Are you starting about starting to exercise? Those are great news!! Exercise is one of the best things you can do to improve your health and life. In this post, we'll tell you how to start exercising in easy steps
Why Do You Need To Exercise?
Exercise and physical activity significantly improve your health. Through exercise, you can work different aspects of your health to elevate the quality of your life.
Far beyond that, exercise can train and set your mind, lower the risk of disease, or even increase your lifespan (1)
Benefits Of Doing Exercise
The benefits of exercise spread in a very wide range. The inmediate and most obvious effects are on your physique and cardiovascular system. Muscle increases, weight drops, and you start to feel better.
Take-Away Message
EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOU
START NOW!!
Complete Beginner’s Guide to Start Exercising
Beginnings are always tough. You don't what to do, when to start, where...
In the following 5min, we’ll give you an easy guideline for you to start exercising and improving your life.
How to Start Exercising:
- Check your health status
- Choose an exercise you like and enjoy
- Learn about exercise and program the first weeks
- Define your goals
- Take it slow
Check your Health Status
1st step: Check your Health
Before starting any exercise discipline, you need to make sure your health status is good. Early checkup can help you detect health problems or conditions that could put you at risk for an injury during exercise.
Go to your physician or health advisor and ask for a general checkup of your health. That way you’ll make sure that it’s totally fine to go and start exercising
Choose an exercise you like and enjoy
2nd step: Exercise Selection
Exercise is about the long term. The main effects and benefits of exercising appear after months and/or years of continuous training.
The only way to stay on track throughout this journey is choosing the right exercise. If you don’t like it and/or don’t find it fun, you’ll end up giving up sooner or later
Come up with 3-5 exercise disciplines you’d like to try. Make an assesment of pros and cons of doing each of the proposed ones. Once you have the assesment made, go for the one with most pros and least cons.
You can also combine exercise disciplines at the same time. If you do so, a good idea is to combine both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
In terms of health, combined aerobic and anaerobic exercise show to have greater benefits than any of them alone (source)
Learn About Exercise and Program the First Weeks
3rd Step: Learn about Exercise
You have the thumbs up from your doctor, and the exercise discipline you want to do. The next step is a matter of spending some time learning more in depth about the exericse.
How to do a proper technique, nutrition to optimize performance, program templates, potential concerns....
Once you know all of these, you can start programming your first weeks of exercise. Make sure there's improvement and development between exercise sessions.
Online Course: How to Start Changing your Physique
Define Your Goals
You have your point A (now), but what's your point B? Where do you want to go?
Define your goals. Create a consistent "why" for exercising. This will help clear your mind, maintain motivation high, and put the odds in your favour.
But be careful when setting goals. Don't be too ambitious nor too easy. Find the middle point. Somewhere where you need to get out of your competences and develop new ones, but it's still possible within the time range you have.
Take it Slow
5th Step: Step by Step
Don't pretend to go from 0 to 100 overnight. Muscle building takes time, running a marathon takes time, hiking an 8k takes time...
Progress slowly. For every training session, do at least the same as in the last session, and then try to improve a tiny bit.
Take it step by step. Acquire long term mentality and work slowly towards your goals.
Quick Tips to Start Exercising
With these 5 steps, you now know how to start exercising. Check, choose, learn, define, and act!
However, we don't stop there. In the next 5min, quick tips to make your beginnings much easier and enjoyable.
TIPS to Start Exercising
- Seek for the long term
- Make it a habit
- Don't get obsessed with exercise
- Stay motivated
- Prioritize sleep and nutrition
Long Term Mentality
The main benefits of exercise come in the long term. You won't feel much healthier the day after, but it is the continuous repetition of exercise what improves your health.
If you want to start exercising, acquire long term mentality. It must become part of your life.
If you do so, you'll eventually need exercise in your routine. Thus, the rare thing will now be not to exercise. This is the point you want to get to.
This fact is backed up by sport psychologists (7), who recommend working on the long term to have enough time to assess and evaluate how the different skills of the athlete are developing.
Make it a Habit
If you've been around TBS, you probably know about the importance of building good habits. And this is not an exception of the rule.
A key component of exercise success is to make it a habit. Exercise is about the long term, and if you want to keep it on the long term, you must make it a habit
Make it a habit. Implement it in your life. Book a timeslot for exercising and don't missn it. Enjoy it.
Don’t Get Obsessed with Exercise
The thin line between obsession and passion is often blurry enough, that we may end up on the wrong side.
Don't get obsessed. Don't try to go 'all-in' with exercise, and find a balance between exercise and other aspects of your life.
Because going too hard on exercise can be as negative as not doing any exercise at all. Once more, the mid point is the key.
Take it easy and have fun exercising. Don't think missing a workout means the end ofthe world, or that you have to do the diet 100% or you'll gain back all the weight you've gained.
That extreme doesn't exist, and you must learn how to relativize and don't get obsessed with exercise.
Stay Motivated
Motivation is volatile, and you can't completely rely on it. However, you can trick yourself to be able to stay motivated for longer and to a higher degree.
There are many ways to stay motivated, but the most effective and recommended is to train your mind power. If there's a 'why' for exercising, you already have most of it done.
Give it a 'why' and define your goals. Only then you'll feel the real necessity to exercise, and motivation will rocket.
Prioritize Sleep and Nutrition
Sleep, Nutrition and Exercise are the three legs of the table of health and sports performance.
If you want to better at exercising, you must consider sleep and nutrition as well. These will create a synergy with exercise, improving your sports performance.
Although these are two broad topics, there are some general guidelines you can follow to get started and prioritize nutrition and sleep.
Nutrition
- Base your nutrition on raw foods
- Include vegetables and fruits
- Follow the rule 80/20 and be flexible
- Listen to your body and give it the food it needs
Sleep
- Make sure you get 7-9h of daily sleep
- Don't use the phone right before going to bed
- Set fixed times to go to bed and wake up
- Create a nice environment to sleep comfortably
Conclusion
Exercise improves your health. Not only on the short term, but also in the long term. Continuous exercise has shown to improve your metabolism, brain function, inmunity, and cardiovascular system, among others.
In this post we have seen how to start exercising. Easy steps to take and implement exercise into your life.
What are you waiting for? Start exercising now!
