LIFESTYLE

Lifestyle

Change does us good

We all know that regular physical training is not only a bonus for our health but also makes us much more effective in all our daily activities. To select the activity that's just right for us, we need to heed out instinct, follow our passions. Only something we thoroughly enjoy will deliver us constant motivation and the results we dream of.

But how can we maintain our interest and drive in high gear and keep routine from slowing us down?

Simple: We just need to make our training as varied as possible.

The first tip is: reverse or change the order of exercises in your workout programme. Shifting part or even just one exercise from the beginning to the end of our daily sessions will keep us from falling into a routine that would soon tempt us to skip sessions, if not drop all activity altogether. This simple trick will also improve the benefits of our workout: to respond to this change, our body will need to put in more effort and muscle groups will work differently from usual.

Second tip: periodically consult with a professional trainer: he will suggest new exercises and strategies for achieving your goals. The array of exercises you can pick from to work out the various parts of your body is almost endless: trying new ones will provide fresh stimuli and boost your enthusiasm.

Even a seemingly straightforward piece of equipment such as the treadmill, for instance, offers many opportunities to vary the motions of your workout. How exactly?

You can change your pace: fast walk, run, uphill walk and sprints. This way you will enjoy a double benefit: you will avoid dullness and you will boost the effectiveness of your workout, because each time you will need to respond to a different kind of effort.

Changing inclination is also very useful: it will provide ever new challenges to our endurance and lung power, and will help us achieve our objectives in a shorter time.

And why not add more elements bringing enjoyment and relaxation? The treadmill and theexercise bike – actually all cardiovascular equipment – offer us an excellent opportunity to listen to our favourite music or read a book or magazine. Entertaining our mind while training our body means opening the door to a wonderful feeling of relaxation.

And if sooner or later even these strategies are not enough to make us stick to our workout plan, no need to hang on to it for dear life: let's just get in tune with our passions and pick one of the many sports activities that help us feel so much better and – most importantly – are what we truly enjoy.