Get Fit Quick Tip:
Get Some Rest!
Respect your rest day. Rest IS part of an exercise program. Allowing sufficient time to properly absorb your workout is appropriate to insure maximum results. Program in a rest/recovery day a minimum of one day each week. If you’re exhausted during workouts or have constant achy muscles, consider increasing your rest/recovery period in between workouts.
*Consult a Fitness Professional to determine the appropriate workout for you.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Become A Beginner With Your Fitness!
A great method to increase motivation and maintain interest in your fitness is to learn a new sport or skill. Be vulnerable and put yourself out there as a beginner. What activity would you love to try? Here’s how to get started:
To get ideas ask your friends what workout or sport they enjoy?
Do an online search to see what gear and knowledge is involved, as well as where the sport is offered in your community.
Poll your friends for their impressions about the facilities and instructors your internet search revealed. Still sound interesting?
Sign up! Better yet, invite a friend to join you!
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Build momentum to healthy and fit!
Building momentum to healthy and fit takes daily action. Healthy choices are cumulative, and every little bit counts! Here’s how to get started:
1. Commit to your goal every single day. Adopt a mantra to repeat your desired result, along with WHY the goal is important to reach NOW.
2. Take one action every day. One action could be drinking your water, choosing a healthy meal, buying nutritious groceries, reading a fitness journal or blog, taking a stretch break at work, trying a new workout class, inspiring a friend to choose healthy, researching a new exercise, and so on.
3. Small and steady progress usually works best for lasting results. Don’t over do it! You didn’t become out of shape overnight, and you won’t get back in shape overnight. Keep action steps small, but sustainable. You don’t have to eliminate all sugar in one day, but are you able to reduce sugar by one serving to start? Healthy choices are cumulative, and so is fitness.
4. Don’t give up! Setbacks happen. Taking one daily action step means you’re never off track completely. Keep going!
Ready to get healthy? With a new year comes new resolve to improve ourselves in so many ways, including our health. My advice this time of year is to be consistent with the basics:
Don’t worry so much about what exercises to do and in what order you should do them; just show up. Set a goal to show up 2 times each week for the first month, then 3 times each week in February. Can’t make it to the gym? No problem: get outside for a walk or take the stairs all day-all intentional activity counts!
Pack your gym clothes, shoes and water bottle the night before to avoid rushing around the next morning. You’ll develop a routine and soon it will become part of your ‘out the door’ mental checklist: do I have my gym bag? Water bottle? Check!
Bring a piece of fruit with you everywhere you go. Having something on hand will prevent impulse eating decisions. Ask yourself ‘am I hungry enough to eat this apple?’ And if the answer is no, you’re probably not actually hungry.
Mark your progress in a calendar or another physical and visible space to hold yourself accountable. When you can see that you made it to the gym 4 weeks in a row, you’ll want to make sure you continue in the 5th and 6th weeks, and even beyond!
For more fitness tips follow Sarah on Twitter: @SarahPace_Fit
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Make your strength workout a priority during the holidays.
Think skipping your weight workout will help during the holiday season? Think again. Here’s why logging your workout will HELP you during the holidays:
Decrease stress through forcing deep breathing to complete your set.
Look good at your party.
Increase energy and maintain your physical fitness to accomplish the extra tasks on your schedule.
Enter the New Year with fitness momentum.
Time to yourself to quiet your mind and move your body.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Prepare and plan your 2017 fitness goals now!
It’s not too early or too soon to prepare for your 2017 fitness goals. Here’s how to get started:
Write freely for 5 minutes. Grab a pen and paper or your keyboard and write whatever health and fitness-related thoughts that come to your mind. The purpose is to keep writing to brainstorm. An important goal may not be at the forefront of your mind and may take some digging.
Pick your top 3 ideas to focus on immediately. Which of the topics you wrote down are the most interesting and inspiring to you? Which scares you the most? Which makes you the most nervous? Choose those topics!
Gather information to establish a starting point. Commit to take one action step each day, beginning TODAY! Make a phone call, do a google search, talk to your friends, ask around.
START! Go.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Cross-Train for Consistency.
Consistent workouts is what leads to results. How do you stay motivated enough to be consistent? Cross-Train!
Do an entirely different workout anywhere from once a week to once a month. This means you’ll be working your muscles in a different mode or angle than during regular workouts. Changing the angle your working your muscles most days allows you to still log a workout but also decrease risk of injury from overworking or doing the same thing for days and weeks. Try a class. Join friends. Go outdoors. Doing something completely different will keep your mind interested, your motivation up, and your body changing.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Mindset Matters!
Emotional wellness is just as important as physical wellness. If your workouts have been off track, check your mindset. Get your mind right and your body, and your workouts, will follow. Here’s how to get started:
Communicate clearly. What exactly is it you want to accomplish? Be clear.
One action a day. Take one action, behavior or motion toward your goal each day. Taking regular consistent action will build momentum.
Review. Ask yourself what is working and what is not working. Be willing to adjust your course along the way.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Always warm-up for your workout!
A warm-up is an essential component of your workout and should NOT be skipped, or even abbreviated. Prepare your body for exercise with 8-10 minutes of dynamic (moving your body continuously) exercise. You’ll prepare your muscles and your cardiovascular system for the increased work load of exercise. A proper warm-up is any movement of your major muscle groups aerobically. For example:
Walking. Walking outside or on the treadmill makes a great warm up for just about every activity. Start slow and build up speed.
Calisthenics. Jogging, jumping jacks, hopping are all great warm up activities that move many muscles and increase our core temperature.
No load exercises. Perform your weight exercises, without weight. No load exercises are great to develop muscle memory patterns as well.
Range of motion exercises. Move each joint through it’s natural range of motion. For example, wrist circles, ankle circles or knee bending and extending. Do 5-8 reps.
*Consult your physician before beginning exercise.
Get Fit Quick Tip:
Weekly Workout Prep!
Once Monday hits, the week rolls fast and life gets busy. Make your fitness as convenient as possible so less time is wasted when schedules are tight. Make sure you have what you need for your workout, when you need it. Plan for your workouts for the week NOW!
1. Workouts planned and logged into your calendar.
2. Workout clothing washed, folded and packed in your drawer or gym bag. Shoes too!
3. Water bottle cleaned, filled and chilled.
4. Healthy pre and post-workout snacks portioned and packed in your container or bags.
5. Gym bag placed by the front door.
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