How To Get Back In Shape

Starting over is never an easy thing to do, especially when you've invested years into it just to watch it all go to waste. But as the old saying goes, if it was easy, then everyone would be doing it. But we knew that! It wasn't easy starting in the beginning so why should we expect it to be easy now. Here's what you can do to get yourself back on track.

How far have you really fallen? The only way to know for sure is to give yourself a fitness exam. Before going back to the gym, what I did was give myself a home fitness test using body weight exercises. The reason I did this is because these kind of exercises present less opportunity for injury (Don't want to have to stop as soon as your start). A good way to go about doing this is to do a few bench mark exercises. Not only will these help you to see how far you've fallen, but they will also give you a goal to aim for. Here are four benchmark exercises you can try for yourself:

Try doing 20-50 Push ups. Push-ups are an excellent way to test your upper body strength and full body stability. They do this by working our chest, shoulders, core and triceps.

Hold yourself up in a plank position for 2-3 minutes. Planks work our cores. Having a strong core is essential when it comes to heavy lifting as it will help prevent injury by putting less strain on our backs.

Try doing 20-50 of these. This is a very basic movement that has plenty of benefits. This exercise works your quads, calves and hamstrings. It can also be at determining of how flexible our hip and ankles are.

I know this is not a strength building workout, and I can hear some of you saying "I don't need to run; I get enough cardio every morning when I bang my girlfriend". Cardio early in the morning with your spouse is great, but it's no fun if you're tired after the first minute. Running a mile is the perfect benchmark to test your endurance. How fast you can actually do this varies. To start just try running a full mile without stopping.

The thing we once loved doing everyday now just seems to be a burden. With family pulling you in one direction and your job along with other responsibilities pulling you in the next, it can become extremely difficult to find the time we once had to work out. No matter how busy our schedules may become, the average person is usually able to dedicate at least one hour of his/her day to doing something. Why not let it be a workout routine? Here are 3 ways you can find the time

I'm by no means suggesting you deprive yourself of sleep to pick up an early morning routine. Because as any fitness expert will tell you, during sleep is when muscles grow. But I'm not saying that you should sleep the entire day away either! By going to bed 1-2 hours earlier than you normally would, you can get all the sleep you need and still wake up early enough to get a workout in before everything else in your life has time to pull you.

If you have young children whom can't be left alone, why not bring them with you? Many gyms nowadays offer babysitting services to members for a few hours. Your young ones will be close while you get your workout in.

You have 60 free minutes every day at work, its called lunch time. Rather than hang around the office or in the cafeteria all day talking with your co-workers, get your workout out of the way. You can bring your gym clothes to work and just change back into your regular clothes afterwards. Most gyms have showers that you can use before going back to work, so there's really no reason to return to work sweaty and smelling like a used gym sock...unless you just really want to irritate your co-workers in which case it's perfectly fine.

In order to get where you’re going or in this case, return to where you came from. You're going to have to start from square one! It can be intimidating starting over from scratch and I'm sure you can find all the excuses in the world why you can't, but excuses don't excuse you! You did it before and you can do it again. The only thing stopping you is you.