Great Suggestions for a Personalized Fitness Program

Great Suggestions for a Personalized Fitness Program

Every year, millions of Americans make vows and resolutions to exercise and get fit – and many never succeed, mainly because they lack the guidance to create a good workout. This article was written to give you some guidance on crafting the best workout and fitness program for you that is tailored to your needs.

The first step for any fitness program is to set goals for yourself. What do you want your exercise program to do? Do you want to build muscle? Do you want to tone your body? Do you want to lose weight? These will all determine the type of workout you need.

Once you have established goals, you will need to set standards for these goals. If you want to lose weight, then one standard would be to lose a certain number of pounds, be it over 5 years, a year, or a month. Standards enable you to track your progress and give you something to strive towards.

After you have decided what you want to do, you can start working on your workout.

Below are some suggestions and guidelines for various fitness scenarios. If you want to improve, say, your endurance, then follow the guidelines for the cardiovascular section. These guidelines will point you down the right path and give you a better idea of what you need to do.

• Improving Cardiovascular Fitness and Endurance

The key to improving the fitness of your cardiovascular system is, appropriately enough, the cardio workout. There are many ways to build your endurance and strengthen your cardiovascular system. Running is perhaps the most common, but you can also swim, bike, or play high-intensity sports. Even walking 5 times a week for 30 minutes a day will help make your heart stronger.

My personal recommendation: Swimming. This is a great all-around exercise that will boost your aerobic fitness while toning your muscles.

• Building Muscle

If you want to pack on pounds of muscle and get a shredded body, then you will need to hit the gym. Weight or resistance training is the only proven way to add significant muscle to your body. But this is only half of it. You must also adjust your diet to be high in protein – which is the building block of muscle. To build up your physique, hit the weights and aim for a few sets of low reps with high weight, at about 80% of your maximum capability. For example, for a stronger chest, do 3 sets of 3 reps of the bench press. If your max bench press is 100, then you’ll be lifting with 80 pounds.

My personal recommendation: Deadlifts and squats. These compound exercises target virtually your entire body when put together and can make you ripped in no time.

• Losing Weight

Losing weight involves two important concepts: better nutrition and regular exercise. This is basically the winning solution to weight loss. As far as exercise is concerned, you will need to do some form of cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis. At first it may only be walking 3 times a week for 30 minutes at a time. But as you progress, you can increase the number and duration of your walks, and even start jogging and running over time. Playing high-intensity sports (soccer, basketball, etc) will also help you lose weight. But you have to get your nutrition in order, otherwise exercise alone will not work.

My personal recommendation: Spinning, preferably in a class. This is an extreme tough workout when properly done that will definitely make you work up a fat-burning sweat.