Get Lean

Each person has a unique physical make-up. The exercises that work for you may or may not necessarily reap the same great results with somebody else. The secret to a good fitness program is to explore your options. There are various types of exercises that you can try out just until you find the perfect one. Or, you may utilize different types so that you won’t get bored by the same routines easily. The ultimate material is your determination to pursue that healthier lifestyle!

1. Flexibility Training

This is the exercise most often used by gymnasts. I’m not teaching you this so that you will be able to perform the perfect “cart-wheel”, though. The benefits of flexibility exercises stem from the knowledge that flexible muscles have less tendency for injury. Picture yourself trying to bend and pick up something from the floor when suddenly you hear that unmistakable “crunch”. The only way to avoid this is to make sure that your muscles are flexible at all times.

Before you begin any major workout, do some stretching first. Warm muscles equals less strain and sprain. Cold muscles used without the benefit of a good stretch will be sore and aching in no time at all.

Lots of activities can help you improve your flexibility. Martial arts like taekwondo, karate, aikido, and tapondo provide great training for flexing those muscles. Those flying kicks you’ve seen on Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies are results of flexibility training.

Other activities that work just as well include pilates, ballet and yoga.

Having great muscular flexibility will greatly enhance your performance in sports such as soccer as well as all types of dancing. 

If you are interested in any of these activities, then turn them into potential fitness programs for yourself!

2. Aerobic Exercises

Aside from working on getting movie-star muscles, also remember that like the abs and the biceps, the heart is also a muscle organ that needs the same amount of star treatment from you. Since the heart has the job of pumping blood and oxygen to the different parts of the body, then we cannot do without it. That’s why we have aerobic exercises!

Aerobic exercises or simply called “aerobics” provide a good workout by increasing the strength of your heart. It does so by enhancing the pumping capacity of the heart and quickening your breathing.

There are lots of aerobic activities to choose from. These include brisk-walking, running, swimming, biking, skating, skiing, and hiking.

Team sports like basketball, volleyball, football, hockey, tennis and soccer will also boost your heart's pumping ability. So sign up for the team!

The recommended dose of aerobic workout is 60 minutes to one hour of mild to moderate exercise. If you are having time constraints, then an intense thirty-minute activity will solve your heart’s needs for the day!

3. Strength Training

Above we have learned how to boost your heart’s pumping powers and how to avoid straining your muscles. Now, we’re going to find out how we can make sure our other muscles have enough strength to tolerate intense physical activity.

Strength training enhances your body’s performance by ensuring that you won’t get tired or worn out easily for a longer period of time. 

When you are in a period of inactivity, muscles work better at burning more energy as compared to fat. Having efficient muscles means burning calories better!

Since you have different muscle groups, specific exercises are recommended for specific parts of the body. Here are some useful suggestions:

• For the legs and thighs, your muscles will benefit a lot from walking, running, rowing, biking and skiing. If you don’t have time for a jog, use a jump rope instead. Thirty minutes of jump rope is equivalent to an hour of brisk-walking. The intensity makes up for the time you spend on a workout. Squatting, wall or rock-climbing as well as leg raising can be effective activities as well.
• To tighten those abdominal muscles, try yoga, crunches, pilates or rowing. Also, don’t forget what I told you about tucking then in where they belong. Some dancing will also benefit those abs, especially those that involve hip hop music.
• For your arms, build those muscles with constant push ups. Also try doing some rowing, skiing and sports such as volleyball and tennis.

These three basic types of exercises will help you master the road to getting lean the lazy way! When I say lazy, I don’t necessarily mean that you won’t have to lift a single muscle. It means “lazy” in the sense that we will be recreating your workout plan so that it is incorporated into your daily routine. When we do this, you will feel as if you are not working out at all. You are simply modifying your usual activities so that they produce more complex movement. And movement means mobility. Mobility then translates to achieving a fitter body that withstands stress and delivers a gym-worthy performance every single day!