If you have taken a layoff from your usual fitness schedule it is challenging to get motivated to start back into your workout routine once more. What you have to do is stick to some realistic achievable “written”resolutions to help push you.
The reason I say “written†is simply because if you don’t jot your resolutions in a notebook your goals are merely wishes. Studies have established over and over again that writing your goals down in a notebook is powerful beyond measure.
Let’s look at several sample scenarios. If you need to get back into jogging, walk first. Depending upon your degree of work out you can only begin with only fifteen or twenty minutes. If you have some level of exercise begin with a half hour and step by step intensify it.
Once you have been walking for a couple of weeks ease back into jogging by alternating walking and running. Walk for ten minutes and run for five minutes and so forth. As you become stronger and your discomfort goes away increase the running until you get back to running for thirty to forty five minutes at a time.
If you have done weight training in your past and have taken a time-out of more than a couple of months it is necessary to take it slow as you begin to train again.
When training with weights, if you push yourself to do too much initially you may possibly wind up hurting your muscle’s supporting tendons and ligaments. The trick is to not to hurry in attempting to try to do the same routine that you were doing but doing less sets.
What I try following a long hiatus is to go to the health club and ride the stationary bike for 15-2o minutes to begin with to warm my body up. Then, I will decide on only one specific body part per day to train. If you are an elderly person or have a large frame you may want to stay on this type of exercise program even after your initial break-in period.
Let us take a look at working out the upper body for example. If I were bench pressing 300 pounds prior to my layoff I will start my first work out with 135 pounds and do 3 or 4 sets of repetitions of about 15-20 times each. Adjust your weights accordingly. Next I may do 3 sets of flat dumbbell flyes once more with higher reps so as not to place too much strain on my tendons and ligaments.
Stick to these same guidelines for all body parts and increase the weights and reps little by little and within a month you will be right back to heavy training again and moving towards your resolutions.