You’ve had it. You looked at the scale or noticed your tight waistband or lack of flexibility and decided it’s time to do something about it. You are going to get in better shape, once and for all! Now what?
Before investing a chunk of change in a membership you might never use, consider getting fit at home. It’s easy, it’s free, and it gives you a chance to get into a fitness routine with little to no investment. This way you can see if you are ready to invest the time and money into a gym membership later on down the road.
Once you discover a few tips for how to get fit at home, you may find that it is a lot easier than you thought to stay in shape and fit a brief exercise routine into your day. If you are out of shape, you should definitely start with something light and easy, like walking, stretching, and some simple weight-bearing exercises.
First, do a simple warm up, then go for a light walk, and increase your walking time and your pace every day. Do not let yourself get complacent. A light walk every day is good to avoid being sedentary, but if you do not work toward constant improvement, you won’t truly get fit.
At the same time you begin your walking regimen or whenever you feel ready, you can add weight-bearing exercises like push-ups, and abdominal exercises like sit-ups. Add more exercises to your routine as you get more fit.
It is important to establish a routine. Initially, aim for 20-30 minutes of exercise three times a week. After becoming adjusted to that, increase your exercise time and work toward being able to work out every day. If you can get to the point where you do some kind of workout every day, you are more likely to stick with it. To let your body rest, alternate the type of workouts you do walking or running every other day with resistance exercises being done on the days in between. Change up your exercises and activities in order to keep things fresh and interesting.
When you feel like you are ready for more of a challenge, you can move up to running or speed walking, and incorporate some weights or resistance bands into your workouts. At this point, you should have established good habits and investing in some dumbbells, medicine balls, kettle bells, or resistance bands would be worthwhile. These are inexpensive additions that will allow you to better work out the major muscle groups.
Don’t worry if your progress is slower than someone else’s might be. As long as you are always working toward increasing your workouts, while still exercising safely, you will find yourself in better shape before you know it. With effort and constant improvement, you will be able to attain the level of fitness you desire, whether that is just maintaining good flexibility and muscle tone, all the way up to putting on a lot of muscle or running a marathon. That is the beauty of a home exercise routine. You can achieve any results you wish.
Using these tips for how to get fit at home, you may discover that there are so many easy ways to get in shape that you never feel the need for that fancy gym membership!