There are so many fitness plans, fitness gurus and workout recommendations floating around that deciding on what regimen to follow. In fact, you can look at one workout plan and think that doesn’t sound too bad, while another sounds like a recipe for torture. You may think that you have no choice but to follow the path of torture to achieve your goals and hopefully what we talk about here will help you weigh your options.
A Base Fitness Plan
A base fitness plan is good for people who plan to start out solid and who have not exercised in more than 2 months. The idea of a base fitness plan is that it can be modified to increase or decrease the difficulty as needed. All you have to do is decrease the number of reps or the weights.
Any workout plan that takes base fitness into account is looking at building your range of motion, your endurance and your basic health. It’s important to start small and build up slowly. The base fitness plan works you up from beginner to experienced exerciser. If you aren’t sure about how to build up a base fitness plan, this a good time to hire a personal trainer for one or two sessions in order to design the base fitness plan that will get you started.
A Weight Loss Plan
A base fitness plan may take your weight loss into consideration, but working out to lose weight requires some specific forms of exercise to help you target the weight you want to lose. It will be far more intensive and is geared to burn more calories through cardiovascular workouts. A weight loss plan is also designed to increase your metabolism so that you burn calories more efficiently and over time, the exercise will burn fat and help you reshape your body and tone it up.
An Athletic Plan
An athletic plan is different from a base fitness or a weight loss plan. An athletic plan helps you build up for a specific sport. Our Laura Torres working out specifically for her Triathlon was on an athletic plan. Whether you play football, basketball or participate in equestrian sports or martial arts – the athletic plan helps you target the specific areas that need to be built up. This may include cardio, weight training and flexibility exercises.
Cross-Training
Cross training takes into account elements of all three types of plans. You may be working on weight loss while at the same time building up your strength and endurance to go on a skiing vacation or to scuba dive on your next trip to the Florida Keys. Cross training is a designed program to build up multiple areas, including those who are trying to improve their technique as well as their strength and endurance.
What types of plans would be good for you and your goals?