Some people are lacking time, the motivation, the know how or simply struggling to cover the cost of expensive gym memberships and home equipment.
The road to improving your health and fitness needn’t start with spending huge amounts of money on top of the range home fitness equipment or signing up on a contract at the local gym like you may have been led to believe.
The truth is that it is easy to set up a good fitness program from home. With a small amount of equipment, a bit of motivation and some information you can make some real positive gains for your health and wellbeing.
The first step is to make small changes in
your daily lifestyle that will increase the amount of general activity and
movement that you do.
Try things such as taking the stairs
instead of the lift, try parking in the furthers park at the supermarket
instead of driving around and around looking for the closest.
Try walking down to the dairy or parking
500m away or parking a good distance from work. Make some family-time revolve
around activity like walking or kicking a ball around the park.
These changes can add up to a large amount
of activity with little effort.
To set up a good fitness program from home
there needs to be a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular
training. Both are as important as the other.
Cardiovascular training is when you do an
activity that keeps your breathing and heart rate elevated for a length of
time. Set cardio sessions need to be done 2 – 3 times per week and run for 30 –
90 minutes depending on intensity and your fitness levels.
The best place to start is with brisk walking.
As you improve gradually add in some running. The great thing about this is the
only equipment needed is a pair of trainers.
Other types of cardio activities are biking, swimming, hiking and sport.
The key with cardio training is to keep things interesting by mixing things up and constantly increasing the intensity to keep your body challenged. If you only do the same walk at the pace all the time your body will only get as fit as it needs to complete this.
Resistance training is a vital part of fitness
training with a huge amount of benefit to your health and your body. Resistance
training increases lean muscle mass. This in turn will give shape to the body,
increase calories used each day, increase bone density and add protection. If
weight loss is your goal resistance training will help reduce body fat and keep
it off in the long term.
A basic home resistance program can be set
up with no equipment at all, using your body weight as resistance. A much more
complete program can be executed by purchasing a swiss-ball and a couple of
pairs of dumbbells.
Resistance training sessions should take
between 20 min and one hour and be performed 2-3 times per week. Muscles need
time to repair. Therefore you should take a day between sessions.
Body weight exercises such as press-ups,
squats, lunges and crunches are a great starting point to begin your resistance
program. Each exercise should be done in
sets of 12 – 15 between 1- 3 times depending on your experience levels.
With the addition of a swiss-ball and
dumbbells it is possible to make and perform a complete body program.
The ball is used as a platform that substitutes
the workout bench and seat. The ball being an unstable platform means that the
body and core muscles must work hard to maintain good posture whilst performing
the exercises.
If you are unfamiliar with correct
exercises to be performed I would strongly suggest a couple of sessions with an
exercise professional to learn correct technique.
If time is your biggest barrier to exercise
try splitting your exercise into small chunks. Turn a 30 min walk into three 10
min walks spread throughout the day.
Make sure that you always focus on your
long term goals and this will help keep you moving forward.
A good way to set your program is to
alternate days with cardio and resistance training.
If you are not prepared to set a program in
motion make sure that you at least increase your daily activity and remember
that when it comes to exercise “something is always better than nothing”.
Exercise
and fitness does not need to rule your life, but it does need to be an
important part of it. Try incorporating physical activity as a normal daily
thing to be done (like brushing your teeth).
The benefits of exercise are massive and it outweighs the small effort that it takes by a huge margin.
With a bit off effort and a few small
changes you can make huge positive gains for your health. So get started today,
health is the best investment you can ever make.
Remember that good health is the best asset you can own.