All right, everyone! Let’s gather together now and talk about something that we are all doing but not really following through: Making goals!
I, myself, have made lots of goals in the past. When I looked back and counted the ones that I’ve actually accomplished, the number was less than five. My main excuses? I was too busy. I didn’t have time. I was sick. The weather was bad. There’s no one beside me to make me feel motivated. And so on.
Out of all the goals you have made for the year 2016, how many are geared toward physical health? 🙂
Having goals is not just a commitment. It’s also how you are measuring yourself. It doesn’t have to be formal or anything drastic, such as Navy SEALs’ Hell Week.
No, no. Even just a minor goal accomplishment can make you feel proud. You don’t need to make a huge commitment toward a goal.
How about let’s start out small for the year of 2016? You know, just to test the water! (And if you don’t like the goal you can always change it but at least you know you’ve tried!)
Now, not all exercises are the same! When you have different fitness goals, you’ll need different types of exercises. Here are the different exercises for different goals — make sure you know what you want before you start working out, or you’ll just be wasting your time!
Yoga for muscle stretching and toning
Highly recommend to try a Yoga Class in Burnaby at Bhavana Yoga Studio.
They provide Yin, Hatha and restoritive Yoga Classes.
Yin yoga is great for stress relief, reduce anxiety and deep stretching. It calms your mind.
Exercising For Fitness
Some individuals are lucky enough to not be grossly overweight or underweight, and would like to exercise simply to maintain their good health. If that sounds like you, then you’ll need exercises that will keep your body limber, strong, and flexible.
The first kind of exercise you’d want to have on your regimen are the cardiovascular exercises. Jogging, biking, and swimming are examples of common cardio exercises — they get the blood running and your lungs breathing. Cardio boosts the metabolism and promotes circulation. So if you want to be the next 100 meter winner, get those legs running! (With proper diet, regular training, and warm up of course)
For flexibility and strength, you may want to try exercises, such as Yoga and Pilates. Yoga is serene and flowing, like having a cooling stream of ultimate goodness surging through your spirit. Pilates is tough and tense, almost an advanced form of Yoga with a strong sense of fighting spirit and will to further enhance yourself. These two are a great Yin-Yang of exercises. These exercises aren’t only good for the body, they’re also good for the mind and can be a relaxing way to pace yourself through a busy week.
Exercises For Weight Loss
If you want to exercise to lose weight, then here’s a tip — don’t rely on just cardio. Some people make the mistake of jogging for hours or spending all their gym time on the treadmill. Cardio does boost the metabolism but not enough to encourage fat burn on its own.
When you rely on just cardio to lose weight, what happens is that your efforts tend to plateau. Your body gets used to the routine, and your weight loss slows down and stops. What’s worse, long and slow cardio can put you at risk of repetitive stress injury!
Don’t just rely on cardio. Instead, focus on more intense interval training. If you like jogging, learn sprinting. If you like biking, learn spinning. By hitting maximum effort in short bursts, you’ll be encouraging more fat burn and you’ll be building some calorie-burning muscle, too.
Exercises For Muscle Growth
It’s a no-brainer, but if you want muscle growth you’ll need to focus on resistance training. The idea is to work your muscles to failure, so that the body repairs and grows them during your rest days.
When it comes to resistance training, you’re often faced with two choices at any gym: machines and free weights. It’s a good idea to utilize ALL the tools your gym offers so that you get to work out ALL your muscle groups. Some of you may have stumbled upon posts that debate whether if machine weights or free weights are better than one another. The truth is, there’s really no correct answer.
According to men’s health article, machine weights are good for beginner lifters as they are able to better control the weight distributions with the support of the machine without running the risk of injuring themselves seriously. Plus, the machines are able to better align the angles of the lifts so that you can target a specific part of your body. Free weights, on the other hand, are better suited for experienced lifters where they know how to control the weights, the angles, while targeting multiple areas of their body at the same time.
Yup. I’ve heard yah. No time or money for the gym? Then use body weight exercises instead! Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and horizontal bar pull-ups are all great body weight exercises. The best thing about this is that you don’t need a gym to do them and they are readily available at any time, anywhere. Just remember to do sets that work your muscles to failure and you’ll be seeing bigger muscles in the near future.
Now that you’re in the know, it’s time to decide what kind of diet is best for your goals, your lifestyle, and your abilities. And as always, remember to do proper warm up, keep hydrated, and stay within your limit to avoid injuries! 😀
Originally published at https://www.vitactivate.com on December 24, 2019.