Don't need to push your boundaries

I woke up late on a Sunday and said, “no more; tomorrow, I will start going to the gym.”

Have you heard it? Have you said it? Well, I have said it too, but I cannot recall when! Indeed it happened a while ago before I was focused as I am now that my workout is part of a healthy lifestyle.

The fitness shape means something unreachable for many and many people that they are not going to get even if they do their best. And the fact is everybody that has envisioned to work it out; they make it. The work takes time, requires to be combined with optimal nutrition, so you need to be patient, constant, and poised.

The plan might start with writing a list of the goals, followed by steps, precise numbers, and other activities required. In my case, I write them with the new year resolutions and update/improve them every year.

The goal can be to lose weight, gain muscle, stay in the same shape. The key is monitoring. Every quarter (4 months), the plan should assess, compare with what has been achieved, and move on. All of this is to start working out your body.

Choose the activity that fits the most with the requirements, the schedule, which is likely to be practiced in the city of the living, or the neighborhood. For example, choosing surfing as a desired physical workout does not seem too bold if you live in a land far from any coast.

Something that I have begun to practice in recent years is to cross the activities. For instance, when I was younger, I use to go only to the gym to do strenuous weightlifting. Later, I started swimming, and it was the only activity I used to do; many hundreds of meters per day at a fast pace, but I did not pay attention or was not interested in combine it with other workouts. Afterward, I struggled to perform other activities - like playing soccer or basketball, team sports that I liked but did not have the stamina to pull off as I wanted. I now practice different disciplines in equilibrium; in a week: I go to the gym 3 times, I swim other 3 times, I run twice, I do once some basketball drills, and 1 day of high-intensity exercises. As you see, I counted for ten workouts, so it means that I cross them in different ways.

The idea is to practice what you like, do it on a constant and moderate basis – unless you feel you can perform it like a pro - and monitor your health. Last but not less, get some qualified orientation; it will help keep track of the vitals, the physical measurements, the body fat percentage or index, among others.

Also, get all the support from technology and use the preferred apps to keep track of your numbers and distances. If possible, buy a smartwatch to obtain your heart rate, oxygen consumption, time, and type of sleep, with very accuracy. You can also purchase fat calipers to measure the body fat index by yourself – it is easy to do it-.

A key for me is moderation. I do not try to go further than I can with my body. In the gym, I avoid the dumbbells and the hardcore exercises. I focus on the machines, do moderate weight, take short rests, so I keep the aerobic level high. With this, what I say is you do not need to push your boundaries to be healthy, or fit, or skinny, or however you want to be. Also, every other week I change the combination of pieces of training, that way I do not get bored with the same routine repeatedly.

It is a matter of creating some way, but significantly perseverance and patience.