If you are similar to me, when I first started exercising a few months ago, I had absolutely no stamina at all. After about 5 to 10 minutes of exercising, I felt like I was about to die! I know that this can be really discouraging and can be enough to keep you from not wanting to ever get on a machine again. Don’t give up yet though! This stamina problem is something that can easily be worked through in a few steps. You cannot work out for a week if you are a beginner and expect to keep up with the super fit people. If you really want to make an effort to improve your fitness level and stamina, you can follow these simple steps and you will start to see big improvements. From my research it is suggested that you start with a minimum of 4 to 5 times a week of at least 20 minutes of exercising. This can be something as easy as a walk around the neighborhood. What is important is that you are doing continuous exercise that raises your heart rate to a place where you feel that you have to work a little bit to breathe. Do this routine of 20 minutes 4 to 5 times a week for about two weeks. Once your body has started adjusting to that, its time to increase the amount of time you are doing. Each week after you master that amount of time, try increasing the amount of time you exercise about 10 minutes each session. Keep trying to increase the amount of time you exercise till you are up to about 60 minutes of Cardio about 5 times a week. Cardio is the continuous exercise where you are raising you heart rate and burning fat. For some people it may take a little bit longer to increase the amount of cardio you can do, but keep trying, it will come to you! For most people I have found though, that once you work on increasing you fitness level and your body starts to get used to it, you will be surprised at how quickly your fitness level improves!
Another important aspect of exercise that many people skip, but is one of the most important aspects of exercise is your warm-up, cool-down, and stretching. These three things also happen to be even more important for beginning exercisers. Warming-up, cooling-down, and stretching are super important for your body to prevent injury. Each time you go work out, your body and muscles are not ready for exercise. Warming up is necessary to warm up your muscles so that they get ready for hard exercise. To start warming up, whatever exercise you are planning on doing that day, start by doing that exercise lightly for about 5 minutes. So if you are going to walk or run on the treadmill, start by walking at a slower pace for 5 minutes to get your body ready for the higher intensity. If you don’t start with a warm-up, it can greatly increase your chance of injury because your body will not be ready for a work out. This is the same case for a cool-down as well. Once you are done with your exercise session for the day, it is important to give your body and heart a chance to come down from the high level they were at while you were exercising. If you don’t give your body a chance to cool down it can once again increase your chance of injury or it can also make you dizzy or pass out if you don’t give your heart rate a chance to come down. It has also been suggested that people who take the extra time to warm-up and cool-down every time they exercise see more benefits from their exercises over the long term. And isn’t seeing the most benefit from your exercise what you wanted in the first place?
Stretching is also an important part of fitness that has whole books written about it! Because there is so much written about it, I will not be able to cover everything about stretching, but I will try my best to cover the basics. Stretching is also very important to preventing very serious injuries. Stretching increases your flexibility, which is how far your muscles can stretch. When your muscles can move further, it greatly decreases your chance of pulling or injuring one of them. Flexibility is something that is beneficial in all areas of your life, even when performing tasks like going up and down stairs. Stretching before and after exercising is very important. It is good to stretch every part of your body such as your arms, midsection, and legs. Since it is hard for me to explain with words the very visual process of stretching, I would suggest looking in books or online at pictures of some good stretches. Another important thing to remember when it comes to stretching is to hold each stretch for a minimum of 10 seconds, to make sure that the muscles really has a chance to get a really good stretch. If you stretch on a regular basis and can increase your flexibility then you will really see positive results in your fitness regiment.
There are tons and tons of information available out there for beginners trying to increase their fitness level. Because there was so much information, it was impossible to include all that information in this article. I tried to include the most basic and important information for safely increasing your fitness level. Remember to start at a level appropriate to your fitness skill, warm-up, cool-down, and stretch each time you work out. The most important thing to remember when working out though is to have fun! It is such a great feeling to work your body hard and see the improvements you make physically. It is also very enjoyable to see your body start to transform into something toned and healthy. I would strongly suggest doing some more research before deciding on a fitness plan. There are a lot of good books out there that provide tons of information for beginner exercisers. A good one in particular that I would suggest is, Fitness for Dummies. It talks you through any information you could possibly need to start a new exercise routine. So collect a little bit more information on exercise and find a good plan that fits your life. Getting out there and getting started can be the hardest part sometimes, but once you get started, I think you will be really happy with the results!
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