Fitness Blog

When it comes to exercise, people either love it or hate it. Very few folks settle in the middle ground. For the haters, getting started with a fitness regimen is hard enough; sticking with it is even tougher. In order to smooth that path, here are six helpful tips:

1. Set easy-to-achieve goals.
Everyone needs motivation to keep on keeping on. Seeing the results of your efforts is the ultimate reward. Keep it simple, though. Even baby steps provide tangible feats of accomplishment and markers of progress. If you are trying to lose weight, set a target of one pound a week. It may not seem like much, but losing weight slowly is the healthiest way to go in terms of keeping it off. Hitting that mark each week will feel good; surpassing it will feel great.

If you are more in it for fitness, you can set your goals using resistance levels and length of workout. Again, set small increments of achievement so that you are sure to hit your target.

2. Choose something enjoyable.
Exercise needn’t be excruciating physically or mentally. Picking a fun activity as your regimen of choice is another surefire way to help you stick with it. Sign up for a basketball or racquetball league, swim, hike, or bike outdoors, do circuit training. Whatever it is that inspires you – be it competition, nature, or variety – follow that lead.

3. Recruit an exercise buddy.
With a compatriot, accountability ensures that you don’t slack off, plus you can commiserate and celebrate with someone who understands and shares in the experience.

4. Build it into your schedule.
It’s so easy to avoid things you don’t want to do and exercise is often on that list. By setting aside the time in your schedule on a regular basis, you not only carve out a window of opportunity, but you also help your body develop the habit of exercising. Quite possibly, you’ll work your way into an almost involuntary response, your system switching itself into go mode during those schedule workout slots.

5. Be more physical.
Adding little bits of exertion into your daily life is an excellent way to keep your metabolism on its toes. Park in the back of the lot; take the stairs; bike to the Post Office or bank. Wherever you can add in more physicality, do it!

6. Listen to your inner guidance.
When you start to feel a slump or wall in your program, step back and really look at it. Do you need some extra inspiration? Maybe buy some new sneakers or make a new playlist to listen to while working out. Is your body hitting a plateau? Try taking a few days off or switching up your routine to shake your system up. Are your muscles or joints aching in a not-good way? Again, take a few days off to let your body recover, then ease back into your program.

Committing to be healthier through exercise is one of the most important and rewarding decisions you will ever make. Yes, it’s hard work, but you’re worth it.

If you are interested in setting up your own home gym, quite a few considerations must be taken into account before diving in. More than any other, cost is probably the first thing to look at. Rather than paying $20-30 a month for a gym membership, you’ll need to lay out a fairly sizable chunk of cash to get things set up. After that hurdle, space and equipment choices should be relative snaps.

Here’s a quick-view checklist of research topics:
Cost
Lifespan of product life
Trade-in programs, warranties, and service plans
Durability
Safety, comfort, and ease of use
Product reviews
Repair costs

When weighing the expenses, you should not only factor in your monthly dues, but the cost of gas and time spent going to and from the gym. When all is said and done, it may well be more cost efficient to have your own set-up, particularly if there are more than one fitness buffs in your household.

Still, the upfront costs are nothing to sneeze at. A multi-purpose weight machine can run upwards of $700 and a decent, durable treadmill is going to likely be in the $600-1,000 range, if not more. Stationary bikes are about half that price and also take up half the space. However, while your budget is obviously a limitation, the real value and choice should be based on which machine you will use consistently and long-term.

Here are space estimates for various pieces of equipment from the ACE (American Council on Exercise):
Treadmill — 30 square ft.
Stationary bike — 10 square ft.
Free weights — 20-50 square ft.
Single station gym — 35 square ft.
Rowing machine — 20 square ft.
Stair climber — 10-20 square ft.
Multi-station gym — 50-200 square ft.
As most exercise enthusiasts know, a well-rounded regimen consists of strength/resistance training, cardio (either aerobic or anaerobic), core work, and stretching.

For the strength piece of the puzzle, you can go with free weights or cable machines, depending on your personal preferences. The goal is to make sure whatever you choose allows you to work all the major muscle groups – back, quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. If you are an old-school type, you know that a regimen of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and lunges will do a pretty good job with a minimal of accessories. Anything above and beyond that is icing on the well-toned cake.

When it comes to cardio, a number of leading fitness experts are finding that high-intensity interval training (HIT) programs provide much greater results in a much shorter time period than traditional aerobic exercise. Stationary bikes and ellipticals are great choices for HIT workouts. They are also machines that almost anyone at any fitness level can employ on the road to health.

Core work is an area of fitness that has started to get a lot more attention in recent years. One inexpensive and incredibly effective way to do core work is to use fitness balls. Some are smaller and weighted; others are large and bouncy. With a nice array of them at the ready, you can get a lot of core work done.

For stretching, no special equipment is required. However, to protect your flooring and ensure solid foot traction, you might consider adding a rubber truck bed liner or animal stall mat as a base layer. Then, to make floor stretching exercises more comfortable, you could throw a cushioned mat on top of that. Again, it all comes down to your individual needs and budget.

In the end, if having a home gym will better inspire you to get fit and stay that way, then it truly is priceless.

Welcome To FitnessFun 411

Let’s get in a time machine and go back 100 or 75 or even 50 years.  Then let’s find a typical man or woman of the era and ask them if they want to spend $40 a month on a gym membership (will adjust the fee for inflation).  How do you think they would respond?

They would laugh in our face.

Why, after a hard day of work at the factory, or down on the farm, or at whatever laborious job they currently held, would they want to spend money just so they could exercise?

Now let’s return to the 21st century.  For many of us, our jobs involve sitting in front of a computer all day.  Then how do we spend our free time?  Well, we watch television, go to the movies, surf the internet, play video games, and use social media.  And that’s not even mentioning the fact that there’s a fast food joint on every corner.

Nowadays, you have to take time out of your day to get exercise and you have to work very hard to eat a balanced diet.  That’s because we live in a sedentary fast-paced world.  We tell ourselves we don’t have time to eat healthy and exercise while all of our major activities involve sitting for long periods of time.

Our ancestors didn’t have that problem.  They got their exercise naturally through the course of their labor-intensive jobs and their backbreaking chores.  Furthermore, they didn’t have to worry about Big Macs and Venti Frappuccinos.

But we do.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 33 percent of adults 20 years and older are overweight, more than 34 percent are obese, and almost 6 percent are extremely obese.  To put it another way, as a nation we’re fat and out of shape.

Of course, the blueprint to get and stay fit is easy.  All you have to do is eat healthy, exercise, get the appropriate amount of sleep, drink plenty of water, and don’t smoke or abuse alcohol.  The formula to lose weight is even simpler: burn more calories than you consume.

Needless to say, getting fit and losing weight is easier said than done.  If it was easy those numbers from the CDC would be much different.

Also, there are many ways to get and stay fit as well as numerous ways to burn more calories than you consume.  Which ones are right for you?  Which ones are the most fun?  Which ones are for beginners?  Which ones have been proven the most effective?

To help answer all those questions, FitnessFun411 will be offering original articles on a wide range of fitness related topics.  These informative, well-written, and useful articles will help you reach your fitness and weight-loss goals.  If you’ve already reached your desired fitness level and/or weight, than our edifying articles will help you stay there.

In addition to our must-read blog, FitnessFun411 will also provide a listing of fitness-related businesses across the U.S.  These resources will definitely be a big help as you adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle.  If you own a fitness-related business our listings are a great way to reach potential customers.

Living in today’s world means you need to make fitness a priority.  So naturally, you need a Web site where fitness IS the priority.  That’s why you need FitnessFun411.  Bookmark us right now and visit us regularly.  Just consider it your first step towards getting fit.

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