Setting a huge goal like running a marathon or losing 100 pounds may not be the best way to get fit. These goals can feel overwhelming and cause you to give up when you don’t see instant results. Instead, set small, attainable goals that you can gradually incorporate into your lifestyle.
When working out, don’t rush through weight or general exercise repetitions. For the best result, do them slowly. Make sure you can actually feel the resistance. Try to resist doing them as quickly as possible. Once they get too tired this is a common mistake for people to make.
In order to achieve maximum fitness, be sure to not put stress on one particular area of the body such as the abdominal region. You may risk injury as well, though not only will you direct focus on this region and end up looking odd. Focus on different parts of the body on different days and be sure to do exercises that use a variety of muscles.
Don’t go for an all or nothing approach when it comes to fitness. Even if you can’t fit in thirty minutes of exercise every day, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother trying at all. Even if you can only get your thirty minutes in once a week, it’s better than nothing. You can always work up to more workouts as time goes on.
When jogging or running, make sure you meet your goal distance. Walk the rest of the way if you get too tired. Walking is still very good for you. At the very least, it is much preferable to just giving up and going home once you are worn out.
To prevent injury while lifting weights on a bench, make sure the bench is well-cushioned. When the bench is too hard, it can throw your spine out of alignment as you exercise, which in turn can damage the nerves in your arms. An easy test is to press down on the bench. Being able to feel the wood is a sign you need to move to a different bench.
You can build bigger biceps by bending your wrists slightly when you are doing arm curls with dumbbells. When your doing your arm curls, extend the wrists backwards slightly, and hold them like that. This slight change of movement will make your biceps work harder, thus, building bigger biceps.
Chances are that you might be sore following a workout, but that doesn’t mean that you should automatically pop a Tylenol or Advil. Studies have indicated that these and other over-the-counter pain medications do not provide noticeable pain relief for post-workout muscle aches. What’s more, they may actually hinder muscle growth when taken immediately following a workout session.
There is no reason to not work out the other arm if any injury occurs with one arm. Doing this has been found to increase the non-exercising arm’s strength by at least 10%. This is achieved because working out the one arm stimulates the muscle fibers in the other arm.
Make sure to work out all the muscle groups, one after another, in your arms to get better results. Try working out the different groups in succession in your workouts. For example, work out your biceps and then immediately work out your triceps afterwords. This will cause one set of muscles to rest while working the other and you won’t require long breaks for all of them between sets.
There are many better ways to gradually ease fitness into your lifestyle than making sweeping long-term goals, as you can see. Follow the tips mentioned in this article for making small lifestyle changes to improve your fitness and before you know it–one small step at a time–you will be on your way to that marathon.
