You’re working hard to make fitness a priority in your busy schedule. When you’re investing time and effort into your fitness, make sure you are maximizing your workouts for optimal results.
Body Awareness
During the day, try to become aware of simple things you can be doing to improve your time spent training. For example, make sure your using proper posture throughout the day to reduce stress on your spine and surrounding joints. Try keeping your core activated and tight when walking or standing. Having a strong core will help prevent lower back injuries when you start to up your training load.
Proper Nutrition
Start thinking of your food as FUEL! You will find it difficult to achieve long term results by trying to out-exercise a bad diet. Eat whole foods that are rich in nutrients, and decrease processed food high refined sugar, sodium and fat. Make sure you HYDRATE! This is important for decreasing fatigue, drowsiness, and headaches throughout the day.
Mix Up Your Workouts
Having an exercise routine is extremely important for your health and fitness. However, sometimes your routine can cause you to train with no change in the level of difficulty or exercise (doing the same thing over, and over, and over!). Continual repetition can be boring, and worse, lead to a fitness plateau. A fitness plateau is where you are no longer seeing results from your fitness regime and can lead to a discouraging attitude towards working out. Get creative with your training time! Switch up your workout time, try a new class, take your workout outside, or grab a friend to push you harder.
Stretch Every Day
Take 10-15 minutes every day to stretch, no matter what! Whether it’s at the gym, after a shower, in front if the TV, while you’re waiting for your dinner to cook… find the time! Stretching increases blood flow and circulation, reduces stress, and reduces muscles tightness. Think of stretching as a part of your training routine that you work so hard to stick to. YOU WILL FEEL the difference when you properly recover, it’s all about consistency!
Keep these things in mind when you are preparing for your next workout, and start to think about what you could be doing to maximize your time spent training. Start integrating these changes into your everyday routine and you’ll be on the right track to achieving optimal health and fitness results.
xx
Emily
