At home weight loss

In order to lose weight you should concentrate on four areas of exercise. Of course you cannot achieve weight lose if you don’t combined a workout with good nutrition.

Four areas:

1. Cardiovascular (aerobic) training:

• Walking is the simplest thing you can do. This will increase your energy levels, fitness and contribute to fat loss. Start by with a 5 – 10 minute walk and gradually increase. Incorporate walking into your lifestyle e.g. walk to the shops instead of driving, walk at lunchtime instead of working through it will help hasten weightloss. So don’t park as close to the mall as you can, park further away and walk.
• Power walking, walking at a pace fast enough to be out of breath, or jogging. Other ways of doing aerobic exercise would be to start swimming, cycling, etc.
• As you workout you should step up the intensity.

2. Resistance training in the house:

Resistance training is performing a movement that brings fatigue to the muscles before you have performed 15 repetitions. Therefore any exercise that can be manipulated to do this is resistance exercise.

For those new to resistance training the best way to start is by performing the two key resistance training exercises below:

• Squat:

The ability to squat down to the floor is a fundamental and essential trait in life. To do a squat simply stand by a chair, crouch down so that your buttocks touch the chair and then return to the standing position. This exercise is just like sitting down except you are not letting your body weight rest on the chair before standing up.

Increase difficulty by using a lower chair until you can bend the knees to a 90 degrees angle.

Add in extra weight as necessary to ensure you are at the point of fatigue before 15 reps.

• Lunge:

To perform a lunge take a slightly larger than normal step forward. Keeping your front knee over your foot drop down so the back knee is one inch from the floor (do not let the front knee go past the toes as can cause pain).

Push off your front leg to return to the start.

Repeat with your other leg.

Add in extra weight as necessary to ensure you are at the point of fatigue before 15 reps.

Perform these exercises a few times per week and work up to 15 repetitions of each exercise then add in extra weight in any form possible.

3. Core training:

The core is trained when performing certain resistance exercises such as a squat or lunge but needs to be isolated. The simplest thing you can do is to practice contracting the key core muscles that support the lower back; these are the deep stomach and pelvic floor muscles. Contracting these together is called ‘engaging the core’

Using this principle you can then perform any number of holds to challenge the muscles around the mid section. Using a swiss ball is a great way to do this as it adds variety and fun into the programme.

4. Flexibility training:

To retain and develop flexibility you should be doing an active stretching routine every morning and a static stretching routine to restore ideal posture by stretching the tight muscles.

The Keys to home training:

The key to home training is intensity and variation. The main problem that training outside the gym presents is how to progress the resistance exercise so fatigue is induced before 15 reps. When done correctly everyone is capable of lifting quite heavy weights which will bring the benefits of weight loss and improved health. The key is keeping the weight used at a high enough intensity to challenge you. Aerobic training must also be increased in intensity to keep you challenged and not over performed as it will break the body down and inhibit weight loss.

Your workout routine should be varied and structured or the body will not make progress and become stale.