Pre-Workout Must-Dos for a Fitness Newbie

Deciding to finally jump up off the couch is a big leap for anyone with a sedentary lifestyle. A person who lives a sedentary life spends most of their free time in front of the television or computer and not has a care in the world about their health and fitness. This lifestyle has become an epidemic, but for the past few years there has been an increase in people practicing a healthier lifestyle due to the rising number of deaths caused by diseases, which has been linked to a person’s poor fitness and diet. Making a life changing decision such as working out and looking after ones wellness may seem impossible, but with determination and a good foundation for a workout program, the impossible can be done.

There are a few fitness must-dos to keep in mind before starting a beginner’s workout regime. A novice should at first consult a doctor to see if their body is ready for strenuous activities. Like they say, prevention is better than cure, so its advisable to seek professional help first rather than having to schedule a doctor’s appointment due to an injury.

How does an individual who has little or no knowledge about Calisthenics exercises
start? Well it all begins with a warm-up. Warm-up exercises slightly get the heart pumping just enough to warm up the body thus increasing blood circulation. It is very essential to all professional and even beginners’ workout routine. Exercises such as jumping jacks, lunges, and jump rope are a few examples of warm-up exercises that condition the body for the stress that it will undergo in the next 30-45 minutes.

Once the body is warmed up and fit for condition, mild stretching is then performed to help muscles become more flexible. Stretching is beneficial to the body when it is done right after warming up. When done properly, stretching can contribute to an effective and safe exercise session. Another set of stretching exercises are also executed right after the actual workout to relax the overworked muscles. Some people enjoy this part of the session because it calms them down, physically and mentally.  

For someone who has never worked out in their entire life, the first few days or even weeks are going to be quite difficult, but it should not be an obstacle to keep an individual from giving up, it will get easier along the way. A beginner’s workout should progress gradually, not abruptly so that the body will have time to adapt to its new lifestyle. An individual should choose a physical activity that is enjoyable so that they won’t have to force themselves to workout, instead it will become a daily habit which their body will get used to and sooner or later crave thus increasing wonderful life-long results.

Push Ups

Push-ups, a simple workout that most people have been doing since our teens.  Push-ups have been around for ages because it’s simple and very effective.  This is the reason why push-ups have been used on most if not all workout guides that have been released till this day.  Push-ups workout your chest, triceps, and your shoulders.  But not only just these muscles but push-ups also work your abs and lower back muscle but not as effective as your chest, triceps, and your shoulders.

When you exercise with push-ups biggest changes you could implement is how wide you keep your hands open.  Wider you keep your hands apart more of you outer chest and shoulders you use and closer you keep more of your inner chest and triceps you use.  Another form you could use is keeping your elbow tucked in to your side.  This forces you to use more of your triceps than any other muscles.

Another way you could change up your push-up form is by increasing and decreasing the high of your feet.  To increase the difficulty, you could place your feet on the chair or any steady object and begin the workout where your feet is leveled higher than your body.  This also could be done in was it makes your push-ups easier.  When you bend your knees and begin the work out by balancing your-self on your knees instead of your feet, push-up will be a lot easier because less force is on your arms.  Some calls this form “girl’s push-ups” but it just simply makes your push-ups a lot easier and when you first start off, everyone has to begin somewhere so I really don’t see why this is sex thing and maybe people might use this just for cardio for weight loss. Anyways I'll just leave that at that.

If you want something more intense, you don’t have to think push-up as only body weight workout.  You could intensify you work-out by putting weight on your back.  This could by anything from a person to something that would not fall off like weight plate.  But if you go with the something like weight plate I suggest you have someone hold it so it does not fall off just in case you hurt yourself or others somehow.

There are many fitness workouts that I think are great but push-ups have been around since the beginning and will continue to stay and that says a lot.  Moving forward I’ll be posting more about different workouts and how they work but, I wanted to start off with push-ups because I think this is one of the greatest workout so far.  Some may disagree but that’s just my opinion.  I hope you enjoyed this read so far so until next time. Cheers~