Fitness, Stretching & Exercise Selection For Women By Phil
Beckett Copyright © Physique Concepts Inc.
In addition to stretching the muscles involved in cardiovascular
exercise, you need to stretch each specific muscle you train in
a fitness program.
When you stretch your muscles it helps to provide better
physical performance, prevents injuries, and can help to improve
your posture.
When muscles are stretched, the elasticity in them improves
which will help to increase your range of motion and improve the
quality of your movements.
Never stretch a cold muscle; meaning you should always make sure
your muscles are warm before stretching. It’s usually better to
do a more extensive stretch at the very end of your fitness
program, but light stretching between exercises is fine.
Stretching doesn’t take a long time, and it shouldn’t, but you
do benefit tremendously from it.
Stretch only after the muscle has been properly warmed-up.
Again, the best time for a complete stretch is when your
exercise session has been completed.
By the time you have finished your specific weight lifting
program, which will be about 35 - 45 minutes in length, your
muscles will have warmed up as much as they can possibly get.
Remember any womens fitness program must always include a
warm-up and proper stretching for maximum effectiveness and to
prevent injury.
When you do this you will indeed experience the terrific
benefits a good weight training program will give you.
Exercise Selection:
For you to succeed in your over-all womens fitness plan you need
to select at least one exercise for each major muscle group in
your body. This will help to promote well-balanced muscle
development.
Another important part of your over-all fitness plan is the
order your exercises are performed. When doing a range of
weightlifting exercises, it’s better to start with the larger
muscle groups then perform exercises for the smaller muscle
groups.
Performing your fitness program in this manner will allow you to
be exercising at your best during the most demanding exercises
when fatigue levels are the lowest and you feel fresh.
Another important area of exercise selection is the total number
of sets per exercise and total number of sets per exercise
session.
A “set” as it relates to womens fitness is the number of
successive repetitions of a single exercise performed in
succession without stopping.
Now the number of sets per exercise and per exercise session is
really going to depend on exactly what your goals are.
Always treat your very first set for each muscle group as a
warm-up, as was discussed in the warm-up section above.
Then the rest of your sets will be determined by whether or not
you are using a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level womens
fitness program and what your particular goals are.
To find out more about how to determine sets, exercises, etc.
you can visit:
http://www.womens-health-fitness.com/womens-fitness.html
Regardless of the number of sets performed, all sets and
repetitions have to be done with proper exercise form and under
complete control.
Exercise Form Or Technique:
One thing that always seems to be missing in most womens fitness
programs, and the most common and critical training mistake is
exercise form or “technique.”
Too much weight usually results in poor form, which decreases
your ability to get results and also increases the risk of
injury.
Examples of poor form or technique include, but aren’t limited
too…
- Bouncing the bar off your chest when performing a chest press;
- Using your hips for momentum and over extending your back to
initiate the bicep curls;
- Arching your back or bending backwards when performing a
shoulder press during the resistance portion of your fitness
session;
- Using momentum in any exercise;
- And training at a fast tempo.
Be aware of these types of mistakes and remove them.
