Health & Fitness

Many people enjoy a morning workout. First thing in the morning people start doing some type of home fitness plan. The fitness plan can be as basic as going for a morning walk around the neighborhood.

I want to give you three morning workouts you can do right from home without having to drive to the local gym.

#1 Use The Outdoors

Right out your front door can be your gym. As I stated in the beginning of the article a simple walk around the block can be an excellent home fitness plan. I like to walk for about 20 to 30 minutes, which ends up being about 1 mile of total distance.

I do my morning walk every morning after I get up and before I take my morning shower. I just put on a ball cap so I do not have to worry about my hair and I hit the pavement.

To change up my routine every other day I jog. I still go the same time, but I do interval training during the 20 to 30 minutes. I walk for one minute then I jog the next minute. I continue to do this rotation until I completed my time.

Here’s one final tip for using the neighborhood. Do not go the route each and everyday because you will get bored so go different directions or use different streets.

#2 Morning Stretches

Doing stretches first thing in the morning is another fitness plan you can do easily. I would purchase one of those yoga mats because carpeting may not be that supportive or uncomfortable.

One basic stretch I like to do is a full trunk turn. Just stand with your hands on your hips and turn your hips side to side. I like to do about 15 to 20 trunk turns before I start my morning walk or jog.

A second stretch would be the camel and cat stretch. What you do is get down on your knees with arms on floor also. Now think like a camel and push your back up. Hold this position for about 5 seconds. Next think like a cat and lower back like your pushing your stomach towards the ground. Hold this position for 5 seconds. Repeat this stretch 5 to 10 times.

This one really helps stretch out your back. I like to do this one if my back is tight after a workout.

#3 Use Home Fitness DVD

Yes, the good old workout DVD is a perfect year round home fitness plan. You do not have to leave the comfort of your own home for simple and effective workout. There is plenty of fitness DVDs available from Jillian Michaels to Denise Austin to using Zumba. All are excellent home fitness workouts anyone can do.

Using DVDs are great since you can change your fitness routine periodically. In the past when I used home fitness DVDs I change every month until I built up a good library to rotate every two weeks.

If you noticed all these home fitness plans had one thing in common: Inexpensive to set up. The only home fitness plan with an actual regular cost would be the fitness DVD plan. However, the cost would only be about $10 to $40 a month or less than the cost of a gym membership. So for less than most gym memberships you can purchase some of the best fitness DVDs.

The other two have minimal costs associated like a new pair of tennis shoes or a yoga mat.

Take the time each day to set aside 20 to 30 minutes of some type of home fitness because you will feel better once you are done.

Walking for fitness is a very different situation to walking in order to improve your health or simply lose fat. But if your aim is to use walking to condition your body then below are a few necessary tips that you should consider before you start…

Walking For Fitness – Rule #1

Begin at The Right Place

First of all you really need to look at what level you’re starting from. Are you currently a totally inactive novice or do you think you’re a training lover. Whichever group you place yourself in will determine which approach to your walking plan you’ll take.

For example a very unhealthy person will start to enhance their fitness levels by just getting out and walking at any level or speed on a regular basis.

Whilst a well trained man or women will require a lot more demanding approach and would need to start immediately using advanced training techniques. However if they wanted to improve their endurance levels then just walking for longer distances would certainly help to accomplish this.

Walking For Fitness – Tip #2

Develop Anything you Do

No matter what kind of exercise or activity you choose to use, you have got to stick to one major basic principle – PROGRESSION. What you do today or this week has to be improved upon, increased, altered or modified in some way so that you continue to place a challenge upon your body.

If you keep doing the same things at the same constant level then you certainly won’t get any fitter and you won’t see any real developments at all. To start with you’ll feel more healthy because the challenge would be new to your body, but in just a few sessions the effects would start to diminish.

Our bodies are intended to be as efficient as possible and the thing that was once a challenge to us if done regularly will begin to become easy to do.

Walking For Fitness – Idea # 3

Be Consistent

Maybe one of my most important golden principles is to ‘be regular.’ Really you won’t ever notice changes in your physical appearance, feel or levels of fitness if you don’t do it repeatedly.

Therefore if you’ve decided to use walking for fitness, then you will want to firstly sit a while and write down an organized plan, which includes days and times within the next week when you’ll do your walks.

If you notice any days when you won’t have the opportunity to walk, prepare around this, maybe decide that you’ll get up a bit earlier that morning so you can head out then and do your walk.

Without walking often you won’t see any noticeable changes to your fitness levels. You must give a reason for your body to improve and improve but it only does this if you constantly place a challenge upon it.

So these are my best three tips for employing walking for fitness…

Begin at the proper level for you

Keep increasing and improving upon everything you do to make it tougher and finally…

Get out do it as frequently as possible. The more you choose to do, the quicker you’ll notice benefits.