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FITNESS GUIDE
FITNESS GUIDE
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Use Positive Affi rmations
Affi rmations will help you program your subconscious to accept new beliefs.
Saying to yourself a couple of times a day, “I am living a healthier lifestyle by
exercising several times per week at home,” can help you stay on track.
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Set Goals
Setting goals can be helpful in keeping you motivated, but remember to keep
them realistic. Short-term and long-term goals can make this easier. How many
days do you want to exercise this week? How many workouts would you like to
have done in ninety days or a year?
Components of Fitness
Over the past 25 years, many people have focused on walking, running, cycling,
swimming and other types of aerobic activity as their only means of exercise.
However, we have learned that two other components of fi tness are just as
important. These other two components are muscle strength and fl exibility. So in
addition to having a strong heart and lungs, we also need to be able to pick up a
full bag of groceries and tie our shoes without having to sit down.
When developing your home fi tness program, it is only appropriate that you
develop all three components in order to achieve balanced overall fi tness. Let’s
take a look at all three components:
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Cardiovascular Fitness
Training the heart and lungs to be stronger and deliver more oxygen throughout
your body with less effort. It can help reduce the risk of heart disease, and help
you manage your weight. It is the cornerstone of fi tness, and can be achieved in
many ways such as walking or running on the treadmill or outdoors, climbing
stairs, cycling, or using a StairMaster
®
stepper or swimming in the pool or
ocean.
For many years, it was suggested that moderate level cardiovascular activity
(activities that make you sweat and breathe and a moderate pace) should be done
three to four days a week for 15–45 minutes at a time. It is now recommended
that you attempt to do some cardiovascular activity EVERY day, if possible.
The good news is that the cardiovascular activity does not need to be moderately
intensive everyday, nor does it need to be sustained for 15–45 minutes at a time.
So while it is ideal to challenge your heart and lungs by doing something like
a strong power walk every other day for 15–45 minutes, it is more important to
make sure you do at least a little bit of cardiovascular activity every day, even if
you don’t do it for very long or very intensely.
For example, you might try using your Schwinn
®
exercise bicycle for a