Exercise – Establishing A Routine
Monday, April 20th, 2009Establishing a routine with exercise is more difficult for most people than just about anything else they do. In actuality, it’s not that hard once you’ve been doing it for a little while. Most people that struggle with finding time for exercise are doing so because they are trying to “fit in” exercise, depending on the events for the day. Establishing a routine with exercise involves planning it into your schedule, developing workouts ahead of time, and mixing things up.
In order to be effective with your exercise program, you’ll need to schedule appropriately. This means that you’ll be more likely to succeed with your health and fitness goals if you schedule a specific time of the day to exercise for an entire month. The time of day does not have to be the same each day (although this is recommended), but it does have to be pre-scheduled, just as you would a doctor’s appointment.
Establishing an exercise routine also involves developing workouts ahead of time. My most successful clients all plan their workout routines for a week at a time, instead of day by day. The advantage of this, of course, is that you will choose a larger variety of exercise, stimulate new areas for strengthening each week, and have a targeted plan to reach all areas of your body. When you consider it, exercise selection today should affect tomorrow’s workout anyway, right?
Choosing which body parts to exercise on a given day can be a perplexing decision, although this is beyond the scope of this article. As a general recommendation, be sure to leave at least 48 hours between exercise sessions that involve a pure strengthening protocol. On the other hand, endurance workouts can have more frequent repetition, as well as decreased isolation of muscle groups.
Creating a dynamic exercise environment is the last piece that will ultimately lead you towards finding more time to workout. By constantly changing which exercises you choose, and how you approach a workout, you will become more entertained, shock your body with each workout, and improve your results dramatically. By selecting the same fifteen exercises to perform every time you are in the gym, you are allowing your body to accommodate to these demands and become more efficient over time. Long-distance runners use their efficiency to burn less calories while running, thereby allowing them to run for longer. In the case of fitness, this is also true, so be careful or you’ll end up burning less calories as well!
