It’s easy to get bogged down with information when it comes to fitness and what is the best option for you. There are so many exercise types, food and calorie management methods (including ways and lifestyles to eat, think vegan, Paleo, keto etc) and options available for both commercial gym and at home fitness opportunities. Finding the right fitness outlet can be overwhelming.
With the flow of information on the world wide webs, it’s easy to find and research fitness and exercise regimes that are suitable for you, the same as it is with finding a food and nutrition regime that works best for your lifestyle. The down side to this can be that there are so many options and so many experts – everybody believes their method of getting and staying fit is the best method.
Finding the best training method for you can be at times a little bit of trial and error. In order to maximise time spent on finding what works for you, the following tips can be extremely useful:
- Determine what it is you want to achieve and then train for that. There is no point training for strength if you need to be able to run for 2 kilometres every day. Strength training will help increase your fitness and make you sweat, but endurance training will ultimately give you the aerobic ability to run.
- Start your fitness journey with a personal trainer. When I started my gym membership they gave me a deal where I got 3 training sessions for free with my membership type. Negotiate something like this with your gym if you can because starting off with a PT will allow you to talk to someone about your ultimate goals and how you’d like to achieve them. They can make recommendations on appropriate training programs for you.
- Try a few group classes and see what you prefer. These day’s group classes are not simply cardio – many offer a mixture of strength and endurance options also. If you find that more cardio or more strength is what you prefer, then you can start working towards implementing these things in your fitness regime.
- Go with a friend to a training session they attend. You might hate sitting on a bike and cycling for 30 mins but love doing Zumba instead.
- Try a group sport with friends or work colleagues. Some people inherently enjoy the groupthink mentality, working in a team towards a specific goal and having a specific role within this team.
- Think outside the square – you don’t need to go and get a gym membership and lift weights. You can get fit in many different ways, like bush walking and hiking, martial arts, swimming, boxing, cycling etc.
- Keep a journal and write down how you feel before, during, and after each workout. This will help you review what works best for you and will also highlight areas you can or want to improve in.
Ultimately the fact that you’re considering getting fit is a step in the right direction and means that you want to start making changes. If all else fails whilst you wait to find what works for you, start walking. Take your dog on a walk, or go with a friend. You’ll soon start developing an idea of what you want to achieve and the quickest way to achieve it. But as long as you’re physically moving, no exercise regime can ever be bad for you.
If you went through this, what were some things you employed to determine what was the best fitness method for you?
That Fitology Life 