How to Stick to Your New Year's Resolution of Doing More Exercise ...

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How to Stick to Your New Year's Resolution of Doing More Exercise ...

It’s important to have exercise in your overall health goals. It’s good to shake up your routine every so often because your workout can become easier and less effective over time. The New Year is a good time to set yourself some new exercise goals. You might simply need to work out more or harder, you might want to try something new like cycling, or you might want to add weights to your routine. Whatever exercise New Year’s Resolutions you set, here’s how to stick to them.

1 Plan Ahead

Arrange your weekly workouts in advance and set yourself achievable goals, such as working out three times a week or running 5 km or building up a certain amount of muscle. Drawing up a fitness goal plan can not only help you to actually stick to doing exercise but also improve your athletic performance, so research has shown. Routinely visualize the result of all your efforts, which will help you to continue with what you've set out to achieve.

Frequently asked questions

2 Exercise Wherever You Are

Don't use "the gym's too far away" as an excuse. There are plenty of home workouts and exercises like running, power-walking, cycling, swimming and climbing that are within everybody's budget. Walk to the gym, walk to work, run to social engagements, if you're worried about transportation costing too much... You can work out at your desk and work out doing chores. There really are no excuses.

3 Exercise in the Morning

Doing exercise before breakfast has been linked to losing fat effectively and getting your workout finished before the day's routine starts allows you to tick it off your list before other things have tired you out.

4 Work out at Work

Just because you've got a desk job doesn't' mean you cannot do exercises while you work. Have a break from punching figures into your computer - deskercise will get your blood circulation working again and allow you to burn a few calories.

5 Make Workouts Fun and Entertaining

Working out in a group with the right kind of background music in an environment conducive to enjoyment and fun creates a great ambiance and makes exercise time fly. Well-aired home gyms with a few exercise buddies to keep you company to the sounds of your favorite songs; it's a fabulous way of making workouts more exciting and fun.

6 Avoid Getting into a Workout Rut

Shake things up once in a while, so you don't get into a workout rut. Exercising the same muscles isn't healthy, so try something new like rowing or climbing, do something unexpected like ballet or line-dance and hire a personal trainer once in a while. Or simply introduce a new playlist every so often and wear a different headband!

7 Find That Motivation

Remind yourself every so often of the fantastic health benefits exercise routines have, by becoming a motivator yourself for others or by finding inspiration in new types of sports or workouts you haven't done before. Start considering yourself an intrinsic motivator, someone whose drive to attain their goals comes not from external forces but from deep within. Chart your progress on a board or an app, give yourself a pep-talk and visualize your goals.

8 Log Your Workouts Online

If you log all your workouts, you can see easily whether you have achieved the miles you wanted to run, lifted the weights you set yourself as a target etc and you can also more easily see when it's time to start changing things around to make them interesting and keep your routine fresh and varied. This avoids you hitting the notorious fitness plateau and keeps your motivation on its toes.

9 If You're Pressed for Time, Make It Speedy Interval Workouts

High intensity interval training (HIIT) only takes about 4 minutes to complete and are easily fitted into anyone's busy schedule. They offer an abundance of health benefits, from building cardio endurance to burning off fat. Interval workouts can fit into your morning route without you having to get up any earlier - but they also fit easily into an ordinary lunchtime break at work.

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