The Truth About Fitness (Growing Up Smart Fitness Fact #1)

Developing your body's flexibility, endurance, and strength through regular exercise is an essential part of being physically fit. If you want to stand out in a sport, or you just want to look and feel your best, exercise will make it happen. It's important to develop your body to its full potential.

Many young men, for example, are mainly interested in building up their muscles. But building only muscular strength and ignoring flexibility and endurance is not the path to physical fitness. Just playing basketball, for example, won't make you physically fit. To play basketball well, you need to develop your flexibility, endurance, and strength. That's why coaches insist on stretching, aerobic, and resistance exercises.

1. Stretching exercises help you perform your best and avoid injury and muscle cramps. They improve muscle and joint flexibility.


2. Aerobic exercises help you run and run and run without getting out of breath. They build up endurance by increasing heart and lung capacity.


3. Resistance exercises tone your body and strengthen your muscles. They increase muscular strength and conditioning.

Here are some tips on how to start exercising and how to keep your exercise program going:

• Decide on your exercise goals. What do you want to achieve? For example, if you want to improve your endurance, emphasize aerobic exercises. If you want to tone your body, emphasize resistance exercises. Make your goals reasonable and realistic.


• Develop an exercise plan based on your goals. Be sure your plan includes warm-up and stretching (flexibility), aerobic (endurance), and resistance (strength) exercises. To excel in any one requires work in all three.


• Set up a regular exercise schedule and stick to it. You are more likely to continue exercising when you have a schedule to follow.


• Begin slowly and progress little by little. If you're just starting a program, start with easy exercises. Gradually work up to more advanced exercises.


• Keep track of your progress by writing it down.


• Get a friend to exercise with you. Consider working with a coach or trainer to motivate you and provide instruction.


• Try to exercise three to four days a week for about 30 to 45 minutes each time. It's important to allow your body time to recover between workouts. Don't overdo it.

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The Growing Popularity of Fitness Boot Camps

Ever been to boot camps where you get orders from loudmouthed trainors and all that jazz, er dirt? If not, you have been missing half of your life.

Boot camp is from the tough footwear that military boot camp trainees use. Back then, boot camp training is just for problem kids. Now, it's also for adults with problem bodies.

More and more people are talking about fitness boot camps and each day more and more signs up for them. Why? Here is a number of definitely valid reasons behind the increasing popularity of fitness boot camps:

1. Time EfficiencySince attending fitness boot camp training entails more preparation for disciplinary actions in case one decides to become a slacker, one learns more time management when doing fitness boot camp routines. Unlike other fitness training systems, boot camps make individuals work out the whole body while pressured for time. Usually, within just an hour of the usual fitness boot camp workout, one can very well train the whole body.

2. Health Benefits.As many workout trainings provide, fitness boot camps also have various health benefits. Since an hour of boot camp training can already pack an innumerable amount of exercise, the health benefits abound, too. The strength of the muscles and their definition will surely be improved. Cardiovascular health will be augmented, too. Flexibility will also be improved, thus less injury for boot camp trainees, in the long run, of course. Many enlistees say that fat burning can be easily achieved through the increasing fitness levels employed during training. And this increasing level of physical range makes it less boring to enlistees and more beneficial to their strength and endurance. Here are the usual mix-up of the physical activities that fitness boot camp have for enlistees:

- abdominal exercises - free weight exercises

- muscle strength and conditioning exercises

- calisthenics

- military fitness drills

- speed and strength training drills

- stamina building endurance training

- hill or stair climbing

- rope jumping

- obstacle course

- pilates

- track speed training

- yoga

3. Outdoor Venue.Exercising indoors could be really boring oftentimes. Aside from seeing those old walls and hearing the same music or noise at home, there's just not much stimulation for someone to exercise when at home. This is another popular reason for the fame of fitness boot camps - experiencing nature while it keeps you fit. Usually, fitness boot camps are being held in parks or even in locations with lots of natural views like beaches. Fresh air and the scenes make one always look forward to the next fitness training.

4. For the Gung-Ho.As many knows, any boot camp training, even fitness trainings require a big amount of cooperation from the enlistees. Obstacle courses and all those occasions wherein you will rub yourself raw with dirt while fitness training is best enjoyed by those who don't mind experiencing them, of course - the adventurous ones. But for those who were so spick and span and tamed all their lives, this one great time to get wild and dirty while being mindful of your fitness boot camp instructors' orders, of course. This is because instructors, who are mostly retired military personnel, know their position so much that they can impress it too well at times. If you are not so self-disciplined, learning it from the fitness boot camp training will do you good. It will not only make you physically fit but also make you learn a thing or two on how to mingle well with others.

5. Camaraderie is Best Enjoyed.Any boot camp training usually imposes the spirit of camaraderie since there usually are the buddy-buddy activities. There are even disciplinary actions wherein your partner may be punished for any offense that you incur. With all the group activities in fitness boot camps, it will be hard for one to not gain a friend after the training. The hustle and bustle of our busy lives make many of us yearn for the action-packed experience provided by fitness boot camps. If you are not that physically-compromised, why not give fitness boot camp training a try? It will be one fun and fit experience, really!

Georgette Pann, BS health/Physical Ed., Physical Therapist assistant, ACE Certified Personal Trainer, SCWCertified Sports Nutrition. She is owner of Nutrifitness Personal Training and Nutrition Studio.She has co-authored the book "Sure Victory-How to Design Boot Camp Workouts that Blast Fat and Build Power" to find out more go to: http://thefitnessbootcamp.com