Best way to get started exercising
We are lucky to be blessed with multiple modalities of exercise in today’s age. From Zumba to weightlifting, running to crossfit, and everything in between there is no shortage of options for those that want to improve their health. Unfortunately, with such choice we often get caught up in a case of “paralysis by analysis” and end up doing nothing! Is this not the worst-case scenario for our health? By googling and searching but doing nothing, we have only exercised our thumbs.The most critical factor to improving your health is action, we must act if we are to improve. Nobody ever ran a marathon in their head, well maybe they did…So this all leads to one question, what can I do to ensure I take action and start exercising? Once we have started exercising, we can look at methods of sustaining this new regime. But let’s get started first:
1 - Make it easy to train. To get adherence rolling we need minimal resistance. Things like having to commute for a long time or being restricted with access can cause friction to our willpower. So, when deciding on what approach to take try to use your spidey-senses to foresee any problems that may arise. We want as little resistance as possible in the initial stages. Use past experiences to guide you here. If you fall off track because you always get busy in the evenings, they why not train early in the morning. The minute details will vary from person to person but know that there is no one too busy to exercise at least 3 days oer week, just learn to work it into your schedule. Sometimes having someone to keep you accountable like a personal trainer can be a useful asset here. Getting you’re training regime started should be like a hot knife through butter; effortless.
2 - Minimum effective dose. What is the very least you have to do and still move forward? We all have good days when we can train all day and night, but these days are not the norm. Most people are more akin to busy lives, traffic jams, collecting kids and “catching their tail”. On these days, what is the least amount of work you need to do? Maybe you can’t donate 60 mins to training, what about 30 mins? If not 30, how about 15 mins? If anyone has ever done tabata training (20 sec of high intensity training coupled with 10 sec of recovery for 8 rounds, total of 4 mins) will know that we can get a great workout in a short time. Here is a simple 15 min tabata workout that will leave you healthier, happier and stronger.
Tabata 1: Squat jumps (add a dumbbell if you want) – 1 min recovery at the end
Tabata 2: Push ups (adapt to your ability) – 1 min recovery at the end
Tabata 3: Burpee (you’re welcome)
3 - Metrics. Measuring your progress is so important. This will help you to create this snow ball of improvement. It’s really difficult to dislike something that you are improving at every week. There will be days when you will always feel positive about your efforts but there will be days when you won’t, and for these days you need something to back you up. This is where your metrics come into play. Things like heart rate, weight, strength, energy and even eating habits can all be tracked and measured. Below is an example of one of our members. Fat loss was her main aim and we felt the most important metric to record in regards diet was chocolate. Graphing our progress is key to improving.
