Beginners in fitness should first start off by doing cardio and working on form on resistance exercises. Even though this approach won't get you your instant six pack or perfect beach body, it will insure a longer healthier you. Once you have been working on correct exercise technique and a light mile jog doesn't take you 10 or more minutes to complete, you will be ready to up the intensity. Lets first get into examples of what I'm talking about.
The first thing is to determine a target heart range. Take your maximum heart rate (220-age) minus your resting heart rate ( preferably your heart rate right when you wake up). Then take that number times .55 + resting heart rate. This will give you a minimum of what your heart rate should be while you are performing your cardio activity. You should also have your heart rate at this number before starting your resistance training session. To determine your top end heart rate use .65 instead of .55. The heart rate range you just determined is for people who would like to loose body fat and trim up. A person should stay within this range for a total of one hour if only performing a cardio workout session. During times of plateaus I recommend you bump this range from .55-.65 to .75-.85 and cut back to a half hour. This will shock your system and also increase your level of energy stores in your body. Recommendations for cardio are 5-7 days per week and resistance training is 4-5 days per week. Since there are days you are going to have to do both you should cut your cardio back to 35 minutes and increase your range. Perform cardio after your resistance training. The goal of resistance training is to maximize depletion of energy stores in the muscle so your body burns fat to replenish your muscles. If you perform resistance exercise after cardio, you will not be able to perform at your maximum potential.
Now it is on to resistance training. Beginners will experience soreness in their muscles so it is very important not to push your body too far too fast.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Introduction
People all over the country are eager to join a gym and get into shape, but once they do they don't know where to start. If you are one of these people and don't want to spend a ton of money of fitness trainers to help get you on track, listen up.
This might come as a shock to many people, but getting in shape is not that difficult. All you need is the desire and motivation to become a healthier more energized person. Just do something. FACT: walking around a gym trying to figure out where to start burns more calories than sitting on couch eating ice cream watching your favorite episode of "Desperate House Wives".
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