I think one of the most important topics that I have yet to discuss on Impromental.com is exercise. Without a doubt, exercising is one of the most productive things you can do because of the many benefits it provides. For me personally, exercising makes me feel good, and helps me sleep better because I am actually tired. I fall asleep quicker on the days I exercise. I also I feel like exercise is key to improving yourself in other ways. In this blog, I will break down the specific benefits of exercise and how to get started exercising.
Table of Contents
What are Some Benefits of Exercise
What is Exercise
Exercise is defined as physical movement that is systematic. Exercise helps to condition and improve your body, health and fitness. It can mean a variety of things from sports like soccer, basketball, football, tennis, swimming, running, to martial arts like karate, taekwondo, jiu jitsu, to even walking and hiking.
What are Some Benefits of Exercise
Better sleep
As I mentioned before, exercising can help you sleep. For me personally, I have a lot of energy at baseline and if I don’t exercise, I still have a lot of energy, even when I am going to sleep. This problem can be resolved with exercise when I use that energy toward improving my health and my body feels the need to repair itself, so it wants to sleep.
Better Health
I think that it is kind of obvious that exercise improves your health, but it’s been shown to really improve a lot of aspects of health. It can increase your lifespan. Exercise can make your body stronger and strengthen your muscles, your cardiovascular system and your lungs. Exercising is one of the greatest things you can do for your body and the benefits of exercise really pay off, especially when you are old and still strong enough to be mobile.
Weight
I think that a lot of people think that exercising is the fastest way to lose weight. I have to argue that it is not the most important part of losing weight, as diet plays a much larger part in losing weight. Still, exercising is still a great way to become healthier and maybe lose a couple of pounds. Cardiovascular exercise, like walking and running, can be a very effective way to lose weight.
Mood and energy
Maybe when you exercise at first, you might feel exhausted, and you might wonder how it improves your energy. But over time, as you continue your exercise journey, you may notice that after exercising, your mood will be better. You may even notice on days after you exercise that you feel super full of energy. I think that the effort you put into exercising can distract your mind from things that are worrying you, which is why it improves your mood.
Focus
Exercise may help to improve your ability to grind and push through unpleasant work, even when it is difficult. I find that for me, running and weightlifting, and pushing through even when I don’t think I can keep going helps to build my focus. This determination is applicable to your work as well. Exercise can help you get through times that are really busy.
So these are just a couple benefits of exercise that I’ve noticed. In general, our bodies were meant to move, and they perform at their best if they are in the proper condition.
How to Start Exercising
I would say that if you are just starting to exercise, it would probably be really hard to maintain the focus to exercise every single day. Also, your body needs time to rest, especially if you are trying to grow muscle. I would say there are a couple paths you can pursue such as weightlifting or running.
Weightlifting Path
If you are staring out with weight lifting, I suggest you start with a 4-day exercise plan. You can do an upper lower split with Monday and Thursdays focusing on upper body work and Tuesdays and Fridays focusing on lower body work. That leaves Wednesdays, Saturday, and Sunday as rest days. I would say that while lifting, you should keep it to three sets and do 6-12 reps for each exercise. When starting out, it might be discouraging to do 5 sets. When I started out, I would try to do 5 sets and overall I was tired after the fourth set and doing five sets took too much time and was not very efficient. For me personally, I do around 4 exercises each set, so in total per day, I will do around twelve sets.
I usually do a quick five-minute warm up in order to prevent injury. This includes arm circles, twists and shoulder rotations. Also, if I am doing push exercises, I will do 20 pushups to warm up. I also try to focus on having good form in order to prevent injuries and try to not ego lift, which is when you lift heavier weights but sacrifice form.
Running Path
As a cross country runner, running is pretty simple. I think that if you are just starting to run, you should just go out and try to continuously run for 20 minutes. Try to do this for 6 days in a week. It is important that you do not stop walking and keep running. As you figure out your pace, you can start to level up your running routine.
After you’ve gotten comfortable running regularly, I would say that you can start to go for distances. Three miles is usually a good distance, and the average person should be able to run it comfortably under 30 minutes. You can also mix up the training styles. Try running 4 800meter sprints and rest with 1-2 minutes in between. Or you can try longer runs where you can go out and see how quickly you can run 6 miles. You should also make sure to warm up before these runs as they are more intense and could cause potential injuries. A warm-up could include a mile warm up run and then some dynamic stretches.
Conclusion
Exercise is a great way to improve both your mind and body, and is a great thing to incorporate into your life. While you may not feel the benefits immediately, over time the little increases in strength and overall fitness will make your life more fulfilling. Exercise helps is so many ways, so try to find a way to fit it in. This has been Impromental.com, stay tuned in for the next post.