Tag: Fitness Program

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Spring Into Fitness Week – Day 4

Today is all about Spring exercise tips. I find that there are two kinds of people when it comes to exercise. There are people that like to exercise and do it regularly and the other group are the people that know they should probably exercise but never get around to it. Well with the weather turning nice it is time to start thinking of exercise as a fun thing to do outdoors.

Spring Exercise Tips

Again I am going to give you a few tips that should help you out and at the same time hopefully inspire the non exercisers to see that it is easy to get started. I have also written a post on an 8 week Spring Fitness Program that you can check out.

1. Start slowly – No matter if you have been working out indoors for the Winter or not, it is important to start out slowly. I think that it is important to start walking, riding, or running (whatever you can do) for at least 15 minutes and you can work this up to 45 minutes a day or so. Any more than this and you will be working to long I believe. As soon as you can pick up the pace and the time but remember not to push too hard or it will take to long to heal and not be sore. You should be doing some kind of exercise 5 or 6 days a week.

2. Be Careful – As you are start doing whatever Spring exercise you are doing and this includes weightlifting you have to watch your form. I have sidelined myself many times by pushing too fast and not listening to my body only to be left a couple weeks in with swollen and really sore knees. Know your limits.

3. The Pain will be gone quick, I promise – No matter what you start for exercise you will have sore legs, arms, back, calves, all sorts of pain that you are not used to. As long as the pain is muscle stiffness you can work through it. Remember to drink lots of water for the muscle stiffness and know that the pain will go away fairly quickly. After two weeks or so your muscle stiffness will be gone and you will be fine

4. Change it up lots – Remember that your body is very adaptable. If you do the same kind of exercise or eat the same foods consistently your body will get used to it. So you have to change it up a lot. Move between all the things you can think of, sports, bowling, running, walking, riding, skateboarding, surfing, whatever you can do to keep everything changing around.

Good for today. I will have one more post to pull things together. I hope that you have liked these spring exercise tips and I will try to add to the list as I think of more.

Bill

Related Blogs

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Swimming as Exercise

Swimming as Exercise

swimming as exercise

Swimming as exercise is an excellent way to get fit. Just swimming in the pool is great for all round fitness training. Kids love it, so encouraging an overweight child to swim can be great for their health. It is also good for pregnant women and the obese, because the water supports the excess weight. You should see your doctor of course before starting any fitness program, but the pool is a great place to work out for just about anybody.

In this article we will not look at swimming itself but at swimming as exercise that you can do in the pool. For these exercises, you should be standing in water up to shoulder level.

Swimming as exercise

swimming as exercise for arms – To tone the arms, stand with feet apart and hands holding a ball. Arms are straight but without locking the elbows. Move the ball smoothly around in front of you in the shape of a sideways figure of eight, so your arms are going up and down while also moving from side to side. Do up to 10 reps.

The ball stays completely in the water at all times. Avoid this exercise if you have a shoulder injury. Don’t twist the body – only the arms should move.

Toning the waist – Stand with your back against the side of the pool and arms stretched out along the rim to support you. Bring the legs up and stretch them out straight in front of you. Slowly move the legs round to right and then left, keeping the back firmly against the wall. Do up to 10 reps.

Toning the legs – Walk on the spot in the pool. Step up and down, stretching each leg out as it goes down, and pointing the toes. Swing the arms back and forward too. Keep the movement smooth and give the arms and legs a really good stretch each time. Repeat for 2-5 minutes.

Overall body fitness: jumping jacks – There are many swimming exercises for overall body fitness, giving a good cardio workout, but one of the best is jumping jacks. This is a tough exercises even on land – in the water it is harder, so if you are not fit, build your resistance with the previous exercises before adding this one to your workout.

To do a jumping jack in the water, start with your feet together, flat on the floor of the pool, and hands by your sides. Bend your knees and then jump up as high as you can, bringing your arms up out of the water to make a star shape. Land with feet apart and knees bent, then bring the arms back down and bring the feet together. Repeat up to 10 times.

Relax! – At the end of your workout, begin your relaxation by floating on your back in the water. Spread arms and legs to keep you afloat. You will find that the pool is a great place to relax and wind down after your swimming exercises.

Swimming as exercise is a great way to stay in shape and is a great low impact workout. Some of the great reasons to exercise in the water is that it is very low impact and all your muscles are being worked at once. There are a couple of ways as well that you can look at swimming as exercise.

Calories burned – swimming as exercise

Swimming can burn anywhere from 200 – 650 calories an hour. Compare this to running where the amount would be 600-800 calories an hour and you can see that swimming as exercise is a great calorie burner.

Not only this but as you can see above there is a lot of muscle toning going on. When you bike, walk, or run you are using the lower part of your body while swimming, being done any time of year will work all the muscles in your body.

So it is really time to look at swimming as exercise call a pool and go today.

Related Blogs

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Where I Am Going From Here

Well here we are New Years Day. I was looking at the stats for this little fitness tips blog and see that last year I had over 2 million page views and over 1 million visitors. That was amazing and I want to thank you for having such trust in me and my message of how to get fit.

Here I am on a Saturday afternoon, the first of the year. And I am thinking about honesty and direction. Where my life is leading me and where and what I will be focussing on this year.

My family and I stayed up last night until midnight watching a movie, having a fondue and just reveling in spending time together.  But now the new year is upon us

What have I been up to?

Last week I sent three emails to the list of people that have signed up for the 10 days of fitness program/newsletter (you can sign up on the sidebar to the right here). Anyway in these emails I tried to come up with a good way of making goals, new years resolutions, that will work well and not be thrown out by the end of the month.

Also last week I set up a poll asking what people are looking for in the way of articles here on the blog. The winner of that poll was Weight loss, followed by exercise and then eating tips. Following further behind in the poll were productivity and muscle gain articles.

I am never sure how clear I am about this but my top priority is to make sure that I am serving and helping as many people as I can. The trouble is that I can give advice, I can poke and prod, I can help answer excuses, but in the end it is YOU that has to watch the food and water in and the exercise out.

What is The Fitness Tips Blog for 2011?

So here I was last week wondering what I should do next on this blog. I am in the process of writing up a weight loss book and that should help us all to understand what it takes from another perspective. More importantly though is thinking of the new posts and the new ways that I can be of help to you.

This year I want to make sure that I open up a lot more of myself to you. I have in the past written about what I am eating and how I am working out but the trouble is that a lot of the ”Weight Loss Gurus” and writers of books and TV show people seem to live this perfect life of no urges, no breakdowns, no cheating on eating , and no laziness. This is not me

I want to open up about the chocolate, missed workouts and fighting with the thoughts in my head telling me to do one thing and really doing the other. Let’s share ourselves and our successes as well as looking for support in our failures.

So I know that I will continue giving you the news, and articles on weight loss and fitness but more often I will try to tell you about those other bloggers that are writing really cool articles and more about me and my family. Did you know that my wife suffers from weight issues? And that with all the help I can give she still will not listen to me but lets me know when I am full of crap with my own eating? Yes more of those kinds of stories.

So lets buckle up and have a great year. We all have a lot to look forward to and I hope that this year we can have even more sharing than we have in the last couple.

Thanks

Bill