Home Workout Routines

There are three elements you can adjust while exercising: frequency (how often you exercise), duration (how long you perform a particular routine) and intensity (how hard you push yourself). Recent studies indicate that intensity is the most important of the three in maintaining aerobic fitness, the most important type for promoting cardiovascular health. In one study, aerobically trained subjects were able to maintain their fitness levels when they reduced the workout frequency from six days a week to two days but still exercised at the same intensity and for the same duration. Another group of trained subjects continued to work out at the same frequency for the same duration, but lowered the intensity of their workouts by two thirds (as measured by their heart rates during exercise). After 15 weeks, those in the second group had entirely lost the aerobic capacity that their training had produced originally. Knowing how intensely you exercise, therefore, is crucial to the success of quick workouts.

One way of measuring intensity is the amount of energy you expend in the form of kilocalories, more popularly known as calories. A kilocalorie is the heat required to raise the temperature of a grain of water by one degree Celsius. For an effective aerobic workout, exercise physiologists advise that you exert yourself vigorously enough to bum 200 to 400 calories. To be aerobic, this exertion must be continuous and rhythmic. For some of the most common aerobic activities, the pace you should set to accomplish this in 20 minutes. (The exact number of calories you use will vary slightly, depending on your weight. Heavier people hum more calories per minute when they exercise at the same pace as people who weigh less.)

In survey after survey, the main reason people cite for quitting an exercise program – Or for not starting one – is lack of time. They think that exercising requires setting aside inconveniently large blocks of time that will interfere with their other activities. But most people actually do have enough time in their schedules for exercise: The key is to learn how best to manage that time. One approach is to design. an exercise routine that is as convenient as possible. Several studies indicate that exercisers whose regimens require little equipment and that can be done at home, at work or nearby are more likely to stay with it than exercisers whose regimens are less convenient.

Here are some tips for squeezing exercise into a tight schedule:

1. Walk or cycle to and from work. Or, if you have to drive or take public transportation, stop a distance from work and walk briskly the rest of the way – you will burn 50 calories per half-mile.

2. Use stairs instead of escalators or elevators. Climbing stairs requires 15 times the energy that walking on level ground does.

3. Spend your lunch hour or coffee break walking briskly or performing one of the office workouts. Aerobic exercise at lunch can also diminish your appetite so that you eat less,. an aid to those trying to lose weight.

4. “While watching television – Americans watch an average of 4 1/2 hours a day – jog in place, use a stationary bicycle, rowing machine or ski exerciser, or perform calisthenics and stretches.

Tags: cardiovascular health, duration exercise, home workout routines, home workouts, intensity exercise, workout frequency, workout intensity, workout routines

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