We live in a busy age. As a result, many people hardly have any time to exercise. However, exercise is something that we all need to make time for because it is an investment in our health. Exercise helps reduce stress and it can give us the energy we need to carry out our daily tasks.
You can benefit from exercise if you make it a regular part of your routine, if you eat right, if you include variety in your exercise program, if you are consistent, and if you observe proper form and technique in doing the various exercises. It is also important that you are motivated to exercise.
When you exercise, you need to observe proper technique. Doing so will help you isolate the right muscles that you want to work out. Maintaining proper form also helps you to be more efficient in stimulating your muscles during exercise.
If you are doing weight or resistance training, observing proper form is crucial; otherwise, you may injure yourself and you won’t get the benefit of doing such training. For example, in resistance training, you will need to perform each exercise without any type of momentum. You’ll also need to move the weight using a full range of motion. This is what causes your muscles to contract for the right length of time to ensure your tendons stretch at the right length. With resistance training, the goal is to make the joints stronger through muscle stimulation.
Cadence is likewise helpful when you are doing resistance training. Cadence refers to the rate in which the weight moves. In resistance training, you get best results with a slow cadence. Slow movements allow the muscles to contract for a longer period. If you are doing some sort of sports type training, you can alternate fast and slow cadence.
If you want to stimulate your core while you are working on another muscle group, you need to learn the functional type exercise technique. For instance, while you are doing a dumbbell press, you can lie on an exercise ball. With this exercise, you are working out your chest and tricep muscles while your core muscles are working to keep you balanced on the ball. This is a challenging way to exercise and it provided maximum stimulation for your body.
Your heart and lungs can also benefit from cardio exercises. When you do cardio exercises, it’s important that you keep an eye on your heart rate. You need to be aware of your fat burning zone. To determine what your fat burning zone is, deduct your age from 220 and then multiply the result by 60 and 80, respectively. The 2 figures you come up with are your lower and upper fat burning zones. You will want your heart rate to be within these two figures for about half an hour in order to get the most out of your cardio exercise.
And let’s not forget the importance of warming up prior to exercising. Never dive into your workout routine without doing some kind of warm up. Your body needs to be prepared for a more demanding workout and this is where warm up exercises are helpful. You can warm up by walking briskly for 5 to 10 minutes. This will help prepare your muscles for the workout ahead.
Ideally, you’ll want to alternate the days when you do your cardio workouts and weight/resistance training. For instance, you can do your resistance training on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday you can devote to cardio workouts.
You may think that you are just too busy to exercise. You may reason that you’re not going to be able to get most of the things you need to do done if you try to squeeze in an hour of exercising every day. On the contrary, if you integrate exercise in your regular schedule, pretty soon you’ll have more energy and you’re able to get things done faster.
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