It’s not easy to fit an exercise programme into you daily schedule.
Its particularly difficult if you are working out a health club, as you
have to fit your schedule into the health clubs schedule. The smallest
amount of conflict between you and them and the excuses for skipping a
training session will come thick and fast. Even if you are not the type
to make excuses things can still disrupt your plans such as overtime at
work or an unscheduled office meeting.
One alternative is to workout at home. Exercising at home lets you
maintain a fitness programme at your own convenience, in privacy and at
relatively little expense.
But even working out at home takes serious dedication to overcome any number of stumbling blocks.
The most difficult thing is to stay motivated. One of the best
solutions is to workout with a friend. Speak to a number of your close
friends and see if they want to get involved. By turning exercise into
a social gathering keeps it from getting boring. You can also encourage
each other and you are less likely to cut your session short if there
are two or more of you training together.
DVD’s and WiiFits are another way to help keep up your regime if you have to workout alone.
Another crucial thing is time allotment. There are so many
distractions at home. The kids want your attention, the phone rings;
someone is knocking at the door, there are a million and one things
that can keep you from exercising, so you need to make the decision
that you are going to filter these out. Set a time for exercise and
don’t let anything interfere with it. If the phone rings ignore it or
set your answer machine. Thirty to sixty minutes of your time isn’t a
lot to ask in a 24-hour day and most things will wait that long without
any drastic consequences.
Now that you have decided how and when you are going to exercise you
now need to make sure you get the best from it. Think what you like to
do, not what the latest craze is. The best motivation for exercise is
enjoying the activity. No matter how much you want to get in shape it’s
going to be difficult to exercise if you hate the exercise you are
doing.
The best way to exercise at home is with fitness equipment. Do you
need fitness equipment? No of course not but it helps achieve goals
more enjoyably and effectively. It’s a bit like using a lawn mower to
cut your lawn. You can do it with sheers but a lawn mower does it
quicker and gets better results.
It easy today to outfit a home gym, there is a lot of equipment out
there. Before you spend a penny spend a bit of time deciding what it is
you truly want to achieve. Analyze what your training goals are. If
it’s to improve your cardiovascular system all you may need is an
exercise bike, treadmill or crosstrainer. But again determine what it
is you like to do. Buy equipment that is designed for your level. For
instance, if you don’t want too many programmes on your treadmill then
don’t spend more money on one that does have them. However as your
fitness improves the machine will need to grow with you so don’t be too
conservative. If you want to weight train then the cheapest way is with
free weights but these can be dangerous if you are working out alone. A
home gym is the alternative. Finally buy quality. You get what you pay
for so don’t expect a £500 treadmill to feel like a £5000 club unit,
its best to choose just one good quality machine than lots of cheap
rubbish. Again if it doesn’t feel nice to use you won’t use it.
Finally another way to keep things on track is to vary your exercise
regime. Never do the same thing for three months straight as boredom
will kick in. You will get sick of dancing to the same DVD or cycling
at the same speed and distance on your exercise bike. If you move on to
different exercises from time to time its always fresh.