Fitness Success = Content + Consistency

Fitness Success = Content + Consistency

Content plus consistency, is a term often thrown about in many industries, yet rarely throughout the Health & Fitness industry. In the Health & Fitness industry, content should be seen as the type of things what we do towards our Health & Fitness goals. Consistency should be seen as the number of times we do something towards our Health and fitness goals.

How can we be Consistent towards our Fitness?

We all see that exercise is a way of being fit, if we exercise we become fitter and if we don’t exercise we decrease our fitness. Most of us live our lives at a very fast pace and we often find it difficult to stop to change into exercise gear, exercise then change back. We often look at exercise as being a clump of exercises together that span over a certain period of time. Whether it is an hour or half an hour, the amount of exercise will still be the same, whether you spread it over a day in little amounts or clump it together like most of us do. Yes if we spread it over a long period of time our heart rate won’t be as high. But when we look to exercise and we find it hard to have the time, the most common reason as to why we want to exercise, is to lose weight. Therefore to lose weight we need to get our heart rate above 60% of our maximum heart rate, for those that don’t know, your maximum heart rate is roughly 220 minus your age. Thus climbing stairs, walking to work that extra distance, playing with the children, or going for a short walk on your lunch break are all sufficient amounts of exercise. If we could do exercise during our ad breaks when watching TV you will be surprised at how quick the time adds up. A one hour show has eight commercials that go for approximately four minutes. In total that adds up to around about 32mins give or take a few minutes. 30 mins is the government standard, that is, the amount of exercise we should undertake 3 – 5 times a week. The best part is that you can change exercises per commercial thus getting a greater variety into your work out. Now a lot of people will say that’s my time to relax, we all need to remember that when we are exercising our bodies produce endorphins that relax us and make us happy. So to improve our consistency we just need to find small areas or pockets of our day where we can do small amounts of exercise. We should see exercise as an opportunity, not an inconvenience. Next time you’re chatting on the phone to your friend, consider walking around the garden or the block at the same time. This consistent amount of exercise no matter how small will improve your fitness.

How can we maintain the content of the exercise we do?

There is a lot to this question so let’s try to keep it basic. If you do what you enjoy the most then that is the best type of exercise for you. It will help keep you motivated, improve your confidence and you will get more satisfaction from it.

As long as you are keeping your heart rate above 60% you will see improvements. If you are not seeing these improvements it means you are getting fitter, therefore try increasing the intensity of your exercising habits to get results. The closer you come to your optimum potential, the smaller the results become. So be excited about everything you achieve in your fitness, because it is a sign that you are one step closer to achieving your goal!

Cheers, Xenus Fitness