Fitness Mistakes #3

The third biggest mistake in exercising is not paying attention to form. Slopping your way through your exercise regime is not going to help you. You may not be able to do the exercise perfectly, but attempt to follow the very best form that you can.

If you rush through a set of exercises, muscles are likely to get strained and then you're not getting the benefit you want. It is far more important to concentrate on quality and not quantity. Straining your neck while doing crunches is not what you're hoping to accomplish and your neck is not even the area you are working on!

Fitness Mistakes #1

Over the next 3 days I will be giving you the 3 most common fitness mistakes. The number one mistake is forgetting to warm up or cool down. Have you ever just started to work out without really warming up first. The result is usually not something you feel immediately, but can lead to being sore later on.

The other thing that warming up does is it gets the muscles ready to work. If you don't warm up first, you may end up with a serious injury because the muscle wasn't ready to work yet.

The cool down is equally important. Stretching out after you exercise helps the muscles relax. Be carefully with stretching. You need to be doing it correctly, or you can injury yourself. Just stretch gently, do not bounce or force the stretch.

Exercising Perfection

Have you ever been exercising and just felt like you couldn't get the exercise down right. You weren't able to do it the way someone showed you or the way the trainer taught you. Sometimes we get hung up trying to do the exercise "perfectly" and we lose the fact that it really doesn't matter if you are perfect, what matters is that you are moving and doing something.

I'm not talking about only half trying, I'm saying to do the best you can, but to not be to critical or hard on yourself. We all have times when we don't perform as well as other times. It is OK. Let go of trying to be perfect.

For tips on fitting exercise into your day, get my free eBook on making exercise fit into your schedule.

Thinking Yourself Fit

Now you may be asking, does this mean I don't have to exercise? No, that is not what it means. What it does mean is that what we think profoundly affects our body and our performance. So start small with a goal that is attainable. Thinking you'll have washboard abs next week is not realistic. So start with something like being active 2-3 days a week or losing 2 pounds. Go slow so that when you accomplish this goal it is reinforcing and helps you change your self image.

You can accomplish great things by accomplishing little things.

If you're not sure where to start on the fitness track, pick up my free eBook, Too Busy To Exercise. This will give you lots of helpful hints to get you started on being fit.

Another Way to Walk

There is another way to walk which will increase the amount of calories burned and includes working out more than the legs. It's called nordic walking. Using light weight nordic walking poles or you could use cross country ski poles, relieves some of the stress on joints such as the knees, hips and ankles and transfers it to the upper torso. This give you more of a full body work out when you walk.

You will burn up to 45% more calories than when just walking the same distance without poles. This is an exercise that is great for those of you who are just beginning to exercise, rehabilitating from an injury, or senior who have been sedentary with mobility and balance issues.

The Dog Diet

Having a dog can be a good thing for several reasons. One is to help you lose weight and help you stay in better shape. Dogs need to be walked. If you walk your dog twice a day for 30 minutes, this is an hour of walking for you and you get the benefit as well as the dog. While we sometimes will not walk for our own health, we are more likely to walk the dog. You do get the benefit here.

This one hour of walking a day can not only help you in dropping some pounds, but it will also help you in terms of giving you some space to think and in some cases if you start running or playing with the dog to get out some of the pent up emotions within you. This is also a good thing for relieving some stress.

Get a dog and get some fitness into your life. To get a free copy of my book on Too Busy To Exercise click on the book title.