1.Make A Plan Have a think and set yourself some realistic goals and targets you would like to achieve within a realistic time scale. Do you want bigger muscles? Maybe you want better stamina, or want to lose weight. How about looking better naked. If you set yourself a target, you have something to aim for. 3. Take A Photo A great way of seeing your progress is to take a picture of yourself. You can of course (and should) keep records of your weight, waist MHR etc, but looking at measurements and figures on a piece of paper is one thing. However seeing a before and after photo of yourself has a great visual impact. You could be brave and get a friend to take a picture of you in your swimsuit, or play it safe and use a camera with a self timer facility. With digital cameras now being the norm, you don’t need to take the film down to Boots and get embarrassed asking for it to be developed. Keep the photo of yourself on a computer and once you have reached your target, take another photo. Then you get to compare the ’old’ you, with the new improved, fitter, better, more sexy you. Then you can see what all the hard work was for and give yourself a pat on the back. 5. Warming Up & Stretching Getting your muscles warmed up before you start you exercise routine, will help you avoid injury. It’s important to stretch both before and after exercising. Like warming up stretching helps avoid injury. It also helps preventing your muscles getting that aching feeling the next day. 7. Mix It-Up If you perform the same exercise week after week, your body will get use to it and stop pushing itself. This will mean that you will get smaller benefits from your exercises. If you are weight training three times a week. It is a good idea to switch exercises. For instance if you are targeting your chest instead of sticking with bench presses, you could change to press-ups. You are still working your chest, but you will be using the muscle in a different way, thus making it work harder. The same principle applies to cardiovascular workouts. For instance instead of just jogging for five miles, you mix it-up by sprinting for a minute once every mile/every 10 minutes. 9. Take A Look At Your Diet 
It might seem obvious, but if you put in all the hard work of going to the gym, or you are running for miles and miles. Then you don’t want to undo all your work by neglecting your diet. So it is important to eat sensibly. If you are looking to build muscle, you are going to need protein in your diet. If you are doing a lot of cardio work, you will need more carbohydrates. It is best to avoid diets on the whole. Diets tend to have a negative effect. They give the impression that you are missing out on something and you will after a while start to resent it. If you cut out your treats your body will crave for them. So do treat yourself to your favourites such as chips, pizza and chocolate; just don’t go over board. 11. The Magic Of Squats Squats are great! Even if you don’t have a weight routine in your fitness regime, you should at least consider including squats. Squats are often one the most ignored parts of a weight routine, but they are possibly the best overall exercise with weights. They target the more obvious areas such as thighs, calves and glutes (buttocks). They are also tone your lower back and abdominals (your bodies core). Improving your core will see improvements for your whole body. 13. Little Bits Make A Difference There are things you can do in your everyday life which can help with your goals. Little things such as walking to the shops rather than taking the car, or getting off the bus one or two stops earlier. Another way is taking the stairs rather than the lift. Little things like this don’t take much effort but will help without you noticing. 15. Join A Team Did you play in a team at school? Have you not played any team sport since? Well it could be time for your to find a local team and get involved again. One of the great things about joining a local team it is a great way of getting regular exercise. As well as competing against other teams, there is the training during the week with your team mates. There is a great variety of different team sports from the more common such as football and rugby to the more unusual such as basketball, Ice Hockey and Aussie Rules Football. 17. Don’t Beat Yourself Up There will be times when you don’t go running, or you miss a training session. When this happens don’t fret over it to much. Remember how good you have been and how far you have progressed. Just make sure your ’off days’ are few and far between. So congratulate yourself on all the positive things you have achieved and more on. 19. Don’t Forget To Stop Once you get going and are exercising regularly and are seeing the benefits of the last six months work. Take a break. I’m not talking about taking a couple of days off, I mean take a week or two off completely. That’s right don’t do anything. So if you are on holiday, this is a perfect time for you to take a break and relax. Professional sportsmen/women set aside time each year to take a complete break from any training. If it’s good enough for the pros, it’s good enough for you. 21. Quality Over Quantity Rather than trying to do 20, or 30 reps with the dumb-bell. It might be better to concentrate your form and make sure you perform 12 reps properly. 23. Something Is Better Than Nothing There will be times when despite your best laid plans, you wont be able to get your whole weeks exercise done. Or you will find yourself with only 10 or 20 minutes, instead of your more usual 40 minutes. Rather than saying to yourself “ there’s no point in doing just 10 minutes” or “why bother doing only two days work, when I can’t do the other three days.” It is better to get a little done rather than nothing. This will stop you getting into bad habits and let you workout programme slide. 25. Alcohol  So you have changed your eating habits. What about your drinking habits? Well you don’t have to give up your favourite tipple, but you should be realistic. Remember why you are doing all the hard work of getting into shape. That new sexy body, improving your health. If you are drinking to much (you know yourself if you are over doing it or not), then you are going to have to cut back. Just be honest with yourself and drink in moderation. | 2. Find Yourself A Training Buddy A good way of keeping your motivation going is to get a friend to become a training buddy. Having someone to train with, will keep your focused and encourage you to keep going. You don’t need to do all your workouts solely with your training buddy. You might agree to meet up once a week to give your exercise routine a bit of variety. An other encouragement of having a training buddy is that it gives you both some healthy competition to be better than the other, so won’t slip and let the rest of your training suffer. 4. Enter A Competition If you enjoy a particular sport such as running, swimming, cycling etc. you can test yourself against fellow enthusiasts. You can find local upcoming events by searching online, or asking local sports clubs or your council what sporting activities are coming up. They usually run every year and build up a good following. You could test yourself as a long distance runner, or how about entering a triathlon. Some more unusual competitions you might come across include Orientation, or how about a 24 hour canoe race. Keep your eye out in the local press for up coming events. 6. Get Kitted Out  Ensure you have the right equipment for your exercise. So if you are going to start cycling, you will need a bike (yes I know that’s pretty obvious), but make sure you get the right kind of bike for your needs. It is also important to get the less obvious tools of the trade right. For instance different sports require different foot ware. A quick look round your local sports shop, you will find a vast variety of different trainers for different sports. If you are not sure what is best for your needs, just ask for some assistance and advice. 8. Work Less, More Often Working out for hours on end once or twice a week is not the best way to go about reaching your goals. If you are spending two hours in a gym, you are not using your time effectively. If you can workout for two hours, you aren’t doing it right. You are not pushing yourself hard enough, or you are working hard to begin with. Then by the end you are to tired to perform probably and effectively. It is much better to workout for half an hour four-six times a week. You can then perform your exercises intensely, ensuring you are making your muscles work hard. 10. Relax After Eating We eat because it fuels our body, we need this fuel to give us energy. In order to get the most out of our food, the protein, carbohydrates etc. it needs to digest. So after a meal it is a good idea to relax for at least half an hour to give your body a chance to digest the food and absorb the benefits. 12. Keep A Diary Start a diary. No not one of your thoughts and feelings, but one where you keep track of your progress. If you keep a record of your changing fitness levels, you can monitor your progress thus giving you something to aim for. Things you should keep a record of are your weight, waist size, chest, thighs and arms. It is also a good idea to test and keep track of your resting and maximum heart rate. Testing these over times is a good indicator of your improving fitness levels. 14. Are You Sleeping?  When you are asleep, your body is repairing itself. After working your body it needs time to recover. A lot of this is done when we are sleeping. Also if you are going to bed late, waking up early. You are going to feel tired and you will have less energy. You are then more likely to skip any exercise plans you had.
16. Plan The Night Before It’s very easy to find excuses why not to go swimming, or why you can’t make it to the gym. If you workout in the morning before work, get your gear ready the night before. Don’t leave it to chance that your shorts are in the wash, or you can’t find your gym bag. If you give yourself an excuse not to workout you will put it off. 18. Use Your Local Sports Club Go down to your local sports club and have a look around. They offer a wide variety of classes, clubs and activities. They have more to offer than just the gym. So have a look round reception, there are usually dozens of leaflets on sports you might not of considered. Things such as: a wide range of aerobics classes, pilates, racket sports, netball etc. You could find something that you love, but would of never of thought of before. 20. Drink Water Your body is made up of 70% water. We lose around 3 litres of water everyday just from perspiration, urinating and breathing. So if you are working out, you will need to replace the extra water you will lose. It is vital to replace this lost water because you’re your muscles are made from 73% water. If they are starved of water they wont perform to their potential. 22. Give Yourself A Treat If you stick to your workout programme and you are seeing the kind of improvements you have been aiming for. Then how about rewarding yourself. It can be something simple such as buying yourself a new t-shirt that shows of your new sexy physique. If your friends and family start complementing on your new improved look, it will make you feel better and give the motivation to keep on going. We all love to have people asking us what are secrets are. 24. Don’t Work Too Hard Too Soon If you are targeting specific muscles and want to improve their appearance. It is important to rest your muscles, just as important as it is to work them. For example if you want to improve your complete physical appearance. It is much better to work different parts of your body on different days. This way you give your muscles a chance to rest and recoup rate. You could work your chest and back on a Monday, your shoulders and legs on a Wednesday and your arms and abdominals on a Friday. This way you are still working out, but giving each area of your body a chance to rest. 26. Have Fun In order to achieve your targets and goals you will need to be able to enjoy your training programme. You wont see a change overnight, so it you are doing something you don’t particularly enjoy, the workout programme you are doing will soon get boring. If you don’t like it, you wont do it. So it is important you find something you like so you will stick at it. |