Exercise is to the body as a tune-up is to an engine. It prepares the body for better performance at times when different muscles and joints are needed to be used. It also helps the heart and lungs to deal with increased capacity on demand. You can live without a regular exercise routine, but you can live so much better with one!
Before starting any exercise program, you should consult a doctor. A complete physical examination will reveal any medical condition which should result in a variation in the exercise routine. For example, those with asthma or blood pressure problems (to name just two conditions) will need to adjust the duration and level of the exercises performed. Since our bodies work much harder during exercising, you should know what it is capable of doing before starting a program.
Exercise is defined as practicing, training, or lessons learned by example. Throughout the day, we are constantly moving different muscles without realizing it. But most activity which we do isn't of a demanding nature. When we exercise, we work muscles harder than normal. This not only helps muscles to learn how to function under pressure, but requires them to draw more blood and oxygen though themselves which gives them increased nutrients. Training our muscles to work with high demand situations prepares them to do so whenever we have need for them to go above and beyond the normal functions we often take for granted. While we mainly talk about the muscle training when we speak of exercise, we should not overlook the effects on the heart and lungs. As our muscles work harder, our heart and lungs must also work harder to supply the increased demand. Monitoring of pulse and breathing rates is a good way to measure the immediate impact of an exercise routine as well as avoid going too far with it.
Just like anything else we learn, proper exercise routines should be started off gradually and increased to realistic goals on a steady basis as the body is able to. Starting off too strong or increasing too quickly can result in muscle injury or fatigue. It is better to take it too slowly rather than too quickly. Each person should regulate their own pace and ability based upon their own body. A good practice is to make a chart of what exercises are done, how many or length of time spent, and what days of the week these were done on. This can help build consistency as well as giving a long term show of progress.
For the same reason as above, workouts should always start and finish each session with a gradual increase or decline in activity levels. These are called warm up and cool down periods respectively. A person should warm up by spending the first ten minutes gradually working up to the full pace, giving the muscles a chance to get started. The last ten minutes should be spent cooling down with a gradual decrease in level to let the muscles slowly relax again. Doing this helps to prevent shocking the muscles from a basically inactive state into a high pressure situation and then back to their inactive state rapidly.
A person must also remember to drink plenty of fluid (water) around the exercise periods to replace the bodies fluids lost during perspiration and increased muscle demands. People may also notice a slight increase in their appetite after starting to exercise regularly. This is the bodies way of insuring that more nutrients are available to the muscles which are now regularly working harder than normal. A well balanced routine will offset any potential weight gain that people might think would be associated with the increased food intake though (provided that it is a well balanced diet).
There seems to be some dispute on how many times a week one exercises and the duration of each session. Some sources indicate daily or every other day for about twenty minutes and others say three times a week for about thirty minutes each. They seem to agree upon the facts that people should do a variety of exercises during each of the sessions to give a more complete workout to different muscle groups as well as breaking up the boredom of the same routine over and over again. Personal styles as well as medical advice should dictate the exercise pattern.
I have listed just a few exercises below to help give an idea of some exercise basics. The best thing about this list is that all of the items here can be done at home and without the expensive equipment (with weight training being a possible exception). If you think you don't have time to exercise, here is some good news. You can also do most of these while watching television programs, listening to music, or while watching the kids. If the latter is the case, why not even get the kids to exercise too! As you will see, there are a lot of good reasons to exercise and not a lot of legitimate reasons why not to. So let's get started.
A chin up is where you use a bar or rod to lift yourself up to where your chin is just above the level of the bar. Usually the bars height is just higher than as high as you can reach while standing, but a variant has the height just higher than you can reach while laying on your back (like an inverted push up). This exercise builds arm and upper body strength, but is one of the most demanding on this list because it requires you to lift the entire weight of the body.
Cycling or bicycle riding is a great exercise because you can do it both for recreation and for transportation. Riding a bike to work or for errands is a great alternative to driving a car and will provide health benefits also. You can adjust your overall workout by adjusting the speed of pedaling, switching gears, or alternating between hilly and flat routes. When bike riding on streets or sidewalks, you must obey all traffic laws and pay attention to the dangers of transit riding. Riding on special bike trails is another option for recreational cycling. If you want the benefits of cycling but don't want to be outdoors, you can purchase an exercise bicycle. Cycling provides an excellent workout for your leg muscles and arm, shoulder and back muscles being worked if the bicycle has drop (lowered) handlebars.
Jump (or skipping) rope is a fairly good workout for the arms, wrists, and legs but is more of a supplemental exercise used in combination with others to provide a more complete workout. To get the maximum benefit jumping rope alone, you need to continue for about thirty minutes several times a week.
Though usually used as a supplement, jumping jacks are a good way to involve the leg, arm, and shoulder muscles in coordinated exercise. You start from a standing position with your feet together and your arms down at your sides. In a coordinated manner, jump up, spreading your legs outward, and at the same time raise your arms above your head and touch your hands together. Jump again and smoothly return to the starting position. Repeat this for twenty minutes four times a week or adjust if a supplement to a group of other exercises.
A push up is another demanding exercise but is a great workout for your arms and upper body muscles. Lay on the floor face down with the palm of your hands on the floor at your sides at chest level. Using your arms, lift yourself off the floor until your arms are fully extended (only hands and toes touching the floor) and then lower yourself down. Keep your body straight and stiff through the routine. A variation of the full push up is where you keep your knees on the floor, which provides less benefit but makes for an easier routine which is useful to those just starting out or unable to do a full push up.
Possibly the best way to exercise the stomach and abdominal muscles is the sit up. Since the abdominal muscles support back movement, this exercise can help reduce future back related problems. There are some variations to the sit up which can streamline the effects. The basic sit up is done while laying on your back, feet tucked under a couch or heavy chair (to prevent them rising up) and your legs bent so your knees point upward. Place your hands behind your head so your elbows are pointing upwards and interlace your fingers. Now lift the upper portion of your body (bending at the waist) until your elbows touch your knees, then lower yourself back down. Sit ups are another demanding exercise as it requires you to lift the heaviest part of your body off the floor without any help from your arms or hands.
In the group with cycling and running, stair climbing is another way to improve the fitness of your leg muscles. Almost everybody has access to a flight of stairs nearby or a hill is an alternative. If you work in a skyscraper, you can take the stairs instead of the elevator to get to the office. Like the other exercises, benefits increase as frequency and duration increases. You should do this for about 20 minutes a day every other day and can adjust if you combine this with a group of other exercises. You can also add some extra benefit by increasing speed, but be aware of the safety issues such as other people or a stumble.
There are many methods and types of swimming techniques. I won't even attempt to cover the exercises, but want to mention some points. Unlike most other exercises, the body is supported by water during swimming instead of one or two specific body parts. This eases the impact that most other exercises exert on us. Also, most swimming exercises work a majority of the muscles instead of one specific group. Coordination is worked as breathing must be timed as appropriate and the head is turned to whichever side is not blocked by the arms. Swimming instructors or physical education coaches can advise you on methods and frequency that may suit your needs.
One of the basic and most flexible exercise groups includes walking, jogging, and running. You can start your training by walking about a mile at your normal walking pace (most walk around 3 miles per hour) five times a week. Every couple of weeks gradually increase the length and then speed of your walk. Once you get a good foundation built, you can begin jogging by gradually mixing an increased amount of jogging into your routine until you can jog continuously for about thirty minutes. If you want to go farther, mix full speed running into the routine. No matter how far you choose to go with this exercise, it is usually easy to make changes in a daily routine to work in walking where we used to not exercise. For instance, if you live just a few miles from work why not walk/jog instead of drive? Or walk to the corner mailbox or to the store when just doing light shopping that you can carry home. The benefits of walking increase as the speed and distance increases, but if you use every chance you can to walk the routines will become easier.
As with swimming above, there are too many types and methods of weight training to even begin to cover here. Yet again we will merely touch on the subject. The idea of weight training is to add a resistance or load for added impact to the muscles. It is probably best to get used to your normal exercise routine before starting training with weights so that your body has had a chance to work up to an endurance or strength level first. Physical education coaches can advise you on types of weight training right for you as well as teach you how to use equipment. Though you can purchase home exercise equipment, a fitness center will have a wider range of equipment than can be reasonably purchased for home usage.
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