As another starts, many people tend to find themselves coming up with their own New Year’s Resolutions. Getting healthy, fit, and toned is typically ranked high on this list. Whether you’re guilty of this or not, many people tend to walk away from their fitness goals mid-journey.
Dropping out of your health and fitness goals boils down to the ambiguity of creating one. You can’t simply tell yourself that you’ll get physically active every day. What steps can you take to get indeed physically active? To kickstart a hopeful year, here are 5 different types of workout exercises you can start today. These types of exercise can all also be carried out in a socially distanced way to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Calisthenics
Starting off this list is an exercise that doesn’t require any fitness equipment: calisthenics. In calisthenics, you’ll train using only your bodyweight. As simple as it sounds, a calisthenics workout plan will deal with the following core requirements of fitness that people of all ages need:
- Strength
- Aerobic conditioning
- Balance
- Flexibility
- Coordination
- Agility
- Flexibility
Performing calisthenics is relatively easy if you’re looking for a simple daily workout routine amidst your busy schedules or at-home stays. Some of the best calisthenic exercises that you can integrate into your practice are:
- Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and chin-ups
- Jumping jacks
- Planks
- Lunges
- Squats
- Dips
- Crunches
- Burpees
- Jump rope
However, you’re not limited to these exercises as you can change their intensity and rhythm or even perform their different variations.
Aerobics
The journey to being fit and healthy this year won’t be complete without brushing up on the basics! If you’re not too fond of fitness and merely starting this year, it’s crucial to begin with the fundamental principles of fitness before aiming high. Aerobic exercises are just an excellent head start to your fitness journey. And with the weather improving, outdoor workouts are a great option.
Aerobic exercises are any exercise that conditions your cardiovascular capabilities. Simply put, they’re repeatedly large movements that stimulate breathing and heart rate. Performing this workout regularly presents numerous health advantages, such as:
- Reduces risks in developing chronic conditions
- Helps manage existing chronic conditions
- Boosts strength, stamina, and fitness
- Assists in healthy weight management
- Strengthens the immune system against viral diseases
- Promotes sleep and relaxation
Depending on your fitness goals, you can do aerobics or weight training first. Consulting with a fitness expert can help you achieve a clearer mind.
Pilates
Staying fit doesn’t equate to going to the gym daily, as you can perform various workout exercises in the comfort of your home. Pilates, a body-conditioning and exercise approach devised by Joseph Pilates in the 1920s, is the perfect example of an activity you can perform at home.
In this exercise program, you’ll work in an exercise mat or special fitness equipment such as the Wunda Chair, Cadillac, and Reformer. The primary goal of Pilates is to improve your core strength using bodyweight and resistance.
You can start your Pilates journey by exercising on a Pilates mat before investing in studio equipment. Among more than 500 Pilates exercises designed by Joseph Pilates, check out these beginner-friendly movements.
Aerial Fitness
To increase the challenge of getting physically fit, how about defying gravity on your workouts? Aerial fitness is such a unique, underrated approach to fitness that many individuals get easily intimidated. However, if pursued, aerial exercises can bring the following health benefits:
- Improve lower body stability
- Enhance breathing
- Improve flexibility
- Alleviate back pain
- Strengthen and tone muscles
- Support postural alignment muscles
- Enhance spatial awareness
To make the most out of this exercise, it would be more helpful to enroll in aerial fitness classes and choose one from these classes to focus on. Aerial fitness takes many forms primarily depending on the aerial equipment used, like yoga trapeze, aerial silk, yoga hammock, bungee, or aerial hoops.
Pole Fitness
Watching pole enthusiasts slide and move around poles swiftly will make you think that pole fitness is a piece of cake, but it’s the other way around. To succeed in pole fitness, it requires a great deal of strength, mobility, grip, and of course, patience!
When starting with pole fitness, it’s essential to be aware of your body and learn how to work your entire body as one. Consequently, you’ll begin exploring fluidity and expression, which is what other fitness workouts don’t have.
Same with aerial fitness, you can speed up your pole fitness learning through enrolling in dedicated classes, but you can also practice pole fitness at home.
Take-Home Message
There’s no better time to start your fitness journey than right now. If you’re willing to make a change for your well-being, you won’t need to wait for the new year to start exercising.
With plenty of resources both online and offline, it’s now much easier to curate your fitness routine, like the workout exercises discussed in this article, along with the guidance of your health and fitness professionals.