7 Key Tips for Doing Fitness the Right Way

Fitness is not just about what you eat, or what sports you take part in but is a combination of factors which you need to incorporate into your daily life. Fitness - done the right way -means improving your overall physical health with a combination of good exercise and appropriate nutrition.

Too many people react to the latest fitness fad and rush out to buy expensive fitness gear or equipment only to leave it lying idle in the loft, never to be used. Doing fitness the right way means fitting in the right kind of exercise with your lifestyle, not trying to follow fads and trends.

Here are seven key points to make sure you are doing fitness the right way:

1. Exercise every day

While it’s true that you should rest your body between intense exercise workouts, it is still important to do some kind of movement every day to boost your heart rate. Even something simple like walking to the shops and carrying the food home, instead of going in the car, will make a real difference to your overall fitness levels.

2. Eat your five a day

Make sure you eat your five portions of fruit and vegetables every day within your meals, to keep healthy. Plants are full of antioxidants and vitamins so vital for skin, hair and general wellbeing. Eating healthily will help you feel fitter as you will have more energy to exercise, and a healthy diet can help you to ward off diseases. Eating well can include incorporating specific sports nutrition to help support your work outs, and means a balanced diet, not fad eating.

3. Add weight training to your exercise routine

As we get older our muscles naturally weaken but by adding in some kind of resistance weight training into our routine, we can build up those muscles again and maintain our bodies’ strength and tone. Ask for advice from your local gym or trainer, before you start working out with weights as it’s important to do it properly to avoid injury, particularly as a beginner.

4. Drink plenty of water

Make sure you drink plenty of water, as our bodies are made of 60% water. Being even slightly dehydrated can impair your performance, leave you feeling tired and lacking energy, and can also result in headaches and other symptoms. Remember that drinking coffee, tea or alcohol, actually works as diuretics, removing water from your body so these drinks don’t count.

5. Relaxation time

Stress has a big impact on our overall fitness levels, negatively affecting our body but also our mental fitness which is equally important. If we are suffering with stress we won’t be motivated to work out and can end up in a vicious circle, talking ourselves out of exercising so it’s important to include relaxation time in your day, to get rid of that stress.

6. Vary your exercise routine

Don’t just get into a routine of carrying out the same exercise repeatedly as you will get bored and it will fail to stretch and challenge you. Try out different activities and challenge your routine to make sure it is effective. Get out of the gym and go on a park run, or swap your gym routine for a dance class – keep it interesting fun and challenging so that you keep going.

7. Warm up and warm down

Whatever exercise routine you are undertaking to improve your fitness levels, one of the things people often do, particularly when first starting out, is miss out the warm up and warm down routines. This is really important to help avoid injury. Warming up gets your body and muscles ready for the exercise which is about to come, protecting your muscles from potential injury. So whatever you are doing, make sure you stretch to warm up and stretch to warm down, before and after every activity.

Doing fitness the right way means you will be working on your body from the inside as well as the outside appearance. Improved diet and added sports nutrition, will support your body to copy with the new workout challenges, and lead to shinier hair and healthier skin, not to mention increased energy levels.

Doing correct exercise will be fun, engaging and result in improved muscle tone, reduced fat levels and a much better looking body for you. The exercise will also ensure your heart is working effectively and being challenged, leaving your body much more able to copy with daily life than before.

As well as the physical changes that effective fitness brings, you will see an improved mental and emotional wellbeing. Exercise is great for relieving stress, but also as your body improves you will feel better and grow in self-confidence as well. It’s a win-win situation all round.