weights and exercise facts for beginners.

WHY IS EXERCISING IMPORTANT?
Exercise tones your heart (disease resistant),releases endorphins to uplift you mentally,increase your libido and sex life,helps memory,increases natural feel good hormones,better sleep,you become more active and effectively burn calories,in most case you will not reach out for that cookie if you just ran 2-3 miles cause you have just experienced a lot of pain achieving your target for the day.

I am not a trainer but here are some simple suggestions for those who may have never exercised or have not done in a long time.
Before you start any activity make sure you are fit medically to do it.

1.Start any activity at a low level like walking 30 minutes per day at a pace where you cant have a conversation without getting breathless.
BASICALLY YOU WANT YOUR HEART RATE TO GO UP TO GET RESULTS.(atleast 50% of your basal heart rate).
You can walk for an hour daily at a low pace or do household chores as your workout and there will be negligible change in your weighing scale.
2.Aim for 7 days a week then you will achieve atleast 5 days.
3.When staring going to gym and if trainer is not affordable I suggest that you do cardio(walking or running on treadmill/cross trainer/skipping rope/kick boxing/power yoga/cycling)alternate with weight lifting.30-40-50-60 minutes of cardio should be the goal depending how paced up you are.
4.Question is how much weight is good to pick up: if you can do 8-10 reps and 3 sets of any muscle group increase weight by 2 pounds everytime.
5.Women maybe thinking-Oh what if I become manly....NO you dont have enough testosterone so you will get lean not muscular
6.Why weights are important....well they increase your metabolic rate and burn fat even when you are resting, or you couldnt exercise for 3-4 days...its backup fatburn.In addition they also decrease your cholesterol and triglyceride levels, plus in long term help you stay and look younger.
7.A way to find out how many calories you burn at rest is to get a VO2 test done which measure RESTING ENERGY EXPENDITURE.Many gyms have it now or you can visit a center which has it if you are really MOTIVATED.We do it in our office.
8.What are normal muscle groups you want to use weights for?....Biceps,triceps,shoulders,quadriceps,back,hamstrings I maybe missing some info there but pretty much these are your main muscle groups.
Most of the exercises can be found on Youtube till I post some animation on my blog for demonstration.
9.Stretching is very important before and after workout to decrease the stress on your muscles and help all the lactic acid release which would accumulate in your body as you exercise.
10.Use muscle groups like biceps and shoulders, hamstrings with abs one day, followed by triceps and back and quadriceps next weight lifting day.
11.NEVER PUSH/FORCE YOURSLEF TO A VERY UNCOMFORTABLE LIMIT WITHOUT A TRAINER.
BOTTOM LINE ONCE YOU START EXERCISING ITS AN ADDICTION.....MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

Coming up tomorrow are sample ways to kick start your journey to a fitter you.