It is good for both body and soul that you move regularly. You become more alert, stronger and your memory can be improved. If you are an adult, it is recommended to move for half an hour a day, for example take a brisk walk. The body is built for movement. Therefore, it is good to train varied, both fitness, balance and muscle strength.
In this text, you will get advice on how to get started with your training and tips on how to set up a sustainable training routine.
All kinds of training count, even the one you get through activities in everyday life. This can be, for example, cycling, climbing stairs, working in the garden, picking mushrooms or cleaning. Any form of exercise can positively affect your health. For the training to have an effect, you need to get warm and get your heart rate and breathing up. Remember that the best workout is the one that gets off.
You who train hard should be careful to let your body rest between workouts. It is good to vary between different forms of exercise to avoid overtraining.
How much should I train?
It is usually enough to move around for about half an hour a day, or 15 minutes twice a day. The recommendation is that you as an adult should move at least two and a half hours a week. For the physical activity to have an effect, you need to get warm and get your heart rate and breathing up. Moderate exercise means, for example, that you take a brisk walk 30 minutes a day.
Feel free to vary with another form of exercise, for example:
- muscle training indoors , outdoors or in the gym
- circle training
- spinning
- dance
- running training.
A good starting point is to choose something that feels fun and that can fit into your own daily routines. Many people find it easier to get started by training with others. Remember that the best workout is the one that gets off.
Why should I train?
There are many benefits to regular physical activity. It strengthens the muscles, which in turn protects the joints and skeleton. It also increases your mobility and balance which in turn reduces the risk of falls and bone fractures.
The brain’s performance increases due to the improved blood circulation. It can make you feel more alert and happier, increase your ability to concentrate and improve your memory. You can also have increased resistance to stress and better sleep.
Take it easy at first
When you start exercising, it is good to take it easy at first. Everyday exercise such as walking or cycling does not require warming up and the risk is small that you will injure yourself.
Allow your body to recover to avoid injury
When it comes to more intense training, it can be good to let the body get used to and feel so that muscles and tendons do not become overloaded by you start training too hard, too fast.
You also need to give your body time to recover between workouts if you are starting to train your muscles and are not used to regular exercise.
Warm up and drink water
It is important that you take care of your body when you start exercising. Here are some tips on how to create good conditions for your training:
- Start training calmly to warm up the muscles.
- Drink plenty of water to replace fluid loss when sweating. This is especially true if you train for a long time or at high heat.
- Wear good shoes. It can prevent injuries during many types of exercise.
- Listen to what the body can do. If something hurts, stop and do another exercise instead. You can also seek the help of an instructor or physiotherapist.
Exercise pain
You can get exercise pain if you strain the muscles in an intense way that the body is not used to. Then you usually become stiff and sore in the muscles one or two days after the workout. It is not harmful, but is due to the fact that the muscles temporarily become swollen and sore after the effort. The training pain usually disappears on its own within a few days.
It is good to move around if you have exercise pain. Then the blood flow increases and the muscles become less stiff.
How often should I train?
It is different from person to person what is appropriate to train. It depends on your circumstances and your previous habit.
Exercise every third day
When you start training, it may be appropriate to train every three days, with a two-day recovery. You may need to rest even more with harder training. There is a risk that your muscles may become overtrained if you train the same muscles every day. Overtraining means that the muscles do not recover and develop as well as if they had been allowed to rest between training sessions.
Vary the training
To avoid overtraining, you can also try to train different muscle groups at different times, and let strained muscles rest between laps.
Regular gym usually provides a reasonably intense, versatile workout. Versatile training means that you train both fitness and muscle strength alternately during the training sessions, and that you train most muscle groups in the body.
How to train fitness
Cardio training has positive effects on the heart, skeleton, joints and muscles.
Fitness test
If you want to find out how good your fitness is, you can do a fitness test that measures the oxygen uptake capacity. You can usually do such tests at the gym, for example. If it is done again after you have been training for a while, you can see how the condition has changed. Fitness is a fresh product, that is, you need to maintain it by continuing to exercise regularly.
Improve your fitness – measure your heart rate
Many people improve their fitness just by taking regular brisk walks. If you want to further improve your fitness, you can get help from measuring your heart rate. That is, count how many beats the heart beats per minute. In order for the condition to improve, you need to reach at least half of your maximum heart rate during training.
To calculate your maximum heart rate, you can start from 220 and then subtract your own age. For example, if you are 40 years old, the maximum heart rate will be 180. Already at half the maximum heart rate, the condition improves. If you are a beginner, it is enough to stay between 50 and 70 percent of the maximum heart rate to increase your fitness. An effort level of 70 percent of the maximum heart rate means for a 40-year-old that you should be at 180 x 0.7, ie 126 heartbeats per minute.
If you are over 55, It’s up to you to choose what workouts are best for you. Because you know yourself more than anyone else.
If you want to start keeping track of your heart rate, and know what level of exertion you achieve when you exercise, you can get a heart rate monitor. In some gyms, heart rate monitors are available in the equipment you use there.
Pedometer and odometer
Another way to measure your activity is to use a pedometer or odometer. It is a measuring instrument that automatically calculates how many steps you take each day or how far you move. Pedometers are available in many mobile phones and you can also download an app. There are also separate pedometers you can buy and attach to the waistband. Then you can continuously set new goals and see if you have been too inactive on certain days.
More intense training at intervals
If you want to train more intensively, you can do it through interval training, that is, to increase the pace for a few minutes or two and then take it easy again. You change the tempo in this way between three and six times during a half-hour session.
When you do cardio training more intensively, your body needs to rest and recover between workouts. Usually you do not need to train more than every other day.
If you are with aged care & still you want to work out which is good. but, Please let your carer monitor you.
This is how you train strength
Strong muscles support and protect the joints, in addition, mobility and balance are improved.
Different ways to train muscles
Muscles can be trained in three different ways:
- You can train to increase muscle endurance . That is, to be able to lift a weight as many times as possible.
- You can train to increase muscle strength . That is, to be able to lift as much weight as possible in only one or a few lifts.
- You can train to build muscle volume and range.
Use your own body as a tool
You do not need to use exercise equipment to strengthen the muscles. You can use your own body weight by, for example, doing push-ups and situps.
If you want to increase your strength and endurance further, use dumbbells and bars or exercise machines.
You can contact a gym to get a basic overview of exercise movements and equipment. It is important that you know how to handle different tools to avoid injuries.
Warm up first
When training muscles, it is important to warm up before training. Muscles that are at rest are shorter than muscles that are warmed up. When you warm up, the body becomes warmer, the joints are lubricated and the muscles become smoother. When the body gets hot, the blood vessels dilate and the oxygen can be transported faster from the lungs to the muscles. This allows the muscles to work better and the risk of injury is reduced.
Many people think that stretching feels good after training, but there is no scientific support for it being useful.
Stability training for abdomen and back
It is good to especially train the back and abdominal muscles if you have back or neck pain. Then the body becomes stronger in the torso and the balance in the movements improves. Strong abdominal muscles can reduce back pain, as the trunk muscles help to relieve the back. After a pregnancy, it is also important to regain strength in the torso, both the inner and outer abdominal muscles.
Get the right exercises from a physiotherapist
You can contact a physiotherapist before you start to get customized movements. You can also contact a trainer at the gym. The movements can be performed at home, outdoors or in the gym. Sometimes this type of training is called core training. It comes from the English core , which means core or framework. You can do the exercises every day or every other day.
Pilates
Pilates largely avoids high impact, high power output, and heavy muscular and skeletal loading. Soft and slow movements are performed either on the floor on a mat or with various tools, including balls and elastic bands. You can also perform this form of exercise either at the gym or at home.
Recovery important
In most forms of muscle training, you should allow the muscles to recover between training sessions. For many, it is appropriate to exercise approximately every three days. You who are used to exercising can exercise more often. But remember that if you train the same muscles too often, you risk that the muscles do not recover and do not develop as well as otherwise. It is good to vary the muscle training with cardio training.
It is important to drink water to restore fluid balance. You should also eat something that contains carbohydrates immediately after your workout, such as a banana or smoothie. Then you get the best effect of muscle training. Dietary supplements, protein powders and vitamins are usually unnecessary.
How to train fat burning
The more you exercise, the more the body’s ability to burn fat during exercise increases.
Light exertion for a long time
You burn the most fat if you exert yourself for a little longer. The metabolism increases the more you exert yourself, but to be able to continue exercising long enough, it is good to keep between 50 and 75 percent of your maximum heart rate, ie the same recommendation as when you want to improve your fitness.
Power consumption
If you strive to keep the weight off, you need to get rid of as much energy as you get in you through the food. A large part of the energy is used to maintain body temperature and for the heart, brain and other organs to function. When you activate the body’s muscles, more energy is used.
Walking can burn fat
If you walk 30 minutes every day and do not eat more than before, you will lose about half a kilo per month. To burn a kilo of fat, you need to walk about seven miles. If you walk two kilometers a day, it will be 750 km in a year and it can burn ten kilos of fat, provided you do not eat more than before.
Muscle weighs more than fat
Keep in mind that exercise often produces larger muscles, and muscle tissue is more compact than adipose tissue. So even if the amount of fat has decreased in the body, you can weigh as much as before. Therefore, it is good to not only look at the scales when assessing your weight, but also measure your waist measurement .
Do not exercise after drinking alcohol
You should not exercise after drinking alcohol as your body can be damaged in various ways. For example, it could be any of the following:
- You get dehydrated. This is because you sweat when you exercise and because alcohol is diuretic, your body can become dehydrated.
- Your muscles are more easily damaged. When you become dehydrated, the muscles get less fluid, because the body makes sure that the important organs get enough fluid while the muscles get less.
- You injure yourself, for example that you fall or sprain. This is because your coordination, balance and motor skills are negatively affected by the alcohol.
You may need to rest from certain movements
You may have discomfort if you run or walk more than usual, and do not give your body time to recover between workouts. Then the membranes of the lower leg muscle attachments can become inflamed and begin to hurt. It can lead to osteomyelitis. Then it usually hurts on the front of the shin. The same thing applies if you start jogging, and are not used to it. Then you can get pain in the hamstring. It can lead to you getting tendonitis.
Exercise differently while the injury heals
You should change your training for a while if you get any of these problems. You need to rest from the movements that triggered the discomfort until you are no longer in pain. For example, you can cycle or swim instead of running and walking. Most often, the injury heals on its own.
Eccentric training and stretching can help
You can do some exercises to train yourself healthy if you have pain in the hamstring, so-called eccentric exercises. This means that you must resist the weight resistance and slow down the exercise. If you have pain in the hamstring, you can, for example, do an exercise in slow toe lifting:
- Stand on a step with the front half of your feet. Take support with your hands against the stair railing to keep your balance.
- Walk on tiptoe with both feet.
- Release one foot and slowly lower the other below the edge of the step. Hold on tight on the way down.
- Repeat the exercise with the other foot.
Do 15 repetitions and repeat three times a day. After a while, you can increase the load by, for example, carrying a backpack with weights in it.
You who have pain in the calf or hamstring can do slow stretching exercises. Here is an example:
- Put one foot up against the wall. The leg should be straight.
- Press the hip against the wall. Feel how the calf is stretched.
- Hold for 30 seconds.
- Repeat the exercise with the other foot.