When it comes to fitness, motivation is hard to come by. Here are a
few ideas to kick-start your exercise plan.
It is all but inevitable: Come springtime, you are out of shape.
And who can blame you? Despite health-club memberships and home
treadmills, the motivation to exercise seems to fade as the temperature
drops. The hectic holiday schedule may be to blame, or perhaps sweating
indoors doesn't appeal to you. Whatever the cause, inactivity harms the
body, and it makes getting active again all the more difficult.
According to fitness expert Susan Smith Jones, Ph.D., almost anyone
can get in a rut--it's simply easier to be out of shape than it is to
exercise. To get over the hump, Jones suggests a few easy ways to find
and keep your motivation:
o Commit to 21 straight days of exercise. It takes some three weeks
to overcome the resistance to working out. If you can keep it up that
long, your new exercise routine loses its novelty and becomes part of
your life.
o Post your exercise goals where you can see them and keep track of
your progress. It's a lot harder to "forget" about exercising if your
goals are taped to your mirror or stuck on your refrigerator door.
Monitoring your fitness success will help provide positive
feedback.
o Exercise with a friend. Make it a social commitment as well as
one to fitness.
One way to make exercise interesting is to take on a new approach
to working out. In recent years, many people have turned to yoga as an
alternative form of physical activity. Yoga's high popularity seems to
derive from its low-impact style and its equal emphasis on the mind and
the body.
There are several forms of yoga, but Hatha yoga is the kind most
often practiced in the West. Hatha yoga concentrates on three aspects:
controlled breathing, postures and meditation. The slow, deep breathing
patterns of Hatha yoga are intended to promote relaxation, while the
postures work on strength and flexibility.
The health claims of yoga extend from reducing stress and slowing
the base respiratory rate to lowering blood pressure and fighting heart
disease. Although the full power of yoga has yet to be proven in medical
trials, some studies have hinted at the truth behind the claims. The
practice of yoga seems to have pain-relieving benefits, for example. A
recent study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association
indicated that daily yoga can reduce the pain associated with carpal
tunnel syndrome.
The Yoga Ball: Get Your Body on a Roll
A new form of yoga is bending and stretching enthusiasts in more
ways than one
Yoga practitioners traditionally use a mat. But a new technique has
added an element to the fitness regime: a rubber ball. Massage therapist
Yamuna Zake developed the yoga-inspired program, which she calls "body
rolling" as a means to teach anatomy, but it soon turned into a fitness
program. Body rolling uses the ball to roll out the muscles that get the
most abuse, stretching them in new ways. Students sit or lie on the ball,
which supplies gentle but firm resistance; some people who have bought a
ball for home use compare it to an inexpensive deep-tissue
massage.
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