The 3 things you must do to improve fitness

If you dream of being healthy, strong and lean, exercise is an essential ingredient to making this dream a very possible reality.  But people HATE it.  Exercise can be painful.  It's challenging and our bodies are designed to avoid pain so it makes sense we don't want to do it.  

But let me ask you this...

would you rather be in pain from exercising and making yourself healthy and trim, or would you rather be in pain from not taking care of yourself and struggling with painful joints from excess weight or side effects from countless medications or surgeries?

Either way, pain is involved.  But you get to decide if you'd rather go through pain by making yourself healthy and strong or if you'd rather endure pain from declining health (thanks Dr. Pam Popper for that excellent reminder).

If you want to improve your health and well-being with exercise, today I share with you the three things you need to work on in order for fitness to improve over time.  Without working on these three things, don't expect improved results.

Whether it's working on one of these fitness elements or all three, here's what you have to work on to improve fitness over time.

1.  Increase the intensity of your workouts.

This means how hard you're working.  For example, if your gym routine includes 3 sets of 10 bicep curls with 8 pound weights and you've been doing this same set with the same amount of weight for 3 months, it's time to increase your intensity.  To do that, make it 10 pound weights, then 12 pound weight next month.  You're now challenging your biceps as they've gotten use to and can handle 8 pound weights.  

Another example: if you've walked the same flat route for the last 2 years with your girlfriend, to increase the intensity, you'd add stairs, hills or incorporate jogging into your routine.

2.  Increase the duration of your workouts.

Duration is how long you're working out for.  If you run for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, up the duration to 35 minutes the next two weeks and to 40 minutes after that.

3.  Increase the frequency of your workouts.

In other words, how often you workout every week.  If you only go to yoga twice a week, adding one gym day or a jogging day would be increasing the frequency.

It's hard work, but you can do it and it's definitely worth it.

Take Control Now   

What fitness element do you need to work on improving most?  The intensity, duration or frequency of your workouts?  What's holding you back from doing this?

Answer by clicking 'comment' below.