Choosing the right exercise program. — The easy way.

Choosing an exercise program.

When choosing an exercise program, there are a few questions you should be asking yourself. It is important to find a program that fits your lifestyle, your needs, your goals, and your personality. Something that will keep you motivated. There is such a wide variety of exercise program to choose from… each program giving you a different end result.

Think about what goals you want to achieve.

• Develop bulky, well-defined large muscles.
• Develop lean cut muscles.
• Lose weight.
• Lose inches.
• Improve posture.
• Increase energy.
• Reduce pain.
• Increase endurance (marathon).
• Become a better athlete.

What is your lifestyle, and personality type.

These are important things to consider. Do you prefer short workout session or long workout sessions? Are you a competitive person? Are you self-motivated to exercise motivate you? Do you prefer an exercise program that doesn’t feel like a workout?

Fun fact: Studies find that, pound for pound, ballet training creates stronger muscles than traditional weight-training for athletes.

Interesting side note: Many clinical studies have been done to compare strength and endurance of ballet dancers and pro athletes. One study made in Montreal, Canada compared a professional male ballet dancer, a world champion boxer, and an award winning CFL football player. The professional male dancer showed greater strength and endurance in comparison to the other two men.

There are many options to choose from.

Aerobics — Excellent for cardiovascular and calorie burning. Generally 25 min cardio followed by a strength training component which may involve free-weights and multiple reps of concentric movements (shortening of muscles). Excellent for burning calories, tends to stimulate appetite, and may result in tight joints from repetitive concentric movements.

Essentrics®️ — Continuous controlled loading of muscles while moving through a large variety of full-range motion exercises. Increases endurance, power, stability, mobility and range of motion.

Pilates — Developed by Joseph Pilates who preferred to call it “Contrology” as he based this method on the idea of muscle control. Movements are done with concentration and control, while using your center (your core) as the focal point. Precision is essential and breathing important. Aims for elegant flowing movement outward from a strong core.

Plyometrics — Designed to produce fast, powerful movements. Improves function of nervous system. Generally focuses on improving performance in sports. Acts on nerves, muscles , and tendons to increase an athlete’s power output without necessarily increasing maximum strength capacity. Consists of exercises that use explosive movements. Goals examples for plyometrics… to jump higher, run faster, throw farther, or hit harder.

Weight-training — A training program using a system of progressive loading can focus on increasing muscle size (fast twitch muscles), and increasing endurance (slow twitch muscles). Use free-weights to allow for natural movement patterns and building functional strength. Use compound exercise to hit several body parts at the same time.

Please note that when weight lifting, it is important to be careful not to “overbuild” the muscles… scaling back to a maintenance program once your goals are achieved. Keeping track of the results by looking in the mirror, making sure you are not compromising your posture by overbuilding your upper body muscles (deltoids, traps, pecs).

In the end…

The important thing is to find something that is appealing to you. Something that gets you excited about exercising. Movement is medicine my friend.

Yours in health — Nancy Shimmy

Blogger / Educator / Essentrics Instructor A Mom, a wife, a friend. A person who tries to see life through the eyes of her inner child. I have passion for life, for family, for learning, and for healing through movement. Finding happiness, health and success through authenticity and simplicity.

Originally published at https://nancyshimmy.com on July 23, 2019.