Why You Need Exercise and a Personal Fitness Plan

Why You Need Exercise and a Personal Fitness Plan

You need a personal fitness plan right now.

You know exercise is important.

And something you should be doing on a regular basis.

The World Health Organization reported that upwards of 3 million people die each year due to obesity-related health issues.

So no matter how old or young you are, man, woman or otherwise – if you have a body, YOU can benefit from getting more exercise. And an active lifestyle.

Physical, Mental and Financial Benefits

Exercise has innumerable benefits. If you exercise regularly, one of the many benefits you’ll appreciate will be fewer aches and pains as you age.

In other words, you’ll age more gracefully. Ever heard of Chef Babette Davis? She’s a 65-year-old fitness beast!

Exercise is a proven method, along with nutrition and dieting, for controlling your weight.

It also helps maintain your current muscle mass and build additional muscle. Lean muscle burns more calories than fat tissue.

Another benefit of exercising regularly is you’ll look and feel better. Clothes will fit better, mirrors won’t be your enemy, and you’ll be more comfortable in your day-to-day.

Just climbing up a flight of stairs can be challenging when we neglect to participate in regular exercise.

You should also make time for exercise because it relieves stress, improves your mood, and reduces anxiety and depression.

On top of that, you’re less likely to get sick because exercise can prevent, and help your body better manage many different health problems.

Improved heart, lung and cardiovascular function means you’ll also have more overall energy.

And studies have shown you’re less likely to suffer or die from many lifestyle diseases like stroke, heart attack, diabetes, or cancer when you consistently make time for exercise.

Which is why you need a personal fitness plan.

Sex and Quality of Life Benefits

Want to improve your sexual performance?

Exercise more!

Of course, open communication with your partner is a major piece of this puzzle. But stamina and endurance aren’t words that remind us of cardio AND sex for no reason.

Sex Benefits of a Personal Fitness Plan

Exercise boosts sex drive, improves blood flow, and increases your flexibility.

And all of this can lead to a better experience in the bedroom for you and your partner.

And with more exercise, you might even notice that you fall asleep faster at night. So create a personal fitness plan.

But make sure you don’t schedule your workouts too close to bedtime. Because then you might have a hard time falling asleep afterward due to naturally elevated cortisol levels (aka the stress hormone) after exercise.

Among its many other benefits, exercise builds your muscles and stimulates increased bone density.

This makes doing day to day activities such as cleaning your house, carrying groceries, and walking, much easier.

Plus, by exercising more, you won’t have to spend as much money on health-related bills.

One of the leading causes of chronic disease in the United States is a lack of physical exercise. So by increasing the amount of exercise you get, you can reduce the chance of developing a preventable disease or even reverse the symptoms of a number of chronic lifestyle diseases.

That, in turn, leads to more money back in your pocket and not to mention helps you live longer.

Social Benefits of a Personal Fitness Plan

Through exercise, you can bond and connect with others or strengthen your current relationships.

Group Happiness

This can mean working out with your significant other, with groups, or even with strangers in a group setting who could soon become your friends.

Another social benefit of exercise is you’ll be able to participate in all the group activities you might’ve grown up playing. Adult dodgeball and softball teams are always forming and looking for new players.

You’ll be able to keep up with your friends, kids or grandkids no matter the activity.

These are all great reasons why you should get more exercise throughout the day.

However, If You Want to See Results Then You’ll Need a Personal Fitness Plan You Can Follow.

When trying to commit to a consistent workout schedule, it’s easier if you already know what you have to do.

You can get in, knock it out, and be on your way. It’s your blueprint for success.

Personal Fitness Plan

But if you show up to the gym and don’t have a fitness plan or any idea of what exercises you’re going to do then you might just float around frustrated and confused.

Sure you might end up doing some cardio.

You might even jump on a few machines or waste your time mindlessly doing some half-assed reps before you leave.

And that’s why you need a fitness plan.

Having the right plan is an important part of crushing any fitness or health goal you might have.

When Making Your Personal Fitness Plan You Should Take The Following Into Consideration:

What are your goals?

  • Are you trying to lose weight, build muscle, or increase your endurance? None of the above? Each fitness plan will look relatively different based on the desired outcome.

Are you taking care of yourself in other ways?

  • Diet, rest, recovery, and proper hydration are key components in your plan. What you eat, drink, and how much sleep you get while completing your fitness plan are very important. You are what you eat. Water makes up more than 50% of your body and sleep is when your muscles recover.

What are your likes and dislikes?

Women on Bikes
  • If you have trouble committing to a plan, choose ONLY exercises you enjoy. Trying to stick to something you hate makes commitment 10 X harder. If you’re bored with your routine and need to branch away from your comfort zone, try that spin class you always make fun of.

What is your fitness level?

  • If you’re a beginner, you should start out more cautiously and build up to more complex workouts with heavier weights as you go. If you’ve been exercising your whole life, it’s time to take it to the next level. Never forget to challenge yourself.

How much time do you have or can you make?

  • You should schedule time for your workouts and actively go out of your way to make exercise a daily habit. You know exercise is important, that’s why you’re reading this. Now make more time and fewer excuses.

Do you get bored easily?

  • Mix things up. You don’t want to be doing the same thing every day. That’s a fast track to boredom and will make you less motivated to keep up with your fitness plan. Try free or inexpensive classes offered in your community. Take your workout outside or bring a buddy along.

Do you want to be sore and stiff?

  • I don’t think so. Stability and stretching routines are an absolute must! Yes, we want to be strong, but you’re going to want to build in some extra time for stretching and mobility work.
  • Dynamic movement before a workout and static stretching after a workout help to increase blood flow and speed up the muscle recovery process. And you gotta add in a few movements that challenge your balance and stability, which naturally decrease as we age.

With that…

Here Are My Top Reasons Why You Need a Fitness Plan Right Now:

1) You Won’t Have to Think About Your Next Exercise

When you create a fitness plan, you’re basically making a checklist.

With that checklist in hand, you’ll never forget to do another workout or miss another exercise again (or rather, have an excuse).

You’ll know what exercise to do, how many sets, and the number of reps you’re supposed to do.

Running Out of Time

Checklists are pretty easy to follow. It’s either you accomplished a step or you didn’t.

By having your plan you can check off what you’ve done as you go along. Thus, tracking your fitness journey is made a whole lot easier.

Plus, with a fitness plan, you’ll spend less time thinking about what comes next. That means more time spent actually working out.

And you’ll know what you did yesterday and the day before because you can easily look back at your plan.

2) Fitness Plans Can Prevent Burnout and Add Structure To Your Life

Training specific muscle groups on certain days allows your muscles to go through properly spaced progressive overload.

When you focus on certain muscle groups, you have time to recover because you’ll be working a different group during your next workout – this prevents overtraining. This can also prevent undertraining of your muscles as well.

Imagine hitting leg day hard with a trainer, coming back the next day and they expect you to train legs all over again while you’re still sore. No thanks!

Plus, when you’re on a fitness plan, exercise eventually becomes a habit. And who doesn’t need more good habits in their lives?

Fitness plans require accountability and reduce the chance of you putting off your workouts for another day.

Furthermore, when you’re finished and know you’ve worked your ass off for the day, there are few greater things than that happy sweaty feeling.

You can leave the gym, or your living room, with a sense of accomplishment. And even more importantly, you can take pride in your commitment to making your health a top priority.

3) Allows You to Focus On Your Weaker Muscle Groups

Just like being on a team or a mission, in fitness, you’re only as strong as your weakest link or muscle.

I’m sure you’ve seen that guy at the gym with a huge upper body and scrawny legs.

You Need a Personal Fitness Plan

Don’t be that guy! Get on a fitness plan. Your ______ (insert weak and neglected muscle group here) will thank you.

Also, when you follow a fitness plan and track your progress, it becomes easier to identify what your weaknesses are.

Once identified, you can start spending more time working on them. Both inside and outside the gym.

Like I said, when you don’t follow a fitness plan, you risk under and/or over-training a muscle or muscle groups. As a result, you might have or create imbalances that are causing undetectable issues.

This, in turn, can increase your risk of tearing or tweaking something while working out. All because you’ve neglected to strengthen one aspect of your body.

4) You Can Break Down Your Yearly Fitness Goals Into 4 Quarterly Routines

By arranging your fitness plan into quarterly routines you’ll continue to see results.

When you do the same workout routine over and over again, you’re bound to hit a wall. The gains you were seeing at first might not be the same now. And they shouldn’t be.

You’ve grown.

You’re stronger and now capable of handling more.

Along with seeing continual gains, after each quarter you can see how far you’ve come. Tracking progress quarterly allows you to increase or decrease your weight, intensity level, time, and the type of exercises you’re doing as needed.

This makes it easy for you to stay on track with meeting all of your big and small fitness goals. And who knows maybe you won’t need to adjust anything.

Your plan and what you’ve been doing might be spot on with the goals you’ve laid out for yourself this year.

Music and Work

Not to mention, planning quarterly makes seasonal things (like vacations, outside activities because the weather’s warmer, holidays, or just those moments when you know you’re going to eat more) less worrisome.

Now that you know why you need a personal fitness plan, it’s very important that you also understand you need to take ACTION.

Follow through with the plan you’ve come up with or let us know if you need help creating one.

Remember, just because you have a plan doesn’t mean it’ll magically get itself done and do the work for you.

This mindset applies not only to fitness but to a lot of other things throughout our daily lives like planning and sticking to a budget or diet.

By following a plan, you’ll maximize your time spent working out while focusing on each of the different body parts you’ve planned to hit.

Nobody likes wasted time; it’s a resource you can never get back. So follow through, commit and complete the plan you made.

After all, the best workout plan and exercises are the ones you’ll actually do and complete.

Sure, you might not see or notice an immediate difference in how you look or feel.

But if you’re consistent and execute the plan, you WILL see results.

Nothing happens overnight – there is no magic formula, pill, or supplement you can buy and take that’ll replace hard work. Make exercise a daily habit. Because you need a personal fitness plan.

Everything I’ve covered up to this point is why you need exercise.

Now get to it, and get sweaty!

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