Guide To Aerobics
Idiot’s Guide To Doing Aerobics Exercise
Aerobics is actually an easy exercise, and you can go soft
on yourself. Do not let your personal prejudices cloud your
reasoning because you know that you need to be doing cardio
exercises. Some people think exercise is complicated and it
is that misconception that stops them from joining cardio
activities. Follow these simple tips to guide you through.
Step #1:
Warm up. Warming up refers to preparing your blood to fully
circulate through your muscles for a few minutes. Some people
mistake stretching as being the same to warming-up, but in
fact it is not. The purpose of warming up is actually to help
your muscles prepare itself for a period of vigorous movements.
Step #2:
The second step is stretching. Start on your smaller muscle
groups and end with the bigger body parts. When you stretch
make sure that you do not bounce because it will cause you
to pull your muscles. Stretching is a slow and steady process,
so take your time while doing it. Hold your muscles for 30-60
seconds during stretches.
Step #3:
Find out your FDI. FDI refers to Frequency, Duration &
Intensity and these are all the important factors that you
should consider while planning for your cardio workout.
By Frequency, we mean the number of cardio sessions that
you should to do in a week, it is not what you want, it is
what you should. To achieve the best results, you should spend
3 days a week for your cardio sessions. There should be no
more than 48 hours of lapse time between each aerobic session
otherwise you will be forfeiting the gains that you achieved
in the initial workout.
By Duration, we consider the actual cardio time you spend
minus your warm-up and stretching time. If you wish to achieve
obvious result, each aerobic session should last anywhere
from 20-60 minutes. It is better to start slowly for the beginners
especially if they are not used to physical activity. A 10-15minutes
cardio session for beginners is good enough and they can eventually
work on building longer workout periods as they progress.
We should increase duration first before intensity. Therefore,
before you progress from a 15-minute walk to a 15-minute jog
you should first consider doing a 20-30 minute walk till your
body is ready for the jog.
Intensity refers to the level of difficulty of the cardio
exercise. The intensity will depend on your heart rate and
how it copes with each type of physical activity. The easiest
way to track your heart rate is to feel your pulse then count
how many beats per minute you are getting. Beginners should
always start with low-intensity exercises then slowly progress
to higher intensity as they do cardio longer. Also it is more
effective to do a combination of a high-intensity and low-intensity
workout in one cardio session.
Step #4:
Set a short term and long term goal. Find out your ultimate
target. Most people do aerobic or cardio work hoping to lose
weight. But once they have achieved their target, they stop
exercising and all of a sudden, they start gaining back what
they lost. Therefore, it is very important that we keep to
our short tern goal and follow the long term goal to maintain
and change our life.
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