In order to reap the best benefits from your workouts, your fitness regimen needs to be as personalized as possible. Having a fitness regimen that is tailored to your needs means that you will be more likely to reach your goals and stick to your workouts rather than abandoning them. It’ll help build confidence while keeping your mind and body healthy and strong.
If you’ve already started your fitness journey and have an idea of your skills and abilities, then this post should be beneficial when it comes to customizing your workouts. If, however, you’ve never done any kind of fitness before, then it is highly recommended that you speak to a medical professional about any health concerns that you should be keeping in mind while working out. Additionally, booking a consultation with a trainer is highly beneficial. They can perform an in-person assessment to accurately gage your abilities and limitations to give you a good starting point.
Perform a Self-Assessment
Not only do you need to be aware of your experience level, but also your body’s strengths and limitations, as well as your fitness goals. This means understanding how long you’ve been working out for, as well as knowing your health and injury history, and understanding your proficiency in endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance.
Also, what are your fitness goals? Are you working out to maintain a basic level of healthy fitness, or has your doctor warned you of something you need to work on in particular, like weight loss, joint mobility, or muscle tension? Are you an athlete who needs specific training, or are you training for something like a marathon?
You also need to assess your resources. Are you planning on doing your workouts at home, or at a gym? You need to be aware of what kinds of equipment you may need, how much time you can put aside for working out, and the recommended guidelines for each type of workout. For instance, strength and resistance training should be done two times per week, with a 48-hour resting period in between each session. While cardio should be done at minimum 30 minutes per day. All of these are things that you should be aware of before you start building your workouts.
Levels
Generally, fitness levels are split into three categories: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Also, regardless of level, a good workout should be a combination of both cardio, and strength training.
Beginners
If you are a beginner, learning proper technique in order to prevent injury is key. This doesn’t mean go super easy on yourself, you should still be elevating your heartrate and breaking a sweat, but you should also be focusing on proper form with low-intensity workouts, as these types of workouts should not cause you to become completely out of breath.
For beginners, this means going for walks, using resistance bands rather than lifting weights, and slowly progressing through workouts so that they are learned correctly, you can also focus on full-body workouts here as they should be easy enough not to cause strain. Keep in mind that many people may be in the beginner stage for a while, as it’s the foundational stage. You can still work on flexibility, strength, and cardio, while also ensuring that you stay safe.
Intermediate
This is when you can start introducing more varied workouts and developing your skills. This will look different for everyone, depending on your goals. But you can now start training with specific goals in mind and start cycling between different training phases rather than a full-body workout like you did in the beginner stage. This means alternating cardio and strength training, and you can start introducing weights.
This stage starts when you’ve learned the foundations, and the foundations are too easy. When things are no longer a challenge, and certain workouts are not causing you to break a sweat, that’s when they need to be made more challenging.
Advanced
Advanced training is for those who are athletes and have specific fitness goals in mind that go beyond just maintaining healthy fitness. This is people who need to engage in sport-specific training, or who are interested in things like high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Lauren Schwartz | Staff Writer
