Jumpstart Your Fitness Program With A Balanced Approach

Karen Van Ness - Jan 2011. Article first published as Jump Start Your Fitness Program With A Balanced Approach on Technorati.

How balanced is your health and fitness program? Are you hitting all the important areas, such as strength, stamina, flexibility, and diet?   

It's easy to get into a rut when you've been exercising for awhile. And if you haven't been exercising, you will probably re-start your program doing pretty much the same things you were doing before.

In my experience, most people tend toward a certain type of exercise which dominates their training time and energy.  

The two major camps are strength training versus aerobics or cardio. Seems like many people either predominantly “do” cardio (or aerobics), or they tend to hit the weights. Sometimes they throw in a little stretching, such as yoga or Pilates, for good measure.  

While it's important to focus more energy and time in the areas that are lacking, it's equally important to have some balance and variety in your training. 

After all, variety is the spice of life. If you keep doing the same type of workout, over and over again, you get diminishing (or even disappearing) results. You will also get bored, which means it's more likely you will quit your program, especially when you hit the inevitable plateaus.  

On the other hand, when you have some balance in your training, you'll find that you are more enthusiastic about it. Changing the combination or order of elements in your workout can add a wonderful dimension. The variety keeps you (and your body) guessing - and craving more.  

When I work with people, I like to use the analogy of the wheel to help them visualize whether they are balanced in their life, or in the goals they have set.  

Take out a blank piece of paper and draw a wheel with several spokes. Each spoke represents an area of your life: perhaps career or business, school, financial, health and fitness, family, personal development, and so forth. 

Here's the tricky part: the length of each spoke should be representative of how well you are doing in each of these areas. Doing well: longer spoke. Doing poorly, or not doing at all: shorter spoke.  

In order for your wheel to be well rounded and roll smoothly, all the spokes have to be of equal length - or as close to equal as is feasible in your life.  

Next, connect the end of the spokes to draw your wheel. If you have some spokes that are shorter than the others, you will see that you have a flat tire, or one that is badly underinflated.  

It's hard to move forward in the direction you wish to go when you have a flat tire. 

On the other hand, once you are clear on where you are "flat"- the short spoke area or areas - you now have the chance to prioritize those areas in order to bring your life into better balance. 

You can use this same tool to help sort out and prioritize your fitness and health program. Using the visual of shorter versus longer spokes shows you which areas are getting short shrift, and helps you decide what and whether to get into balance. 

For example, I use this tool to assess my martial arts training. As I create my wheel, I draw spokes for the various aspects of training, such as punching, kicking, joint locks and throws, stamina, strength, flexibility, body conditioning (specific training that conditions the body to give and receive blows). If I am honest, I usually see one or more areas that are lagging, or that I have ignored for some time. I can use this information to decide whether I want to work on these areas and bring them back into balance. 

When it comes to fitness and health programs, one area most people ignore is their breathing.  

You should devote part of your time to the cultivation of breath control and power. Breathing is a direct and instantaneous way to tap into the life force, the vital energy that flows through each of us. Performed properly, deep breathing helps develop breath control, expand the capacity of the lungs, and build stamina.  

Making a small investment of time in gaining control and mastery over your breathing can enhance the results you get from exercise, as well as your internal energy and focus.  

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Copyright Karen Van Ness. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this article is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of Karen Van Ness and KVN Enterprises.

Source: Visit www.BestBreathingExercises.com for more information.

 
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