Are you planning to start your fitness program? Having a fitness program is an excellent idea for enhancing your health. As you know, physical fitness is a guard against chronic diseases. Workouts help you in improving your self-esteem, sleeping habits, and managing your weight. Also, they enhance your body coordination and balance.
However, you can only gain these benefits if you have a well-thought health and fitness program. Here are 5 magic steps you can apply in starting an effective fitness program:
Evaluate your current fitness level
To begin your program, you need to know your current fitness level. So, start by assessing you’re current fitness scores. Some of the aspects you should evaluate are flexibility, aerobic and muscular fitness, and body composition. This information will be useful in developing benchmarks for assessing your progress.
So, consider recording statistics such as pulse rate and walking time for 1 mile, number of pushups, body mass index, and waist circumference.
Prepare your fitness plan
With knowledge about your fitness level, it is easier to come up with your plan. Now, write down your fitness goals. What do you want to achieve?
Also, you should develop a schedule of training sessions and their duration. The schedules should consider a balance between vigorous and moderate aerobic. Global healthcare and fitness organizations recommend 150 minutes as an ample duration for both aerobic exercises. So, ensure you follow these recommendations when developing your fitness plan.
Get the necessary fitness gear and equipment
The success of your fitness sessions relies on having the right fitness gear and equipment. So, you need to get the best fitness shoes, t-shirts, tops, leggings, and sports bra. Women’s gear like these enhance your comfort and help you focus during the fitness sessions.
Apart from the right clothing, you require some tracking devices to record your progress. You might want to get some exercising equipment such as dumbbells, yoga blocks and straps to stretch after your workout.
Implement your plan
Now, you have a plan and gear as well as exercise equipment in place. The next step is to activate your plan. Start your workouts at a slow pace and advance as you progress.
Also, ensure you engage in a wide range of warmups and cooling down sessions in your initial phases. Do not set a fixed workout schedule. Instead, consider flexibility. Break exercises into different sessions and rest if your body feels tired. This way, you will avoid workout-related injuries.
Assess your progress
Monitoring your progress is the best way to know whether you’re on the right path or not. The same case applies to the workout arena. As you did, when starting your fitness program, you should assess your progress after a certain period.
Your assessment period can be monthly or after every six weeks, depending on your fitness level. This way, you’ll know where you’re performing well and areas requiring some improvement.
Now, you have a guide on how you can start an effective fitness program. All you need is to get the right gear and to get going!