As one year nears its end and another beckons, many of us resolve to get and stay fit over the coming year. But, having made that decision, what is the best way to do that? Do you have to sign up for fitness classes or join a gym? Is it worth getting a personal trainer? Or is it really possible to get and stay fit in the comfort of your own home?
The good news is that research indicates if you start increasing exercise in any way, you are likely to see improvements quite quickly, regardless of what kind of exercise you actually do. The key thing in technical terms is to exceed your “habitual load”, which basically means do more activity than you normally do. Your body will have to work harder as a result, and will then adapt to the new normal, enabling you to become fitter in the process.
So the important thing is to start doing something as soon as possible. But to help you further in your fitness journey, let’s take a quick look at:
In one sense, being fit will mean different things to different people, depending on factors such as your age, medical history, and life goals. So a young healthy competitive athlete is always going to be much fitter than most of us, whichever way you look at it.
But in general, there are three areas where you can easily measure and improve your fitness. These are:
We will look at each of these in more detail below.
Another useful guide is to know your BMI – Body Mass Index. This is a measure used by medical professionals to help diagnose whether a person’s weight is at a healthy, overweight, or obese level.
The basic formula for determining BMI is : BMI = weight (kg) / [height (m)]2.
For example if you weigh 60 kg and are 1.50 m tall, your BMI is calculated as follows:
A BMI of between 19 and 24.9 is considered to be the normal range. A BMI between 25 and 29.9, is considered overweight, and a BMI over 30 indicates obesity.
There are many different ways to measure how fit you are, even simply monitoring how you are feeling when doing particular types of exercise. But a few measures to get you going are:
Cardiovascular fitness – also known as aerobic fitness – indicates how efficiently your heart and lungs transport oxygen around the body.
One way to measure your cardiovascular fitness is to do a challenging activity for a short period of time then take your pulse rate. For example, find a step around 18 inches high and step up and down it for three minutes at a rate of 24 steps per minute (roughly one step every 2 seconds).
Rest for one minute then take your pulse for 10 seconds. Multiply this number by 6 to get your heart bpm (beats per minute). According to the British Heart Foundation, normal adult resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 bpm while resting. An excellent bpm after exercise would be 84 or lower for men and 93 or lower for women.
Another great test of cardiovascular fitness would be to see if you can run for two miles. This is used by the U.S. military to evaluate a potential service person’s fitness level. If that all seems a bit too much right now, see it as a goal to work towards. And if you have never run before, it’s worth looking at the Couch25K running programme which can train you to run up to 30 minutes within a few weeks.
One of the greatest exercises to measure and build whole body strength is the plank. This involves lying face down then raising yourself to balance on just your toes and forearms with the rest of your body off the ground. If you can hold a plank for about a minute or longer, this indicates that you are reasonably fit.
Another indicator of general strength is whether your muscles can cope with everyday resistance tasks such as lifting, carrying, pushing and pulling. If you can perform such everyday tasks with ease, and cope with increased periods of exertion as needed, this is an indicator of good strength.
One great indicator of flexibility is whether you can touch your toes. If you are not able to touch your toes, or if your muscles tighten or pull in the process, it’s a sign that you need to start doing more stretching. Being able to touch your toes not only improves your overall flexibility but can also help to increase your coordination.
There is no one type of exercise that is way better than any other. The main thing is to find something that you enjoy doing because then you are more likely to stick to it rather than feel it is a chore.
A few ideas for each type of fitness are:
Any kind of aerobic exercise – where you use your body’s large muscle groups in a rhythmic and repetitive way – will build your cardiovascular fitness. Examples include brisk walking, running, swimming, cycling, skipping, tennis, or team sports such as football or netball.
If you find constant aerobic exercise difficult, a great alternative is interval training. This is where you intersperse short bursts of maximum effort with longer periods of more moderate activity. Interval training can actually bring speedier results than if you were just to exercise at a regular pace.
The best way to build your strength is to do some kind of resistance training, in which you push your muscles either against gravity or by using weights.
A few examples of resistance training are working with either free weights or on weight machines, using resistance bands or doing body-resistance exercises, such as push-ups, shoulder press, squats and lunges.
Resistance training can be particularly effective when combined with cardiovascular training such as walking, jogging, dancing, or cycling.
The best exercise for improving flexibility is anything involving stretching. There are many basic stretches you can do at home, perhaps using YouTube videos to help guide you. Also look out for classes such as yoga, pilates and Tai chi, all of which are excellent at improving flexibility.
By building regular stretching into your fitness routine, you should start to see positive results within a few weeks.
Life is busy, and this is one of the factors that can put people off starting to exercise. But general medical advice is to aim for 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Moderate activity refers to the cardiovascular/aerobic exercise we referred to earlier i.e. brisk walking, running, swimming, cycling, skipping, tennis, or team sports such as football or netball. But even day to day activities such as mopping the floor or mowing the lawn are better than nothing.
Research also shows that frequency rather than intensity of exercise is the most important. So if you really do have only 150 minutes to spare each week, it’s better to spread it over a few days rather than try to do it all in one go. So, for example, see if you can fit in 30 minutes on five different days, bearing in mind you don’t have to do the same type of exercise every time.
Also make a conscious effort to stand rather than sit wherever possible during your daily activities. Sitting down all day can increase the risk of many health conditions including obesity, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.
So remember to stand up whenever you can. If you sit all day, for example in a desk job, perhaps even set a timer on your phone to stand up every 30 minutes, until you get into the habit. Also think which routine activities you could stand for instead of sitting. For example, making phone calls, reading documents, waiting for appointments, or even investing in a sit-stand desk so that you can do some of your work standing up.
The more you stand, the more you are likely to then move, and the more you move the better. You can then also find ways to introduce more movement into daily life. For example taking the stairs instead of the lift, walking part of your daily commute, parking further away from the supermarket entrance, and so on. Every little helps, as the saying goes.
We hope that this article has given you some inspiration and useful tips for spreading the cost of Christmas. And remember that if you need some extra funds to kick start your new fitness regime, Munzee offers loans over 24 months which may be able to help
Check back here soon for more lifestyle and financial tips from Munzee Loans.
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