Women with Muscles Part 3

Ideally while working out there are a few things to bear in mind. One of them and perhaps the most important amongst them is discipline. Often this is one factor that gets sorely missed and does not allow you to reach your goal. There are many who can vouch for that. One of the reasons why exercise gets neglected is the fact that there are perhaps too many distractions and it becomes more about one dealing with distractions rather than the actual exercise.

Regardless of how well you may have managed your time and the numerous lists that have been carefully crafted by you, it’s also important to note that the number of times that you might have chosen to get charged about beginning a work out; these either get delayed or are prone to be reconsidered over certain other priorities that suddenly crop up at the time. Most of the time, these are as important as your routine bouts of exercise.

Most women for example are bogged down with either a cranky child or a mundane chore that needs to be attended to at the minute. What follows really in a gymnasium is a series of fast paced exercises where there are either heavy weights used, (in this case the weights may be dumbbells or even ankle weights for that matter). The end result may be exhausting as the mind and the body are seldom in co-ordination, as the principal aim at that moment is to ruthlessly complete the exercises within the time constraints. Furthermore what is more infuriating is the fact that despite having worked on your triceps or even shoulders for that matter, what you are left with on a spaghetti strap outfit are ugly stretch marks.

For a long time I wondered and deeply thought about these when I saw them on my brother’s shoulder. One glance and my hubby came with an instant conclusion; lack of a warm up. As silly as this might sound, warm up is perhaps the most important aspect of exercise. It may be any exercise in that case, not just lifting weights. If you’ve not completed a warm up of fifteen minutes, you may not instantly come to know about its repercussions, but yes, in time, you’ll see them stay with you for a long time to come. And stretch marks, women will agree are the shabbiest memories of your exhaustive attempts to become fit.

Mind and Body
The other most important aspect is controlling the mind. If you are mentally preoccupied and more charged about completing your exercise, you are most like to experience a muscle pull. And if you thought, like I did until a few weeks ago, that additional exercise is the mantra for getting rid of the pain, well, you thought wrong.

There are many practitioners of two diverse theories who may help you get eased of this pain. One school of thought believes in the cold form and the other, yeah, you guessed right in the hot water treatment. It’s advisable that you don’t become creative in using both types as you might land up in some even more additional pain as a bonus to your already over worked nerves. You either retort to ice as a healer or heating pads, never both!

We’ve talked about warm up and appropriate mental conditions, lets get on to the length of time that you would need for a perfect work out. For first timers who are trying to lose weight, there are several issues that you need to bear in mind. Of course the obvious ones would definitely be your age, you immune system and the type of work out that you would want to pursue.

There are many of us who remain fit for really long periods of time but that may not necessarily mean that you could go on an exercise spree. That does not mean that you need to exercise every other day to achieve faster results. An ideal period of working out is not more 3 times a week for not more than 45 minutes to an hour.

Keep Walking
Exercise like anything else in life needs to be done at a pace that’s best suited to your constitution, your life style and lastly your mental frame work. Now what would I mean by that. Primarily, as I mentioned earlier, your constitution needs to be borne in mind. There are some of us who tend to put on easily, and there are still some, lucky as they are who tend to both gain as well as lose weight extremely fast.

And there are still some like me who thanks to their hypothyroidism tend to gain weight as fast as the air that they inhale and exhale. Secondly, if your life style is a sedentary one with your butt stuck at the desk crackling on the keyboard most of the times, then what you need is increased, high powered cardio vascular exercises, preferably walking, wit a special preference of slope walking.

Although there are many benefits of walking on the treadmill, its advisable if you have slopes in your neighbourhood to go out in the open and pursue slope walking. Its simple logic really. If you walk straight,, well all you do is walk either briskly or walk looking at either you walking partner or even listening to music. When you walk on a slope, then it’s difficult to increase your pace and if you’ve tried this out, like I have, believe me its really effective, especially on your butt, a place where you lose weight right at the end.

Since we are talking about weights, (and this is my hubby’s addition, you may or may not be aware of this), a really high powered manner of exercise would be by using ankle weights while walking! In the beginning, I found it difficult to try this out. I thought I’d never even reach to the beginning of the slope. It’s really strenuous, no wonder its called "POWER WALK".

Of course as we were talking about life styles, this may not be feasible for most of us who have our respective cards to punch and reach on the dot of a particular time. But an easy way out to pursue this would be to slam ankle weights and walk down the slope in the evenings. ‘Cos like sex, "POWER WALK" induces great sleep and brings about a wonderful glow that no moisturizer could match.

Mentally Sound.
The last aspect of working out with weights is your mental make-up. For those swamped in depression, it may be a wee bit difficult, but making yourself aware of yourself, be it for a man or a woman and especially if you are a woman, not only brings in the confidence for you to plan your day but also to evolve as a beautiful person inside. You may ask me how! I’ll explain. We talked about discipline, well if you work out regularly, that is of course after you’ve really coaxed yourself to get out and head for the gym, then that would directly mean that you’ve made up your mind. And when you follow the slope walking technique, you are most likely to view the results soon.

Of course if you’ve decided to binge and eat as much as you lose, then that’s quite a different story altogether, but then lets assume that you’ve finally proved your determination and are going great guns about your goal, well then you will find a way to get to moving your body. And once that happens you automatically plan and implement your day’s schedule full aware of the unwanted and uncertainties that crop up. We’ll talk about the effects of weights on you in our next part of ‘Women with Muscles’.