Modern life is stationary. It doesn’t matter if you’re working at a desk all day, sitting watching the television at night, or doing any number of other life activities. 21st-century life is more sedentary than practically any other time in history.

With so much time spent sitting around, it’s important to resist the tendency to slip into a full on sedentary lifestyle. If you feel that happening — or it already happened — here are a few tips to help you break out of those habits and re-engage with a more active life once again.

1. Get Into a Rhythm

Before you start buying equipment or looking up exercises, think about your schedule. If you don’t find consistent time to get moving, anything you try to do will fizzle out before long. It’ll be shouldered out by more sedentary commitments that can too easily monopolize your time.

To avoid this happening, be purposeful about your active time. As you find activities that can inspire you to get out of a more sedentary lifestyle, always consider how you can factor them into your schedule for the long term. 

If you want to start exercising first thing in the morning, build a morning routine that helps you keep to this new structure every day. If you want to play a sport, join a group with an online community perhaps, that can keep you accountable to keep showing up. However you go about it, look for ways to establish rhythms in your life. Remember, sedentary activities are a natural default for most of us. If you don’t build predictable momentum into your plans, your new activities won’t last for long.

2. Facilitate Exercise

Exercise isn’t easy. In fact, it can be downright difficult to maintain at times — especially when compared to the relative physical simplicity of most sedentary activities. That’s why, if you want to be more active, you need to make an effort not just to find the time but to facilitate the activities themselves.

There are multiple ways to do this. For instance, if you want to start going to the gym or taking a fitness class, buy a gym membership or sign up for a workout streaming service, just do it. Knowing that you’re paying for the service can be a motivating factor that will help you take advantage of it.

If you don’t have a fitness club in easy reach, you can build your own home gym. Don’t just buy a few dumbbells and a yoga mat. Invest in a thoughtful space with the right equipment, amenities, and all that fun stuff.

3. Tailor Your Activity

Often the reasons that keep us sedentary aren’t just about lifestyle. They’re also about health. If you suffer from a sore back, a knee injury, or any number of other, more serious health concerns, it can make it difficult to get moving. And the truth is, if you find that something like backaches or joint pain is holding you back, you can’t just go along with the crowd. At a certain point, the pain isn’t worth the effort. 

But that shouldn’t stop you from moving. Instead, look for unique ways that you can tailor the fitness and activity portions of your life to your particular needs. Using joint pain as an example, don’t just skip your workout because your arthritis is flaring up. Instead, come up with a set of exercises, like isometric lunges or wall slides, that you can fall back on that won’t aggravate those sore joints.

4. Combine Activity and Fun

So far on this list, we’ve primarily covered deliberate exercise techniques. While these are excellent ways to get moving, there are plenty of other ways to reintroduce activity into your life, too. For instance, you can look for ways to combine activity and fun. Rather than always opting for sedentary entertainment choices, like watching television or playing video games, look for more physically rewarding activities.

Join a soccer league. Sign up for a dance class. Go for a bike ride. Repurposing your free time to double as active time can help you exercise without even realizing it. 

You can even use everyday things like walking the dog or cleaning the house as an opportunity to get moving rather than just another chore that has to be done. Instead of doing a bare-bones walk with your four-legged friend, find a podcast you like and choose a longer route with nice scenery. If you need to clean, put on some music and dance while you do so. You get the idea.

Breaking Out of a Sedentary Lifestyle

A lack of movement is par for the course for far too many people these days. If you find that you’ve slipped into a sedentary lifestyle, it’s time to break out.

Use the tips above to find new activities and establish healthier rhythms in your life. That way, when it does come time to sit for longer periods, you won’t have to worry about unhealthy fitness habits as you do so.

Author bio

Dan Matthews is a writer, content consultant, and conservationist. While Dan writes on a variety of topics, he loves to focus on feeling better both mentally and physically, and imparting health tips to others can help make the world a better place to reside. When Dan isn’t working on new content, you can find him with a coffee cup in one hand and searching for new music in the other.

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We are over a month into the new year, and this is when people start to become discouraged. It can be a struggle to change your lifestyle completely, or maybe the results aren’t coming as fast as you’d like. 

Use these four tips to help you keep fit in 2020 and succeed at your resolution, and remember it is a gradual process and even though the improvements may be small, they are still positive changes, no matter how small! 

1. Schedule Your Workout In

Scheduling your workouts is one of the top tips for gym newbies. When you schedule a time in your day to work out, then you have no excuse not to go. It also helps you train your brain to place a priority on going to the gym. 

Some people work out better in the morning, while others prefer going in the evening. If you’re struggling to stay motivated, try going at a different time of day.  Also, consider the number of people at the gym. If you go right after work, the gym can be crowded. This can cause you to rush through your workout or get frustrated while you wait for machines. 

2. Track Your Progress 

Getting fit is a slow and gradual process that can take several weeks and more often, months. The problem with this is that you won’t notice the small changes that happen over that length of time. 

When you don’t see the fruits of your labor, it can be tempting to give up. Prevent this by tracking your progress every few weeks or even downloading a fitness app to track your progress. 

Look for an app that can track your workouts so you can see how you improve in your gym performance. You could also track your weight or body measurements if you’re trying to achieve a size goal. But don’t worry too much about the numbers, if you can go by the mirror and how you look, that is always the better way to do it!

3. Review Your Diet 

Anyone that’s in incredible shape will tell you that half the battle is in the gym, the other half is in the kitchen. To make your workouts effective, you need to fuel your body with the right nutrients. 

You also won’t see progress if you’re taking in more calories than what you’re burning. So take a hard look at your diet and start making healthy choices. You could eliminate meaningless calories or swap out unhealthy foods for their healthy alternatives. 

4. Sleep More 

If you’re sleeping fewer than six solid hours a night, then you probably aren’t getting enough sleep. Adults need anywhere from six to eight hours a night – the more, the better, especially if you are working out and are being more active!

During this time, your body recharges and repairs from the day before. Also, when you’re fully rested, you’re less likely to snack throughout the day. This is because your body has the energy it needs and isn’t trying to supplement it with food energy. 

Follow These Tips to Keep Fit

If you’re trying to keep fit in 2020, then you need to follow these four tips. By making simple changes to your daily routine, you can see a positive change in your fitness level and stamina.

Photo credits:

• Sven Mieke
• juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

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Are you someone who is always waiting for the next new thing in fitness? From Hula Hoops to Hydro Workouts, every fitness trend has made us realize the importance of staying fit.

The evolution of fitness has never stopped. There was a time when fitness was a way of life and not just a matter of choice. Then came the time where fitness was considered a luxury. And now we are back to the start, and people slowly understand that fitness is a part of life.

Fitness initially started as fun with things like Hula Hoops, then it was combined with dance movements and martial arts to make it more interesting. Jazzercise and aerobics are hybrids that are still popular. Technological advancements have now changed the game of fitness. Below are a few trends that have hit the world of fitness.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is seen as the future of fitness. Most of the time people lose their interest in fitness because it gets boring. VR is here to put the interest quotient back into the game. Virtual reality head-gear loaded with apps can transform boring exercise routines into interesting virtual games. You will be exercising your muscles and at the same time playing a fun game.

VR Cycling

Fitness experts are sure that VR is here to stay and can make people exercise more as it makes the whole experience enjoyable. This branch of fitness is also known as immersive fitness. Imagine you are in a room where all the walls are covered with screens, and they have 3D landscape images rolling. You will feel as if you are cycling down the roads of Italy.

There are also trainer devices where you can connect your bike with a headset. You can cycle in different environments with customized music and sound effects. The cycling kit from Widerun can give you a brilliant VR cycling experience.

Google Glass

A path breaking technology in fitness is Google glass. It is head mounted, and voice controlled. The device sees what you see, and you can easily talk to the device and customize your workout. You can record your workout data and share it online with a single tap. LynxFit and Race Yourself are popular Google glass fitness apps that can make your fitness journey more efficient.

Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift is an integration of state of the art display, VR optics, and a high refresh rate. It provides you with a truly immersive experience. The Runtastic app is a popular app for Oculus Rift with which you can do squats, lunges and other strength and toning exercises.

Wearables

Wearables are the new fitness goodies which can help you track your workout. Just like fitness trackers, these little things can give you the numbers in no time. Fitbit which is a watch-style wearable is widely popular. There are many other wearables such as smart shirts, heart monitor chest straps and in-ear headphones which can give you accurate numbers.

The activity band has become a wellness device that can give you 24/7 heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and sedentary warnings. A few popular wearables are Fitbit Blaze, Fitbit Alta HR, and Garmin Vivosmart HR+. If you are looking for something simple Misfit Ray is an excellent pick. Wearables offer many advantages such as real time data collection, continuous monitoring and also motivate the user.

Hydro Workouts

As the name suggests, hydro workouts are nothing but exercising in water. It is a revolutionary water workout routine which combines high-intensity cardio exercises along with plyometric power moves. The water makes you feel light; hence you have better balance. There are many workouts such as Hydro Belly Blaster, Chest Fly, Knee Tuck, Leg Swap, etc.

If you are in love with cardio, you can combine it with hydro as well. Aquatic treadmills or underwater treadmills can facilitate walking, retro-walking, sprinting, shuffling, backpedaling and plyometric activities.

Hydro workouts offer a number of benefits. It improves cardiovascular stamina, improves gait patterns, increases flexibility, strengthens muscles, heals injured tissues and also reduces blood pressure levels. Since you are underwater, you do not have to bear your whole body weight, and there is a reduced chance of injury.

So are you ready to get fit?

The world of fitness is transforming by the day. It is mandatory that we include some physical activity in our lives to counteract our sedentary lifestyles. Whether you are new to fitness or someone who has been exercising regularly, these fitness trends can make you enjoy your fitness journey. Virtual reality, in particular, is something you can pin your hopes on.

Go ahead. Get Fit!

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