Building your fitness levels and moving your body more bring a wealth of benefits for both your body and mind. From improving mental well-being to aiding with weight loss, you can use exercise to achieve a range of different goals. Try out some of our tips in the following post to help motivate you to begin your fitness journey.
Choose a form of working out
The get started, you need to start by choosing the right method of working out for you and what you think you could sustain long-term interest in. You shouldn’t just base your decision on what form of exercise you think will make the fittest, it should also be based on what kind of exercise you enjoy. It’s going to be really hard to motivate yourself to remain consistent with working out if you don’t enjoy yourself. Try and think outside the box, getting fit doesn’t have to mean running on a treadmill for hours. For example, why not try out different sports such as tennis, horse riding, or swimming? If you enjoy yourself, you will often forget that you’re even working out at all.
Start off gradually
Try not to throw yourself in at the deep end when it comes to exercise. If you do, you could risk injuring yourself or burning yourself out. This will then prevent you from exercising anyway and not achieving your fitness goals. Start off gently and gradually ease yourself into more intense workouts as you gain more experience. For example, with running, it’s better to start with walking, then pick up the pace gradually to a run as you build your stamina and the length of running you can achieve.
Treat yourself to some new gear
A great way to help motivate yourself to begin your fitness journey is to purchase some new clothing and equipment to help with your workouts. Although the clothes you choose are completely up to you, it’s of course best to use light, breathable clothing to prevent skin rashes from developing due to sweat. You should also make sure you have high-quality trainers, as they will help to support your feet, and ankles, and prevent injuries such as plantar fasciitis. Adidas Adicross trainers are a great option for providing high-quality comfort if you’re going to be spending long periods of time on your feet and want to prevent aches and rubbing. You will also need to consider if there are any specialist pieces of clothing or equipment you will need for a new form of exercise or sport. If your chosen form of exercise can be improved with the use of gym equipment, it’s worth joining a public gym to help reduce the cost of investing in new equipment.
Join a group
Joining a group is a great option to help improve your fitness at the same time as increasing the level of motivation you have to work out. It can also make exercising more enjoyable and fun, as you’ll be able to combine it with socialising and meeting like-minded people that enjoy the same things. It can also be fun to incorporate exercise into more light-hearted forms of exercise such as dancing or group sports. You can usually find out more about local exercise groups through social media or online sites for your local area. You can also work out with friends, family, or like-minded work colleagues.
Set yourself goals
When you’re improving your fitness, it can be extremely beneficial to set yourself goals and targets to help keep your motivation levels high. After an initial burst of motivation, many people find that they quickly start to lose motivation and their fitness results start to plateau. However, if your past self has set targets and goals you want to achieve, then you’re more likely to want to keep going and achieve what you set out to do. Consider keeping a fitness diary or wall planner to help keep you on track and organised with your workout schedules.
Try and develop a routine
To help you with reaching your goals, it’s important to try and get yourself into a routine. It can be hard starting a lifestyle and incorporating more exercise into your life, however, once you get into a routine it becomes a lot easier. Having a set routine helps you to better organise your schedule, which will leave more time for working out as well as making those workouts more productive. Routine is also helpful with other areas of your life such as getting more and improved sleep, which will help with how much energy you have and how well you can put effort into exercise. Getting into a new routine can be hard, but the main thing is to remember to be consistent. This will mean it quickly becomes second nature and won’t feel like it requires as much effort to motivate yourself to do it.