OK now that we’ve got our stress under control, and we’ve got the right mindset in place, which is essential for success in our new fitness lifestyle, we are now ready for the fun part, TRAINING! By the way I didn’t mention this earlier, but you should be incorporating at the minimum 3 of stress management techniques for at least 2 weeks, to help get your cortisol levels down, before you start training.
Let’s start with cardiovascular training, very important for the heart, and excellent for burning off calories, if done correctly. This part of the program must be done very slowly if you are used to being very sedentary. I mean like one or two minutes to start with if in poor condition. Your body will adapt quickly, if you do not get too zealous and over do it. We will focus on the activities you like to perform whether it is cycling, walking, jogging, dancing, tennis, swimming, what ever you like to do.
The resistance training is going to consist of bodyweight exercises, these exercises are designed to keep you flexible, increase lean tissue, while at the same time burn off that body fat. You will not need to go the gym; everything in the workout can be done in the privacy of your own home.
If you would like to make the exercises more challenging you can purchase a set of resistance tubing, I recommend bodylastics, that’s what I use. The only piece of equipment you will need to purchase is an exercise ball, I recommend the Fitball, once again this is what I use and I can tell you that it is an excellent exercise ball. If you don’t think you can get a quality workout without lifting weights, you are sadly mistaken.
I have been lifting heavy weights for over 20 years, I know what it’s like to pound out the heavy iron to gain an ounce of precious muscle and these bodyweight exercises produce superior functional strength and build quality muscle. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to stop lifting the iron, I mean c’mon I am a competitive bodybuilder! However what I am saying is you don’t need weights to achieve the fit body you’re after.
We are going to start slow and gradually progress forward. Now I want you to be training at least two weeks before we start talking about your nutritional program. I know there are trainers out there that will disagree with me on this one. They say diet has to be implemented right away.However, I firmly believe in getting your body moving first! Sure, there are people out there that can change their diet, start a new training program and it will work for them. But they are not the norm! In fact they are far and few between, that is why so many people can’t stick to their fitness programs. I want you easing into this lifestyle. The old adage “little by little” works best here.
Flexibility is often neglected in most programs or just skipped. Not here we don’t, I personally know the disastrous results that can occur if you neglect to implement a flexibility program. I have tried many different stretching programs and the one that I recommend whole-heartedly is the Activated Isolated Stretching: The Mattes Method. I will instruct you how to perform these stretches to get you and keep you flexible.
On the final part of this series we will talk about the nutritional aspect.
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