Feedback Mechanism
To meet your exercise goals, tell the people around you. Making friends and colleagues aware of your aims, provides you a second conscience. You will be less likely to cancel a workout if you know that a colleague may ask if you did your workout this morning.
Fitness Priority
If you want to make a positive change in your health and wellness, then make fitness a priority. Move your health goals to the top of your priority list. Many people spend their time constantly taking care of everyone else, which results in having no time to take care of yourself. Make it a priority!
Dive Back In
It may have been a while since you have turned the arms over and kicked your way down a swimming pool. 1. Grab some friends or join a swim group or squad. This will help with motivation, enjoyment and adherence. 2. Remember to breath. With so many factors to focus on, people often forget to breathe out while their face is in the water, which then effects your ability to swim for a period of time. 3. break the stroke down and focus on different aspects of your swim stroke, so you can develop an efficient technique quickly. This will help you prevent poor habits, reduce the risk of injury, improve efficiency and feel more comfortable in the water. 4. Start easy and build up gradually.
Stretch It Out
Your joints need to be able to move freely through a good range of motion. Our lifestyles and habits tend to result in muscle tension and joint stiffness if they aren’t looked after. Activities such as Yoga and stretching are perfect for relieving the tension and stiffness. Stretching, if done correctly, stretching helps improve flexibility and allows muscles to work efficiently and effectively. It is not recommended to hold a stretch too long, stretch vigorously or stretch until it hurts. If static stretching, you should hold gentle stretches at full range of movement until you feel resistance, not pain. Start with 10 second stretches and build up to 30-40 seconds. You will notice after about 20-25 seconds you will feel the muscle fibres release and you will be able to stretch a bit further.
Tennis with a Heart Beat
You love swinging a tennis racket, keeping fit, listening to music and have been trying to get your 10,000 steps in each day. Then give Fitbit Cardio Tennis a go. This fun, healthy and energetic session is a tennis workout program catering to all fitness levels. Fitbit Cardio Tennis brings together a variety of cardio workouts, a range of fun tennis drills, all to a high-energy soundtrack. Enjoy an active and healthy lifestyle with a difference.
Swing it!
As you start to fatigue, during a run, you will notice your stride rate slowing. As a result your foot will spend more time on the ground working more as a breaking force rather than a propelling force, and you may even lengthen your stride. Instead of focusing on your run stride rate, focus on your arm swing rate to increase or maintain your speed. Your arm swing is connected to your stride rate, and as you increase the speed of your arms, the faster your legs will turn over and therefore you will run more efficiently.
In the Groove
Has your life got rhythm? Try working out with music so you can get in the groove. On a recovery type session, you may consider ‘relaxing’ music. Whereas a hard interval type session try an ‘upbeat tune’ that gets you pumped up. If you are really clever you can match the music beat to the rhythm you want to do your workout at. Depending on your mood you can choose music that will either pick you up and relax you if you are too amped up. Just remember to keep the sound level at a point where you can still here whats happening in your surroundings, especially when running or riding on or across a road.
Up Your Exercise
You want to increase your workout length, intensity or volume. How do you know how much to increase it? The general rule of thumb is to increase by no more than 5-10% each week. This is a safe approach to ensure that you don’t place excess loads on your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones and major organ’s. A gradual increase in intensity, duration and/or volume is important for long-term performance gains. Remember that after 3-4 weeks of gradual increases you should have a de-loading week where you reduce the intensity, duration, and/or volume by 25-50% to allow your body to recover, adapt and become stronger.
Breaking the Ice
Notice how your muscles tighten up after a challenging workout. Sore thighs, tight calves or maybe heavy arms. By submerging your body into a cold ice bath (10 to 15 degrees Celcius) for 10 to 15 minutes, you can speed up the recovery time. When you first try this valuable recovery technique you may want to alternate 2 minutes and 1 minute out, until you adjust to the ‘shock sensation’ you feel. An ice bath reduces swelling, flushes lactic acid out of your body, and prevents tissue breakdown. The cold causes the blood vessels to tighten which helps flush out lactic acid. When you get out of the bath, the muscles warm up and blood vessels open, which causes oxygenated blood to return, helping the muscles recover. The ice bath may also enhance your emotional resilience and decrease stress.
Friend Fitness
Do you find it a challenge to stay motivated and consistent with your workouts when you train by yourself? Finding a workout friend is hugely helpful for keeping motivated, ensuring you turn up each day and making it fun. It is important to find someone who is positive and will inspire, rather than discourage you. Write down a list of your friends who love to exercise and then mark down whether they are available to meet on a regular basis, are they supportive of your goals, and can they keep up with you or even push your limits in key workouts? Once you have identified someone or a group of people, then now is a great time to give them a call and get started.
Active Recovery
As a busy CEO, leader or business owner you need to take one to two days a week for active recovery. Not just to recover from yoru fitness routine, but to allow your body to recharge from the combined stresses of work, social, family and exercise you accumulate. Take a walk or a surf. Do a gentle yoga class or meditation session. Just do something that’s less intense than what you do for exercise the other days of the week.
Quick Fix
How much time are you prepared to allocate and schedule each day of the week to ensure your mind and body are ready to deliver peak performance in the workplace? If you have a tight schedule, family commitments and travel often, it cannot be underestimated how beneficial doing short, intense sessions can be. If you are struggling to regularly keep fit, high-intensity exercise done in as little as 15-30min, 2 or 3 times a week, can still be incredibly beneficial for your health and fitness. No one can tell me that they can’t find 15-30min in their day, to take care of themselves!
Plan of Attack
What is your plan of attack to ensure that you get some exercise in every single day? Remember ‘failure to plan is planning to fail’. CEO’s and leaders often keep track of their important dates, meetings and deadlines in an online schedule or physical diary. Some may even use a PA that keeps them on time, for them. Your exercise and fitness should be no different. Exercise is a fundamental building block to achieving peak performance as a CEO or Leader, therefore it is important to take the time, sit down and assess each week, month or year and seeing opportunities to block out regular time slots for exercise. You should treat these time-blocks the same way you would any other meeting.
3C’s to Success
At least once in a CEO’s career they will have a goal to lose weight. It can be a real challenge to maintain a healthy weight if you are constantly travelling, having dinner meetings, socialising with your clients, working long hours, sitting at a desk and under high levels of stress. To break the model you need COMMITMENT, CONSISTENCY and CONTROL. Commitment to healthy lifestyle is about 80% mental and without mental strength and commitment your life change is unlikely to last. Any type of success requires consistency over a long period of time, even when you feel tired, frustrated and cranky. You need the self-control to say no to a beer, calorie-filled deserts, a second take at the buffet and the burger bar. control the forces in your life to ensure you have time to sleep, rest, exercise and enjoy the basic human rights of eating, resting and exercising.
Workout With a Purpose
Would you approve a project without a purpose? So why would you exercise without purpose? It is important to set yourself a goal for each session and know why you are doing it. Going through the motions is just about as useful as sitting on the couch with a beer and a bag of chips. Will your next workout build speed (high-intensity intervals), endurance (long slow distance), strength (weights, cross-fit), power (plyometrics), balance (Yoga, pilates) or flexibility (dynamic stretching)?
HIIT Training 40/20 Rule.
Are you wanting to perform at a higher level for a longer period? If yes, then you need to improve your bodies ability to manage lactate. Excess lactate reduces your muscles ability to contract, which will resulting in your body slowng down and producing less force. To improve your bodies ability to clear lactate you can improve your lactate threshold through intervals of 40seconds effort at close to or on your lactate threshold and 20 seconds of recovery exercise. Start with 2-4 intervals and then gradually build up as your body begins to adapt. One session every seven days is appropriate
Be the One!
Developing a positive frame of mind about your exercise, is important. Align your exercise efforts with things that are both positive and reassuring. Exercise in a fun & enjoyable environment. Objectively measure results. Do things that you enjoy. Exercise with a group of positive people.
Kick Start Your Day!
Do you feel exhausted, tired and like you have no time for exercise at the end of the day? Try developing a morning fitness routine when you first wake. By exercising at the crack of dawn you increase metabolism, avoid unwanted distractions, promote endorphines in the brain to enhance your mood, increase mental capacity, improve blood flow, support productivity and have a sense of accomplishment.
More Inspiration
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