That helps in giving them building blocks that you need. Once the workout is done and covered with, this same shake will help stimulate muscle growth. Take one small carbohydrate or protein meal after 60 to 90 minutes of working out and get the best help. Even a meal replacement bar will do the trick.

Slow lifting is another workout tip that you might want to follow. Many people have this tendency to contract muscles slowly and then release at a slightly quicker rate. But, if you ever get to lift slowly in both these directions, you can always maximize every move. Be sure to raise and then lower to a five-second count in every possible direction. Be sure to follow the norms well and ensure the best steps as procured from reputed experts. They know the drill well and can gladly help you with it too.

It’s challenging to stay motivated while working out, but set some easy-to-achieve goals so that you’re continually moving forward. Pxfuel.

Motivation Gym Tips for Beginners

You are in the gym because you want a picture-perfect body. There are hundreds like you, and some are even there to maintain their fit body. No matter how bulky you are, don’t lose hope and be proud of what you have. Just because you are in an unfit condition in front of others, that doesn’t mean you are not capable of getting a better body. Don’t let the picture in front of you get into your head. Other than that, it would help if you focused on how to achieve the look you are after.

Beginners mostly flock to treadmills and stationary cycles because these are easy for all ages and levels. But sure not to get stuck in this cardio race and try adding a minimum two days of strength training into your weekly regime. If you are not ready to explore the weight room, then you don’t have to. Remember that body weight exercises can be as effective as building strength.

Weigh the pros and cons of working out at home or the gym so that you can make the best decision for you, your budget, and your health. Pxfuel.

Make a Decision

Before enrolling for a gym membership, make sure to check out these tips first. Decide whether you want to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on a gym or plan to try out freehand exercises at home for starters. Few body shapes will force you to visit the gym from the first go and then follow it up with freehand exercises at home to maintain the newly acquired figure. Check out the options first before making a final call.

Either way, you are making the right decision to exercise, in general. With that being said, get ready for better endurance, a slimmer waist, and an all-around happier life. You will wonder why you didn’t start working out sooner after you start reaping all of the the benefits of working out. Just make sure you take things slow and steady so that way you don’t pull a muscle, wake up too sore, and quit right away. Slow and steady wins the race.

Sources:

https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/exercise-wise.html

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-benefits-of-exercise#section4

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/you-probably-shouldnt-go-full-throttle-at-the-gym#Working-out-too-hard-causes-burnout-and-injuries

https://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/workout-routines/a22996682/easy-quick-home-exercise-tips/

https://www.moneycrashers.com/indoor-at-home-exercises-without-equipment/

https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/fitness/fat-loss/a28770065/home-workout-tips/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20045506

https://zenhabits.net/16-tips-to-triple-your-workout-effectiveness/

https://www.planetfitness.com/community/articles/7-motivating-gym-tips-beginners

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