Beginners help.

Okay, so you're ready to get going, you just need to know where to start and how to progress.

You probably won't want to hear this, but, the beginning is the hardest part, the good thing is it does bring the greatest rewards.

I have not said this to be negative, but to sympathise and show that there is an understanding of what you have to go through.

Its hard because you are trying to get your body to do something it is not familiar with, and therefore not very efficient at.  Exercise is also not part of your daily routine so just turning up is a challange.

Fortunately the rewards of exercise make the hard work and effort more than worth while.

More than often at the start of an exercise program you would be asked to identify your goals and make a list of the changes you would like to see etc, but to be honest 99 percent of you will be starting exercise because you want to loose weight and feel better. And therefore beginners exericse plans are designed to do exactly this.

When someone embarks on an exercise routine for the first time, we don't want to be really specific with reducing this part and toning that part.  Really the aim is to get activity levels up and get familiar with some low intensity exercise. It is about conditioning the body, so that your heart, lungs, muscles, tendons, joints and bones become accustom to the new levels of activity and have time to develop.  After a few months you can look at how your body has responded and begin to focus on individual goals more closely.

So if you are looking to start an exercise routine the best gaol you can make is :

Get into a routine of doing a small amount of exercise everyday.

About 10-20 minutes is fine to start with. And everyday means pretty much everyday, if you miss one don't worry, just have a good reason for doing so because you need to start building a good mental attitute from the start.

When starting out with exercise you must do enough to challenge your body, but don't over do it.  You need to challenge your body in order to provide the stimulus for it to respond and get fitter. You don't want to over do it because it will take to long to recover and disrupt your workouts over the following few days. This may take a bit of practice, but you will soon know whats enough.

Your energy systems need to adapt to the demands of training and this also takes time.

At the beginning you will achieve better results if you exercise at a moderate intensity, this gives your body a chance to use the appropriate energy systems. As your fitness levels increase you can start to increase the intensity, this will place a greater stimulus on the body to adapt and also use up a larger amount of energy per workout.

As you can see, this has a snowballing effect - the fitter you get the harder you can exercise and the greater the effects.

Everyone will have a different starting point so don't worry about what others are doing - remember you need to work at the right pace for you.  It doesn't take long for changes to happen and you will soon catch up with friends or family that you may want to exercise with.

So..

Exercise for 10-20 minutes every day.

Keep intensity low to moderate.

Try different activities to see what you like.

Create habbits in your lifestyle that enable you to exercise.

Its going to be hard at the beginning - this is when you have to just get on and do it - no matter what.

Get going and good luck.