BeFit

Introduction

With the growing craze of fitness amongst people, different types of exercise programs are becoming popular.  These varied exercise programs are provided by fitness instructors and gyms through different classes, equipment and exercise routines.

However, if you are a newbie  in the field of fitness and exercise, then starting an exercise program can be a daunting task. With a number of exercise options available, choosing the right exercises according to your fitness level and body type may become overwhelming.

So, in this article we will learn about the different types of exercises you can incorporate in your personal fitness program and the benefits of physical activity.

Let’s get started! 

Health Benefits of Fitness Programs

Starting a fitness program that is customised according to your fitness requirements is a great way to stay fit both physically and mentally.

This customised personal fitness program can provide you a number of benefits like:

  • Increase your physical confidence, immunity and energy levels.
  • Improve cardiovascular health and the health of your lungs.
  • Increase aerobic fitness, strength and tone your muscles.
  • Improve your muscular strength, motor fitness, endurance, agility and flexibility.
  • Result in better balance, coordination and spatial awareness.
  • Improve your brain functions, sleep and health.
  • Reduces any risk of chronic diseases like heart disease or type 2 diabetes.
  • Improve your general and psychological well being thus enhancing your social life.
personal training program

Analyse Your Fitness Level For an Exercise Training

Before you create your personalised exercise plan, you should have an idea of your fitness level. Assessing your fitness level initially will also serve as a benchmark against which you can measure your progress. It is crucial to keep track of your performance regularly, say per month, as it will help to know whether you are making any progress or not

You can analyse your fitness level before you create an exercise program by recording the following:

  • First of all, calculate your body mass index or BMI. You can calculate this figure by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in metre square. But if you want this to be accurately calculated then you can visit your local health or exercise professional.
  • Next, calculate your waist circumference that can be measured midway between the top of your hip bone and the bottom of your ribs.
  • Having calculated the main 2 fitness aspects, you can move on to calculate the amount of distance you can walk for a certain time or the number of push ups you can perform in 30 seconds.
  • Measure your heart rate before and after performing a walk.

One important tip to remember while you measure the above variables is to make sure that you are not taking any medications. Eating certain medications can increase your heart rate. In these cases, have a word with your health professional or a fitness professional who can help to perform your fitness assessment.

Use a Three-Pronged Approach For Your Exercise Program

It is important to follow a three-pronged approach while you workout to get the most out of each session. 3 pronged approach refers to including three main elements into your routine namely warm up, conditioning and cool down. This approach includes easing yourself into the workout, then riding your plateau and in the end slowing down.

Here is the detail of the three-pronged approach:

You can warm up before each session for about 5 to 15 minutes. Warming up helps to increase the blood flow to your muscles to prep them up and also increases your heartbeat. To warm up before your exercise, perform a low-intensity version of any exercise like jogging, riding a bike, swimming etc.

Once your warm up is done, you can perform conditioning for about 30 minutes. Conditioning refers to a condition in which you exercise until you reach a ‘sweet spot’. This sweet spot refers to a condition under which you maintain your heart rate and breathing patterns higher than the average level.

After conditioning, perform another 5 to 10 minutes of cool down exercises. These exercises help to slow yourself and regulate your heart rate back to normal. To perform the cool down exercises, all you have to do it to stretch your main muscles like your calf muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps, shoulders chest and back.

Now since you know the structure you need to maintain for your personal fitness program, let’s move on to the different exercises you can incorporate in this fitness program.

Exercises For Your Best Personal Physical Fitness Program

1. Strength Training

Strength training is an important component of a fitness training plan that can build muscular fitness and increase bone strength. It is performed for all the major muscle groups can help you to either stay at a healthy weight or lose all the stubborn fat.

Performing strength training consistently will help to improve your skills in doing everyday activities. Generally gyms provide free weights, strength training tools and resistance machines to help perform strength training exercises. But you do not need to buy any costly equipments if you are a working out at your home.

You can use homemade weights like plastic shopping bottles filled with water or sand or you may even use low cost resistance bands. What’s even better about strength training is that you can perform it using your own body weight by doing push ups, leg squats, sit ups, etc.

2. Core Exercises

Core muscles include the muscles in your stomach area or abdomen, lower back and pelvis. These muscles help to protect your back and also connect the upper and lower body movements together. Building core strength is an important part of a well-developed fitness training program.

Core exercises can help train the muscles that support the spine at your back and can even improve the functioning of your upper and lower body muscles. You have to use the trunk of your body without any support to perform these type of exercises and meet your fitness goals. Some of these exercises include sit ups, bridges planks or fitness ball exercises.

3. Flexibility and Stretching

Incorporating stretching and flexibility in your fitness plan is an important part of physical fitness. It can help increase the flexibility of your body which, in turn, will make it easier for you to perform regular everyday activities.

Stretching also provides a number of other benefits to the human body. Firstly, it can improve the range of motion of the joints and result in better posture. Secondly, it can even help to reduce tension and stress.

You can stretch your muscles after exercising when your muscles are already warm. All you have to do is try to hold your stretches for a minimum of 30 seconds. However, if you are stretching out before your workout, then make sure to warm up first. for this you can exercise for 5 to 10 minutes before stretching. You can also include yoga in your stretching routine.

4. Aerobic Fitness

Aerobic fitness, also referred to as endurance or cardio activity, is very important for most of the training programs. As the name itself suggests, this type of fitness is aimed at helping you breathe more deeply and faster.

This, in turn, allows your heart to beat faster and hence more oxygen will circulate in your blood to the muscles and back to the lungs. An ideal aerobic fitness exercise program can help to increase the functioning of your heart, lungs and the blood vessels that carry oxygen throughout the body. Due to the same reason, you can perform routine physical tasks with ease.

Different types of aerobic activities include walking swimming dancing, snow shoveling ,jogging, biking water aerobics etc. On an average, healthy adult should perform at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of aerobic activity in a single week. You can even perform a combination of both moderate and intense aerobic activity.

However, if you are integrating aerobic fitness in your exercise regimen to lose weight then at least 300 minutes per week is recommended. You can disperse the different activities of aerobic fitness over the course of a week and break them up into short periods of exercise.

Alternately, you may even try high-intensity interval training that includes short burst of vigorous energy of around 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, add light activity in your recovery periods for around 1 to 2 minutes. You can do this by adding intense bursts of jogging in your relaxed walking schedule.

personal fitness program

5. Balance Training

Exercises that help in balance are most often performed by older adults. This is because balancing tends to worsen with age and poor balance can even lead to broken bones or fractures. So balance training can help to prevent any falls in older adults and hence reduce the risk of injury.

Besides adults, balancing can also help the younger people to stabilize their core muscles. You can boost your balance and stability by trying to stand on one leg for longer periods of time.

Conclusion

Thus, this is all you need to know about the different types of exercises to include in your customised personal fitness program. Before you incorporate any of these exercises in your program, make sure you do that according to your fitness level. This means you should know which muscles in your body need to be targeted more to tone them down.

Once done, you should also track your progress regularly that will help to optimise the fitness program accordingly. Exercises which are giving you results should be kept. However, some types of workout that target the core muscles or help in providing flexibility to your body should never be avoided. In the end, an ideal combination of different types of exercises that target all the muscles is recommended.

Good Luck!

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