Adhering to an Exercise Regimen

Adhering to an Exercise Regimen

Working out isn’t always fun for everyone, and adhering to your exercise regimen can be especially hard if you feel unmotivated or lack the discipline to do it. There are a few pieces of advice that can help just about anyone stick to their workout plan longer, and maybe even change your view on exercise.

Assuming that you’re new to working out for the first time – or one of many new starts – you should start off easy and work your way into the advanced exercise plans instead of starting with technical circuits and exercises.

Make a schedule based on how often you can be 100% dedicated to thirty minutes to an hour in your day to exercise instead of doing what most people do and over commit to the gym five to seven days a week.

If you can resistance train two days a week, and do some light to moderate cardio three days a week, this would give you a great starter program to get your momentum going. Three cardio days and two resistance days doesn’t mean you have to train five days a week, because you can combine your cardio portion of the workout with any of your resistance days – either before or after your resistance exercises.

Working out three days a week means that your body has a solid four days to recover, stretch, and de-stress from the workload of lifting. Overtraining is a common issue with beginner exercisers, because just like dieting, they take on too much at one time and can only maintain that lifestyle for a couple of weeks before they cave in and begin yo-yoing back and forth between a healthy and unhealthy lifestyle.

Start slow and ease into more volume, higher intensity, and heavier weights when you begin to feel as though you’re ready to take on more. Aside from getting the proper structure of how many days to work out, you should also make sure you’re enjoying your workout somewhat.

This means you should pick full body exercises that are easy enough for you to comfortably perform, while still making it challenging enough at the same time. If some exercises are causing you pain, you should either stop doing that exercise – because your body uses pain as a message to tell you to quit – or look up how to fix your form, since most people don’t have it.

Deciding to quit an exercise is completely fine if it’s causing too much pain, but try to supplement it with a different exercise that still targets that same muscle. If you can learn to not dread your exercises, give your body plenty of rest, and go at your own pace, you won’t be so quick to ditch your fitness regimen..