How You Can Learn to Love Exercise

Fitness training should be an essential part of your daily life. It doesn't matter what kind of physical shape you're in. If you have an obvious weight problem, you should definitely start working out. But even if you have a regular physique, it can't hurt you to drop by the gym once in a while. In fact, you should do so regularly. A good fitness routine will enable to live a longer life and stay healthy well into your old age. It will also lower your chances of being victim to heart disease or respiratory failure in the future.

Of course, you have probably resolved to exercise regularly before. You made your new year's resolution, bought the weights or equipment, or signed up at your local health club. But like many people, you found exercising to be a pain, and in time you quit. But you surely know some people who seem to live for exercise. They actually love it! How on earth is that possible? Well, you too can grow to love your fitness routine. You just have to design it in the right way so you enjoy it.

For example, I have a strong fondness for martial arts. Thus I have incorporated my interest in my fitness program, with a regular session devoted to martial arts techniques. It gives me a good cardio-aerobic workout, as well as developing my skills in self defense. You should follow my example and align your workout program with your interests. That might be swimming, biking, hiking, roller blading, rock climbing, boxing, squash, badminton, even dance or yoga... the list goes on.

You will also enjoy your workouts more if you better understand how they are helping you. If you just get into weight training without knowing why you are grunting over tiresome loads, you will probably give it up eventually because it all seems senseless to you. What you need is a basic understanding of how weight training works to build up your muscles. Lifting weights puts pressure on your muscle fibers, and actually causes them to tear. But your body is resilient and it will grow back the damaged fibers, only they will be bigger and stronger.

That kind of knowledge will really help your training, especially in cases where you find that you're not getting the results you want. To give you an example, I used to follow a fitness program that was aimed at building up my chest, but I wasn't seeing any result. So I did a little research and soon learned that I was actually training too hard. I changed my program so that I had longer rest periods--at least a day and often two--between my chest-building workout sessions. I needed to give my body more time to recover and strengthen my muscles.

Don't give up on fitness training. If you're not having fun doing it, then make some changes. In time, you too will find exercising to be something you love.

For more information and tips about

Getting In Shape [gettingfit.info/getting_in_shape.php] and Fitness Walking [gettingfit.info/fitness_walking.php] please drop by at gettingfit.info gettingfit.info