Initially, getting fit and active when you are leading a sedentary lifestyle and hardly doing any physical activity at all can seem like a rather daunting task. Working out has fantastic benefits for your physical health and mental wellbeing, and significantly reduces your risk of developing severe health conditions such as diabetes, strokes, cancer, and heart disease.
However, after starting to work out in the early stages, you will have to be mentally resilient and keep going regardless of setbacks or how difficult you may find exercising. Rome certainly wasn’t built in a day, and we have come up with a guide for men on how to start working out.
Make an Honest Accurate Assessment of Your Initial Fitness Levels
Tracking your progress and being able to answer questions accurately on how much your fitness has improved is vital. Recording and assessing your baseline fitness levels through fitness tests will provide you with benchmarks that you are able to measure and monitor your fitness progress against. A year after starting to work out regularly, you do the same fitness tests as one year ago and be able to notice positive changes and improvements in your fitness test results.
Here are a few suggestions for baseline tests to measure your baseline fitness levels:
- Measuring your cardiovascular fitness through heart rate tests and measuring your pulse rate by counting how many times your pulse beats every 60 seconds. You can calculate your resting heart rate by placing your middle and index finger on the underside of your wrist and counting how many times your pulse beats in a minute. Or you can measure your pulse rate immediately before and after walking a mile.
- The squat test measures the endurance and strength of the muscles in your lower body. Stand in front of a chair and place your hands on your hips with your feet shoulder-width apart. Gently lower yourself down to the chair until your backside just touches the seat, then return back to the starting position. Repeat this movement until you are no longer able to maintain the same rhythm and speed.
- Measure your body mass index by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in metres squared. Just be aware that BMI calculation readings are often inaccurate for pregnant women or people who are particularly muscular and do a lot of strength training and heavy weights at the gym.
- Measure your waist circumference
- Measure your flexibility by measuring exactly how far you are able to reach forward while sitting on the floor with your legs in front of you.
Design Yourself a Suitable Fitness Program
Design a fitness program in order to provide yourself with structure and routine in your efforts to get fighting fit.
When designing your fitness program, you need to consider your fitness goals and what you want to achieve. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be fit enough to be able to run for 90 minutes and join your local football team? You should also plan the time you will spend throughout the week doing physical activity. Doctors recommend you should do moderate aerobic or vigorous aerobic exercise every day.
You must also remember to give yourself a sufficient number of breaks and recovery time.
Get Yourself the Right Clothing and Equipment
To get fit and do lots of exercise, you will, of course, need all the right gear.
Make sure you have suitable clothing. The first thing to do is to make sure your gym clothes fit you properly, as working out in far too tight or loose clothes can be a real hassle. Shop around for jackets, sweatshirts, t-shirts, tracksuit bottoms, of which are made from lightweight water-wicking clothing fabrics such as synthetic fibres like lycra and polyester. If you want a comfortable tracksuit for going outdoors and travelling to the gym, take a look at Gym King’s range of gym tracksuits for men.
You may also decide to purchase some practical exercise equipment to stay fit at home alongside attending the gym.
Build Things Up Gradually
Slowly does it, try and set yourself realistic goals and take things in your fitness journey one step at a time.
Listen to Your Body
If at any point your body is telling you that you’re overdoing it, give yourself a break. You don’t want to set back your fitness journey by injuring yourself. Ensure you take breaks to relax and do other things you enjoy; just avoid comfort eating and bingeing too often on junk foods.
Monitor Your Progress
It’s essential to take stock and monitor and review your progress just a few weeks after starting your fitness program and again every month. Hopefully, you will find that your fitness improves to a greater degree than you had expected. Failing to monitor your progress and seeing how you are doing in line with your goals may lead to you becoming demotivated and losing your sense of purpose. When you start working out, it’s vital to remain focused.
Starting to work out and improving your fitness is a decision that comes with many benefits that you won’t regret having taken.