Keep-fit without being fanatical

Being fit gives you a buzz. It is an important part of being alive.

I have never met anyone who wants to be unfit, and practically everyone admires or envies people who are fit.

For many people, however, fitness is not a central part of their lives. They would like to be fit but ideally don't really want to do the keep-fit.

You can raise your level of fitness, simply be choosing to do things a little differently. Change your routines and habits in some ways.

• For some journeys for which you might drive or use public transport, decide to walk instead.
• Perhaps you could combine walking with passing through a park or beauty spot, so adding a few pleasant moments to your daily life. If you travel by public transport and you think the bus will leave the bus stop before you reach it, try running to catch it. You might have to watch out for traffic, though.
• Pay attention to your body posture. Straighten your back and roll your shoulders back.
• You may not be aware that we manage to stand upright by exerting various muscles to work our skeleton. In that way we manage to stay erect. You can take this to an extreme by trying to be as perpendicular as you can, from your feet flat on the ground to the top of your head. In addition to developing related muscles, this will likely offer various other benefits such as reducing back troubles. As with any exercise be careful not to overdo it. Also, you should bear in mind that this is suggested as an exercise routine, not as a feature of your normal posture.

Training weights add useful options in workouts. They can be used for two basic aspects - buildiing muscle and cardiovascular training. They are used mostly in exercises when you want to work on specific muscle groups. An example of this is repetitions of lifting a weight above your shoulder and lowering it behind the shoulder.

You could use weights for cardiovascular training in your existing exercises in order to gain more benefit from those exercises. When your hands are free during exercises you could use hand-held weights. Alternatively, you could strap small weights onto your wrists or ankles.

Why check your pulse during training

Checking your pulse regularly throughout your session will help ensure that you workout at the level you require for yourself:

• not too hard, so there is no risk of any health emergencies.
• when your fitness session becomes more serious, it can give you a target fitness level to aim for.

To find your pulse

1. Locate your pulse in either wrist by turning the palm uppermost, so the thumb is on the outside.
2. You should find your pulse in the wrist not far from where it joins the hand.
3. Find the tendons in your wrist. You should find your pulse between them and the outside, or thumb side, of your wrist.

To check your pulse during training

With a little experimenting and practice, you can learn to locate your pulse readily. Alternatively, perhaps you could mark the spot with washable ink.

Periodically, when your hands are free during training, place your index finger on your pulse, count the pulse beats over six seconds and multiply the count by ten. The result will be your approximate pulse count per minute.

To begin with at least avoid making your fitness session so rigid or so arduous that you find it too unpleasant and might not want to repeat it. Also, if you were to pull a muscle or sustain a more severe injury, you could end up doing less keep-fit and becoming much less fit.

Your can include a variety of simple exercises.

Some useful features you can build into your personal keep-fit sessions are:

• generally, make it specific to your personal needs.
• set personal goals - that is, benefits that will result from your keep-fit.
• set fitness targets. To begin with, these might be very low, such to do one push up or one stomach pull up. From that point onward it is merely a matter of how many repetitions and how fast you do them.
• set a limit on the duration of your session. To start with do not force yourself to complete the workout time, but obviously, the more you can exercise the fitter you will be.
• you can take breaks at any time in the session if you wish; you should try to ensure that you get the sort of exercise you need and that your fitness session is something you would like to do regularly.
• the pulse check - an advanced feature of fitness workouts, which can offer you safety against any health emergencies, and enable some cardiovascular training, which offers a range of benefits in heath and fitness.

When you have developed a routine that you like you will find you have created a valuable feature in your life.