Have you started working out and want to improve your fitness? But you don't know where to go to? You have come to the right place for a comprehensive and a brilliant guide to improving your fitness.
Steps
1 Do your research. If you are seriously wanting to improve your fitness, then you have to do research on your goal. You might want to try to find out what are good fats and bad fats, what exercises to do for what part of the body and how long you need to exercise for. This can greatly help you to make a better fitness routine and also know in detail what to do to improve your fitness.
2 Keep to a routine. Organize a routine for yourself according to your research. Consult a fitness expert if you know where to get one. He or she can make a plan for individual needs. This is important that once you made a routine, you follow it properly never letting up. An example routine could be:
Monday- sit ups or core exercises and leg exercise
Tuesday- Cardio workout and arm and back exercise
Wednesday- Rest
Thursday- Working all muscle groups
Friday- Cardio
Saturday- Rest
Sunday- Weight and free-weight exercises
3 Be sure to stretch after completing workout.
4 Have a healthy diet. Your calorie intake is the foundation of improving fitness. Do not eat when you are emotional, eat when you are hungry and then burn those extra calories so there is not any excess fat in your body. Small changes such as eating an apple in place of saturated fats, drinking water instead of soda, cutting out one less tablespoon in your diet, etc. can make a huge difference. Drink at least 10-16 ounces of water about 30 minutes before a meal or a snack. This makes you feel full, meaning you won't eat as much. A balanced diet is very important to improving your fitness and maintaining it. Exercising without food is bad as the body will hold onto any bad fats in your body meaning the fat stays there, same goes with when you enter starvation phase. Try to follow the south beach diet, it may help you lose fat and improve your fitness. Have proteins daily in your lifestyle.
5 Exercise. To really improve your fitness or maintain it, do various types of exercises. For weight training, hit each muscle group as you want the main muscle groups of the body to break its fibers during exercise and then strengthen themselves while in the rest phase. The key to strengthening your muscles is doing an exercise at high intensity and either increase sets or reps (repetitions) over time. So say you did 50 sit ups yesterday, maybe increase the number to 55 today. But increase in moderation; you will not get a body builder physique overnight. If you're able to watch television while doing your exercise, basically you're not working hard enough and not challenging your muscles. Here are some exercises you might want to try: squats for the thighs and legs, rear leg lifts, push ups, pull ups, bicep curls, sprinting, sit ups and other types of stomach exercises. Make sure you do exercises so your whole body is strengthened. Remember not to overwork yourself. You will not let your muscles rest and strengthen themselves and it will cause fatigue in your muscles so exercising will become difficult. It can also cause cramps as well.
Participate in sports. This will not only teach the sport skills but it will improve your fitness so next time there's a school football team, or a gym wants more boxers, don't miss the chance, grab it.
6 Do Circuit training. If you want to improve your fitness, try to do circuit training. Circuit training is doing different exercises for different parts of your body in rotation. This is not only to have a balanced body for looks, but also to prevent injury. For example, if you are doing 80lb bicep curls, but have a weak lower back, you could sprain your back! For circuit training you can try to do: pull ups-arms, sit ups-stomach, squats-thighs, rear leg lifts-legs, sprinting-endurance, push up-arms, crunches-stomach and an exercise to strengthen your back.
7 Don't put too much faith in commercials. The truth is that you have to ignore all those commercials when they advertise foods that are useless for your body, fitness machines and supplements. It is hard, you are wanting to improve your fitness real bad so you want all those machines to gain that extra edge. But that draw is exactly why so many people make these kind of products - they know the products will sell. Stick to tried and true methods and products instead. For example a treadmill, jump rope, step board, bench, dumbbells. Instead of buying expensive supplements, cut out the excess fat and eat food that is useful to speed up your metabolism.
8 Focus on other things as well. If your exams are coming up, focus on that, and reduce the time you spend on fitness. However, don't put it off completely, otherwise you will suffer a setback!
9 Stay motivated. Sometimes you are tired of working out too much, the reason might be you're not motivated. Look at how your sports role models never give up and train beyond their comfort zone. Or listen to your favorite music as it might get motivate you to go beyond your comfort zone. Post success stories and quotes on the wall so when your training you can see them. Another tip to get motivated is to join a group exercise class. You will meet a lot of people there, and the group environment greatly helps motivation. ("If the 40 year old pregnant lady can get up at 5am and come to class, I can too!")
10 Know how well you are doing. Periodically measure your fitness. You can use a physical measurement such as bicep size, or a time such as how fast you can run a mile. Record these measurements. This will keep you motivated to see your improvements or to see how much you need to improve. Remember though, that these are long-term goals and your body doesn't necessarily improve every single day; have patience!
