Design Your Own Gun

How To Design Your Own Personalized Fitness Plan

In most cases, fitness programs designed by fitness trainers are not successful because they do not incorporate the trainee's unique needs. It is important to know how to design your own personalized fitness plan, so you can consider your strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is, each individual is different and the importance of a personalized fitness plan cannot be emphasized any further. Use the following guidelines while designing a personalized fitness program.

Choose a target fitness component to focus on in you fitness plan

Fitness encompasses cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Even though some individuals might want to include all the components in their fitness plan, it is advisable that you focus on only one component at a time to ensure maximum fitness. Start with the component of fitness in which you experience the most difficulty. The five components of fitness are interrelated; working on one component improves all the others.

Setting the goals for your fitness plan

Be precise. Avoid vague goals like "exercise more, " instead say "exercise three times a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday." The clearer your fitness plan the more likely you are to follow it.

Set attainable goals. The goals you incorporate in your fitness program should be within your physical ability. For example, if you are a poor swimmer it is not possible to attain the weight loss goal in your fitness plan by using swimming as your main physical activity.

Be realistic. Do not be over-ambitious when creating your fitness plan; you have all the time in the world to achieve your goals, so go slow on yourself. For example, it is neither practical nor healthy to plan on losing 10 pounds in just a week if you weigh only 110 pounds. You should be calm while creating your fitness plan to avoid being over the top with everything.

Decide on the time frame. Allow enough time to achieve the goals you set in your fitness program. This is the advantage of creating your own fitness plan, you understand what you can achieve in a week, and there is no one setting goals that will push you over your limit.

Prepare to put your fitness plan into action

Get the materials you need. For example, this is the perfect time to get running shoes if you incorporated running in your fitness plan. Get the items you need right away to avoid wasting time.

Get rid of distractions. For example, if you always have a 6 pack of beer in your cooler and you are trying to get rid of your beer gut, it is best for you to do away with the beer and replace it with more water before beginning the fitness program

Control related habits. For example, if you always plop on the couch while watching TV, try putting an exercising bike in front of the TV so you can exercise while watching TV. There is nothing to lose.

Prepare for any challenges to your fitness program. Think about circumstances and people that might derail you from following your fitness plan and put up strategies to cope up with each situation. For example, if you think you can't exercise because of severe weather conditions outside, set up a place in your house where you can still exercise. Let your fitness plan be as flexible as possible.

Making a personal contract

It should be a serious and real statement that commits you to stay focused on achieving the goals stipulated in your fitness plan. In your contract, you could include things like the date to start following your fitness program and when you plan to achieve the goals.

Putting your fitness plan into action

Involve the people around you. Working in groups is a very good source of motivation for your fitness plan.

Reward yourself. Sticking to your fitness program is an accomplishment, and rewarding yourself reinforces the efforts you put in and also keeps you motivated to keep on going. For instance, you could reward yourself by going to the movies or buying a plane ticket to go to a Laker's game. Avoid rewarding yourself with food because it can be a major setback.

Staying motivated pursue your fitness program

You'll be surprised to realize that creating your own fitness plan does not guarantee that you will never encounter any challenges. Some of the common challenges include:

Social influences: some of the people you interact with might not support you per Se. You do not have to ditch them for good, just work with people who are willing to support your fitness plan. Have them design their own fitness plans and help each other achieve your goals.

Boredom: human beings, unlike machines get bored of doing monotonous activities. Dealing with this problem is simple, just switch up the activities in your fitness program. If you want to attain muscular endurance, for example; and you get bored of lifting weights every day in the gym, go outside and ride your bike. You still get the same results stipulated in your fitness plan.

Wrong choice of technique: along the way you might realize that the methods you are using to attain the goals in your fitness program are not working for you. For instance, if you keep falling behind on your running schedule may be running isn't the best tool for you to use, why don't you try aerobics. Problem solved.

Stress: if you hit the wall look for the causes of your stress and work on them. Try stress management yoga.

Dealing with relapse

It is normal to have setbacks while implementing your fitness plan. Use the following steps to recover from your malady and keep it moving.

Forgive yourself. Being too hard on yourself for not following your fitness plan is only a waste of time and it can also cause you more stress. So you missed your yoga class once; it is not the end of the world. Blaming yourself over such a tiny mistake can cause you to abandon all the progress you had made in the past.

Appreciate the progress you have made so far. It takes sacrifice, will-power and determination to design a fitness plan, and even attempt to follow it. This is an achievement worth some acknowledgment.

Move on. Learn from the mistakes you make and try not to repeat them in the future.

The key to maintaining a fitness plan is patience. Creating a fitness plan for long-term results takes some time to put into practice, and getting comfortable with it. Eventually, you will be glad that you designed a fitness program that is specific to your needs.