Quite simply exercise can be defined as physical activity whereby you work your body at a greater intensity than your usual level of daily activity. Exercise can take place almost anywhere and when you’re exerting high levels of energy you’re exercising!
Taking a brisk walk to work, going for a run, a jog or a cycle are all forms of exercise but you could be exercising without even knowing it. Did you know you can burn calories and thus exercising through simply doing the house hold chores, the gardening or even just cleaning the car? You don’t have to be at a gym to be exercising, exercise can happen anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
The majority of people who exercise do so to help them either lose weight, tone up, build muscle or improve fitness. However, exercise has far greater impact on your body and your overall wellbeing than simply what you see physically.
When you work out your body releases endorphins, which immediately boosts your mood and enhances your outlook on life. Exercising can also put you at a 30% lower risk of developing depression, a condition that affects a huge number of people every year. But wait there’s more! For the average adult exercising just 2hours and 30 minutes a week you could reduce your chances of developing type2 diabetes by up to 50%, you could reduce the chances of developing breast cancer by up to 20% and there is an 83% lower risk of you developing osteoarthritis – pretty impressive if you ask us.
It’s clear to see why exercise is so important to your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and how just 2 hours and 30minutes of exercise a week could hugely reduce your chances of developing some pretty serious diseases.
Yes of course you can exercise at home, you can exercise anywhere you want. You don’t have to sign up to some expensive gym to help you exercise and lose weight. Exercising at home is one of the most cost effective ways to workout, tone up and lose weight.
Look around your home and we’re confident you’ll find plenty of things to workout with that you hadn’t even considered using as exercise equipment before, such as a tin of baked beans! A tin of baked beans we hear you cry? Well yes, cans of food make perfect weights for you to work your biceps, triceps and shoulders with. Also how about your floor – every home has one of those right? You use your floor to do sit ups, crunches, press ups and squats. Finally do you have a chair at home? If so you can tone the back of your arms – otherwise known as bingo wings – by doing tricep dips.
If you’re still not sure how you can exercise at home why not try an TV workout channel, channel 282 on Sky has exercise programs running all day with workouts from Pilates to Cheeraerobics. Alternatively purchase yourself a workout DVD and follow the progressive workouts, see there really is nothing stopping you from exercising at home.
Ok so you want to start exercising, you want to lose weight and see the results fast, right? There’s one type of exercise that will need to be at the heart of your workout routine and that is cardio, otherwise known as cardiovascular or aerobic exercise. In its simplest terms cardio exercise is one which increases your heartbeat, gets you hot and sweaty and out of breath – basically you work hard and fast and you feel it.
Many people who incorporate cardio exercise into their routine think that running 30 minutes non-stop on a treadmill will do the job, but there far smarter ways to workout. Ever heard of Interval training or Tabatta training? This type of training means you’ll do short bursts of seriously intense cardio, rest and repeat. Let us give you an example – If you were say on a treadmill you could do 1 minute of full on sprinting followed by a 30 second slow jog or walk depending on your fitness levels. You would then repeat this process over a set period of time, start with 20 minutes and build it up. Exercising using interval techniques means your heart rate will rapidly increase, rest, increase, rest – you see the pattern? This type of workout will help you burn fat faster and see quicker results.
There are so many different types of exercises and below you will see a brief overview of each, the main types of exercise can be broken down into the following categories:
This type of exercise is aimed at improving your cardio system and your bodies consumption of oxygen. Aerobic exercise involves moderate to high intensity workouts such as intense cycling over a period of half an hour.
This type of exercise builds power, strength and muscle and is usually carried out over a short period of time such as 2 -3 minutes. An example of anaerobic exercise could be weight lifting.
This type of training is aimed at improving your ability to slow down, speed up, maintain balance, change direction and maintain control. Agility training is usually associated with sports and sports training, an example of agility training could be tennis.
Core exercises are exercises which work your core muscles, working your core muscles will help reduce back pain and associated problems as well as improve your posture and muscle tone. An example of a core exercise class could be Pilates.
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