Exercise: The Best Thing About The End of Summer
Actually I’m not sure we had a summer this year in the U.K. but anyway – it’s definitely becoming colder, windier and wetter so winter must be coming soon.
Many of us give up exercising outdoors in winter (and I must confess that I take to the great indoors for exercise most days come November). But if you can bear to live with the initial chill of getting out your front door you will reap the many benefits of winter exercise.
And the best one?
You will burn more calories than in the summer!
The thing is you will stay cooler so that you can work flat out without getting overheated. This means your workout will feel like less effort and you will work harder. Plus keeping warm itself burns calories – so a workout which feels like less effort (because you stay cool) will actually burn more calories than in the summer.
For the best effect, wear layers which you can take off as you warm up and start with just enough clothing so that when you go outside you feel cool but not so cold you’re shivering while you do your warm up.
If getting out there is a major deal in cold or wet weather, time management coach Mark Forster has a great trick for that. He motivates himself by setting a goal just to Get Outside
Fitness – How to Get Results
You know, every time I follow a plan, ANY plan, for achieving fitness I get great results. Within weeks or even days I can feel the difference.
Any time I don’t follow a plan, I don’t see much improvement!
Funny that!
It’s so easy to have a vague idea about getting in shape, losing weight, running a 5K.
But it’s only systematic day after day effort which makes any difference.
Are you hoping for results and doing the odd fitness session?
Are you playing the odd game of tennis or baseball “when you get time”?
Or are you actually following a plan to achieve the results you want?
Easy Workday Walking Workout
Sometimes in a busy day there just isn’t time to do a full workout or get to the gym.
But you CAN do something.
Just a few minutes here and there can make the difference between maintaining your fitness and losing it.
And in any case, you’ll feel so much better about yourself if you do the best you can and don’t give up your fitness efforts entirely on those busy days we all have.
Here’s all the you have to do
- At the start of the day, climb 5 sets of stairs – they can be 5 flights at work or mean going up and down stairs at home 5 times. (Alternative: step on and off one step for 5 – 10 minutes)
- At morning break, take a 10 minute walk (or do your stair routine again)
- After lunch, another 10 minutes (take a longer walk if you can then)
- After dinner, 10 or more minutes walk (or more stairs).
There – that means you’ve fitted in 30 – 40 minutes exercise without taking up much of your day at all and you’ll find the mini breaks from your work do you good too.
And if even that is too much then try my whole body fitness course Fitness in No Time which involves only 10 minutes exercise 3 times a week!
7 Tips for a Great Cardio Workout
1. Follow a Training Plan
If you have an effective and well thought out plan to follow (which matches your level of fitness) you are more likely to keep to it and less likely to injure yourself by doing too much too soon.
Don’t have a plan? Find one on the net like these great resources for example…
Cool Running Couch-to-5k training plan (This is the one I’m currently following – Week 6 day 2 just now)
Do it for Charity Cycling Training Guide
Alternatively borrow a book from the library or pay for a session with a personal trainer to help you formulate a workout schedule for the coming weeks.
2. Vary It
Cardio can get very boring if you do the same activities and use the same machines or follow the same routes every time – and besides, if you keep on doing the same old routine it does not challenge your body as well as it could.
Make the effort to switch around your activities, equipment and environment. Vary the intensity too – some long slower sessions, some interval training, some medium intensity, medium length sessions too.
3. Entertain Yourself
Add to your enjoyment by using music or tapes while you work out. Watch TV at the gym. A long session on the treadmill can go very quickly with your favorite show. Don’t forget to focus on what you’re doing too though.
4. Protect Yourself
Keep yourself safe and free from injury by wearing the right clothes and footwear and keeping to well-populated areas. If there’s a lot of traffic go easy on the music so you can hear as well as see vehicles approaching. Let someone know where you are going.
5. Eating
Wait a couple of hours after eating a full meal before working out. If you are too hungry to work out a light snack such as a banana can be enough to satisfy you before your session. Also you may find you get more out of an early morning work out if you have a light breakfast first.
If you want the full fat-burning effect of a cardio workout don’t eat straight after your session but wait an hour or so before having a meal.
6. Stay Hydrated
For a normal cardio session plain water is best. Before, during (depending on the length of your session) and after. Avoid sugar loaded sports drinks – you don’t need them. Good performance requires hydration not sugar.
7. Stretching
Don’t forget to do your stretches after your workout to avoid soreness. Doing a lot of cardio (and building muscle) can reduce flexibility – so stretching is essential. Also taking up something like yoga and practising on non-cardio days can be particularly beneficial in maintaining flexibility.
Bonus Tip : The main thing to have an effective cardio workout is just to “Do It” because chances are you will feel great whenever you do and not so great when you have avoided getting out there and getting it done for a week. Once you have a plan, log your workouts so that you can see you are making progress. A heart rate monitor too is a great tool for seeing how far you have come before you can even feel the difference.
5 Ways to Make Exercise Easier on Yourself
1. Plan Ahead
Always have your exercise kit ready and available. Have enough workout clothing so you can get a fresh kit together right after your workout while you’re still feeling good about having gone out for a run or to the gym. And keep it in a handy place at home ready to grab and go or store it in your car trunk so it’s always with you.
2. Follow a Program
Follow a work out program which is suitable for whatever stage of fitness you have reached. If you follow a pre-designed program you never have to think about what to do today – it’s all worked out in advance. If you are more experienced, you can create your own workout plan making sure that you don’t go too far too fast to avoid injury and over-training.
3. Get the Intensity Right
Use a heart rate monitor in conjunction with your program to ensure you are working at the right cardio intensity. You will also be able to follow your progress by seeing a reduction in your resting heart rate and the rate for any particular cardio exercise as you get fitter.
4. Schedule Your Exercise
Make an appointment with yourself as if you had a personal trainer turning up and expecting you to be ready to work out. Write it in your diary and schedule the rest of your life around your exercise sessions so that you make time for them.
5. Stay Healthy
Good food, plenty of sleep, proper hydration and avoiding cigarettes and too much alcohol and will make the job of keeping fit a lot easier than if your life is filled with late night booze sessions and junk food. If you do feel ill, give yourself a break from exercise and don’t force your body to work when it needs rest and recuperation. You’ll get back to full strength a lot faster.
Push Ups for Everyone
Push ups image by Urban Mixer
Push ups are a great exercise because they use your own weight to build strength. You can do them anywhere – whether you’re stuck at home with the kids or out on the road travelling – you don’t need a gym or any equipment.
And they strengthen and tone your whole body engaging muscles in your chest, hands, arms, shoulders, back, stomach, legs and feet – and probably a few other places as well.
But the classic push up everyone is familiar with is not an easy exercise to do correctly.
You have to build up to that.
Wth that in mind, fitness trainer Funk Roberts has created a push up challenge page to teach everyone to master the perfect push up without props or problems.
He has every stage of push up perfection covered from beginners who push against a wall to intermediate exercisers who use a modified form of push up (the knee push up) to a more advanced level ready for the perfect push up.
You just have to find the right place to start for you and not go too fast too soon.
Funk’s blog post lays out a push up training program to take you from beginner to 10 perfect push ups in 8 weeks. This should be possble but your results may vary 
In any case you’ll get there by progressing through the stages one at a time.
If you ever wanted to be able to show off perfect push-ups, Funk’s page is a great place to start.
No Time to Get Fit?
I read in the local newspaper yesterday that the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gets up at 4am to go to the gym.
No wonder she looks so good at 53.
It’s not that she is any different to anyone else. As she says
“Like everybody, I get up some mornings and think “I can’t do it” and then I think “Sure you can, because you won’t feel alert if you don’t”"
Although you might think being featured regularly in the media might give you the motivation to stay in shape, (and I’m sure that would work well for me – vanity prevails) the same can’t be said of some stars who get in and out of shape with alarming regularity. Don’t they care when a million people see their flab over breakfast? I sure would.
If you know getting up at 4am is not an option, yet you’re so busy it’s the only time you can see free in your schedule, why not take a look at my Fitness in No time program because 10 minutes, three times a week and a simple home routine is all you really need to get in shape.
Maybe Condoleezza should try it for those days when matters of State get in the way?
Fitness Motivation: Everything Changes
If there’s one thing you need to remember where fitness is concerned…
Nothing Stays the Same
If you are fit today, it means zilch if you do nothing but lie in bed for 4 weeks – you’ll be as unfit as a lifelong couch potato.
And if you are unfit today, you can make great strides in the same 4 weeks and change your fitness level beyond recognition.
The only thing is, if you don’t start a fitness routine you’ll never get there. And if you don’t keep up a fitness routine, you’ll never stay at the level of fitness you achieve.
And just to make things more complex, you can’t even stay the same by sticking to one workout routine every day or every week – you have to challenge yourself in new ways and push yourself to stay at your peak.
So what this boils down to is that
- you had better find a range of activities you enjoy doing – that make working out fun
- view any routine you start as getting fit for life, not just for the summer
- find activities you can do all year round or at least activities which you can do to cover all parts of the year
- if you don’t like working out, just the feeling it gives you, get hooked on that feeling so that you feel motivated to keep up whatever you start
Running (Again)!
I told you with the (slightly) warmer weather I’d end up running again (see Sporadic Running).
I can feel my knees and ankles protesting already – but it IS for a good cause.
Last year’s running spurt was caused by entering the 5k all ladies Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research encouraged by a few friends. And the same friends have persuaded me it’s a good idea this year too. As my Dad died of cancer in October last year, it will be especially poignant.
Thing is – I haven’t run since last year’s race – so I’ll be starting my training plan from the beginning again with the cool running couch to 5k plan – I only have the 8 weeks so I’d better get to it.
Anyone care to join me? Actually Race for Life takes place all round the UK at around the same time so it’s something to aim for if you live here in the next 2 months (and if you live elsewhere there will be tons of events no doubt too).
Easy Fitness Motivation Tip
I have found this fitness motivation tip to be easy but also very effective for my clients (and it works for me every time too!)
If you’re trying to start a daily fitness habit then the best thing you can do if buy a large paper calendar and a big thick black marker pen and pin it up on your wall where you will be able to see it often.
Then every day you do your workout (or other good habit – whatever you’re trying to achieve) take your marker pen and put a big cross through the day.
After a row of crosses you are not going to want to leave a gap.
Aim for 30 crosses in a row – miss one and you have to start right back at the beginning.
If at all possible put your calendar up where co-workers or family will see it. They’ll ask about it and that will help spur you on too!
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