Time for Exercise

Fitness takes a lot of planning. It can involve lifestyle changes and serious commitment. But if you aren’t including everything you need in your workout, you can really slow your improvement down or even injure yourself.

Many people just plunge straight into their workout routine without warming up. This is a big mistake. Think back to your gym classes in high school. I certainly hope your teachers had you warm up then. Considering the amount of time they had, there certainly has to be a reason.

The reason for warming up is quite simply that it gets your body ready for exercise. It stretches out your muscles and gets your heart beating just a little faster. It decreases your odds of injury. Do a general warmup routine before you start exercising, then take 5-10 minutes before each new kind of exercise and warm up that part of your body.

You can then move on to the main part of your fitness routine, in which you actually do your exercises at the full level you are comfortable working out at. While it’s okay to challenge yourself a little bit, don’t overdo things to the point that you do injure yourself. How much you do and how long you exercise depends on your overall fitness goals.

Finally, you want to cool down at the end of your routine. This is more or less the reverse of the warmup. You want to start taking things easier and easier. You should feel your heart rate slow down and your body cool off. This gives the lactic acid built up in your muscles during exercise a chance to be removed.

While it’s easy to say to yourself that you have very, very little time to exercise and you want to make the most of it, it is very important that you not skip any of these steps. They will help you to maximize your efforts even when they seem to be a waste of time. They help your body cope better with the exercise and with getting back to normal. Even if they don’t give results you can see, warming up and cooling down are vital parts of your exercise routine.