Why Is It Important to Ease Into a New Exercise Program?

Staying active and including exercise in your routine is essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and achieving fitness goals like an ideal summer body. Talking about starting your workout journey is easy, but actually starting a new exercise program requires more consideration. Whether you’re new to exercise, returning from an injury or jumping into your previous workout routine after a long break, you should take it slow and ease into your new exercise program.

Are you ready to start a new exercise program? Read on to learn about the benefits of easing into a new exercise program, physical fitness tips and other helpful workout information that will make your return to fitness safe and effective.

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Why You Should Ease Into a New Exercise Program

There are plenty of reasons for beginning a new exercise program. You may have taken a long break from exercise or sustained an injury that prevented you from working out. You may have never regularly exercised, but you’re now making the life change to commit to a new fitness routine. Whatever your reason is, it’s important to take the right steps and start slowly. Rushing into a new exercise program and attempting to do too much can lead to injury, and it can also be discouraging if you aren’t able to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. When you ease into an exercise program, you give yourself more time to adjust and get used to working out.

What is one benefit of starting an exercise program slowly? There are a few reasons that are important and impact your overall health. Easing into an exercise program is crucial for your body and mind. Rushing into intense exercises or attempting an old exercise program can lead to serious injuries because you are overusing your muscles or lead to a feeling of defeat if you’re not performing the exercises like you used to.

You should consider taking the process slow and ask for advice before starting a new exercise program. Just like you want to take care of your body with exercise, you need to make sure your body can handle the intensity of the workouts you plan on accomplishing.

8 Tips to Safely Start a New Workout Program

Starting new exercise routines with minimal experience or after a long break can be simple if you have the right resources and information to accomplish the process. Before you dive headfirst into your new fitness routine, follow these eight fitness tips to avoid losing motivation and prevent serious injuries.

1. Find Your Motivation

One of the first things you should do before beginning a new workout routine is to ask yourself why you’re working out. Do you want to start living a healthier life? Do you want to lose weight? Are you trying to reduce your risk of disease or chronic conditions? These questions and plenty more are valid reasons to work out.

Finding your reason for exercising can help keep you on track when your motivation starts running low. When workouts begin to become more challenging, or you think you’re ready to quit, remind yourself why you’re starting to work out in the first place. This fitness tip can help continue your drive and keep you on the path to a healthy life.

2. Talk to Your Doctor or Consult an Expert

When you talk to a medical professional, you can receive helpful information on workout programs for beginners and other physical fitness tips. Your doctor or another expert in that field can help you determine what exercises are best to start with and give you a timeline of when you should start your workouts.  Doctors or experts can also advise further preventing injuries from exercising and give you tips on living a well-rounded lifestyle.

It’s also important to talk to a doctor if you have any health conditions that may impact your ability to exercise. They will be able to give you the best advice on exercising with certain conditions and precautions to take when working out.

3. Note Your Current Fitness Level

Whether you’re new to working out or coming back from a long break, assess your fitness levels before you start. Knowing how physically fit you are currently can help you determine what exercises are best in the beginning, what your fitness goals should be and give you a starting measurement to look back on as you progress in your fitness journey.

These measurements can include your flexibility level, the amount of weight you can lift, your body composition, your resting heart rate and more. These measurements are great benchmarks for tracking success and noting if your workout plan is doing the job.

4. Create an Exercise Plan

You can create a workout plan on your own or have help from an expert. If you’re new to working out, you might not know where to start. A doctor or expert can help give you basic workouts that will still challenge your body but not cause you injury. If you’ve worked out previously and are just getting back into it, start your new workout program with low-impact workouts. These workouts are easier on your body, like water aerobics or no-jumping cardio workouts.

It’s important to consider your preferences when creating a workout plan. You want to fill your program with exercises that you enjoy and align with your fitness goals.

5. Hire a Personal Trainer

If you have the budget to hire a personal trainer, it’s a great way to start a new workout program. A personal trainer will be there to guide you through your workouts, help you with your form and make sure you’re not overexerting yourself when you’re first starting. Personal trainers can give you helpful workout advice and create exercise plans that match your fitness level, experience, interests and goals.

6. Slowly Adapt to Your New Exercise Program

Even if you’re excited about starting your exercise journey or ready to get back into the gym, it’s important to remind yourself to take it slow. A full hour of cardio may not be in your best interest on your first day back. Start slowly with short intervals of workouts and ensure you’re scheduling rest days even week so your body can heal.

7. Drink Plenty of Water

One of the most important things to do when starting a new workout program is to drink plenty of water. Your body needs water after an intense workout to replace all of the sweat and fluids you lost. Drinking water can help prevent you from becoming dehydrated, especially if your body isn’t used to being this active.

8. Always Remember to Warm Up and Cool Down

Remember to add warmups and cooldowns to your workout plan. Warming up before your workout can help improve blood flow to your muscles, loosen up your joints and prevent injuries. Cooling down after your workout will help your heart rate reach its normal resting rate, reduce soreness and prevent injuries.

Start Your Fitness Journey at 5 Bridges Health & Fitness

Are you ready to begin your new exercise program and start maintaining a healthy lifestyle? Start your new fitness journey at 5 Bridges Health & Fitness by signing up for a Harrisburg gym membership today. Check out our class schedule to see the large selection of exercise classes we offer or learn more about our virtual membership to enjoy online classes at home.