Exercise As A Way To Better Living

Way To Better Living

Living well is eating right and getting enough exercise to benefit the body for a long, healthy life. 

Too often, people wait for motivation to strike in order to begin any new activity, and the truth is, that’s the wrong approach to take on any new activity or task. 

Motivation

Motivation is an overemphasized aspect of establishing an exercise routine. It can be like fool’s gold. Motivation and desire are interrelated and can vary. While motivation is an essential component, setting a regular pattern is more important. 

If you wait until you’re motivated to do an activity or begin an exercise routine, the personal discipline will want to make it happen. So instead, the motivation should be what gets you thinking about starting a fitness program rather than the causation of action. 

Identifying the right motivation to make a change in your life is the first step, but it’s the activity of getting started that counts. For example, you could be looking to improve the overall quality of your life, simply want to switch things up and go from your traditional workout routine to a more sexy workout, or simply want to lose a couple of pounds. 

Regardless of your motivation, if you wait until it feels right to begin, you won’t. 

So don’t wait for inspiration. 

Get going and start. It will create momentum that you’ll be more interested in maintaining. 

Look Better, Feel Better

The motivation to look better extends well beyond the physical. For example, exercise helps strengthen the body’s skeletal-muscular system, cardiovascular function, and respiratory efficiency. 

By exercising, you’ll experience positive physical changes, and those physical improvements you’ll improve your self-esteem and self-perception, boosting moods and confidence. 

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Living Healthier

Regular exercise improves the quality and quantity of life. On top of improving the way you look, regular exercise improves your overall quality of life. Benefits of exercise can assist with:

Types Of Exercise Programs- Way To Better Living

There are countless exercise programs you can choose from, whether it’s strength training, cardiovascular exercises, or more. The key is to find something you’ll enjoy and can sustain over a period of time to see the progress you hope. 

Weight Training: Weight training is the primary way to strengthen muscles. Using a variety of weights and movements can support the overall body and bones. 

Weight training can strengthen the muscles and bones and improve flexibility, balance, and coordination, foundations for injury prevention, especially as you age. 

The sneaky benefit of weight resistance training is that muscles require oxygenated blood, causing the heart to pump more efficiently. So in effect, weight training benefits the entire body, not just a specific muscle group.

Cardiovascular: Cardiovascular exercises focus less on muscular development and more on stressing the respiratory and cardiovascular functions. Running and swimming are good examples of cardiovascular exercises, and the benefits of these types are to strengthen the heart and lungs. 

Isometric: Isometric is a type of exercise that doesn’t require the muscles or joints to move to gain stress. For example, planks are a great example of an isometric exercise, where you hold a position and let the natural function stress the body and muscles. The benefits of isometric exercises are they tend to be low-impact and are great for individuals of all ages and abilities. 

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Body Weight: An extension of both isometric and weight resistance exercises is to only perform movements with body weight. Push-ups are a great example of bodyweight exercise. There is one significant benefit to these types of movements: bodyweight movement doesn’t require expensive equipment or gym memberships and can be performed anywhere.   

Functional: Athletes know functional exercises. These are movements that are specific to functional strength and are a combination of movements such as lunges, squats, and deadlifts to strengthen the “kinetic chain” of muscles. A kinetic chain is defined as the related muscle groups to perform a specific movement or activity. 

Regardless of the type of exercises you’re looking to perform for Way To Better Living, the benefits of routine practice outweigh the specific choice. In other words, any activity offers more benefits than not, and getting started is more important than waiting for motivation or desire to get started.