exercise equipment

Have exercise misconceptions prevented you from starting an exercise program? Clear up any confusion and let these exercise tips improve your workout routine. Hopefully none of these common exercise myths
mistakes and misconceptions have prevented you from working out.

1. Common Mistake: Failure to set goals. Do you exercise without a clear goal in mind? Having a clear goal set is a critical step in exercise and weight loss success. Tracking your progress in a journal will help ensure you see your improvements
will help motivate you and help you meet your ultimate goal.

2. Common Misconception: No Pain
No Gain. Pain is your body’s way of letting you know something is wrong. Do not ignore this. When you go beyond exercise and testing yourself
you will encounter physical discomfort and need to overcome it. An example of this would be training for a marathon. It is important that you have the “base training” before getting into the advance training. The base training develops the body and gets it ready for extensive training. You need to learn to “read” your body. Is the heavy breathing because you are pushing your body or could it be the beginning of a heart attack. Exercise is important. Do it correctly and you can do it for the rest of your life.

It is normal for you to hurt after you exercise
but it must be done gradually with a good amount of rest periods to allow proper healing. There are two common problems here with beginning exercisers. You can cause long lasting damage to muscles
tendons and ligaments if you work out while you are in pain
without allowing enough rest time to heal. You might find yourself in constant and long lasting pain if you do this which means that you will no longer be able to exercise.

If you wake up the next morning after you exercised and can barely drag your aching body out of bed because everything hurts
you are going to be less motivated to exercise at all. Constant pain is a sure way to kill your exercise program.

3. Common Mistake: Sacrificing Quality for Quantity. When you are ready to increase the number of reps of a particular exercise
and strengthen the corresponding muscles
instead of forcing yourself to do a little more each time try decreasing the number of reps in a set but increase the number of sets. Also
back off to half your usual number of reps but add a couple of more sets. You will feel less tired and will be able to gain strength in your fast-twitch muscles.

4. Common Myth: Weight Training Makes Women Bulky. Weight training for a woman will strengthen and tone muscle
burn fat and increase metabolism
not build mass. Women do not produce enough of testosterone to build muscle mass the way that men do.

5. Common Mistake: Over-Emphasizing Strengths. You should start focusing on your points rather then what you are good at. This will help you balance things. For example
if your lower body is stronger than you upper body
then try to work only on this area one day a week.

Being smart about how you exercise will take you a long way. It is important to have a healthy body so get out there and start exercising today.

Experts recommend working out 45 minutes to an hour a day (30 minutes for beginners) for weight loss and fitness. But if you're like most women
you don't always have a block of 30 to 60 minutes a day to devote exclusively to doing your workouts.

You can still exercise--you just need to sneak in the equivalent in resourceful ways. "The idea is to keep moving
says fitness expert Ann Grandjean, EdD.
Get a cordless phone or put a long cord on your regular phone
and walk when you talk. Find whatever works for you and just move. Park half a mile from the mall and walk. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Those little
itty-bitty things add up."

Every Stolen Moment Adds Up

Lest you think that short bursts of activity have a negligible effect on your fitness program
think again. One study found that women who split their exercise into 10-minute increments were more likely to exercise consistently
and lost more weight after 5 months
than women who exercised for 20 to 40 minutes at a time.

In a landmark study conducted at the University of Virginia
exercise physiologist Glenn Gaesser
PhD
asked men and women to complete 15 10-minute exercise routines a week. After just 21 days
the volunteers' aerobic fitness was equal to that of people 10 to 15 years younger. Their strength
muscular endurance
and flexibility were equal to those of people up to 20 years their junior.

In yet another study
researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore found that for improving health and fitness in inactive adults
many short bursts of activity are as effective as longer
structured workouts. "It would be useful for people to get out of the all-or-nothing mind-set that unless they exercise for 30 minutes
they're wasting their time
says Gaesser.

Breaking exercise into small chunks on your overscheduled days can also keep your confidence up, says Harold Taylor, time management expert and owner of Harold Taylor Time Consultants in Toronto, who has written extensively on the subject.
Skipping exercise altogether is 'de-motivational'--you feel depressed and guilty
Taylor says.
If you skip it
you tend to figure
'What's the use? I can't keep up with it anyway.' Yet as long as you make some effort each day
that motivates you onward. Success breeds success."

Keep in mind
though
that short bursts of exercise are meant to supplement
not replace
your regular fitness routine. Here's a roundup of practical ways to work exercise into your day even when you "don't have time to exercise." (You don't have to do them all in 1 day; select what works for you.)