3 Activities That Will Significantly Improve Your Health
Having good health is the root of any personal success and happiness in life. This is why it is vital that we take good care of ourselves in order to be at our best.
Maintaining good health not only helps us avoid things such as strokes and heart attacks but it can also allow us to perform better at work and within our social lives. When your body is functioning properly, you are more likely to feel productive, happy and focussed.
While everyone knows that it is important to keep on top of our health, we can still find ourselves neglecting it. This happens if you have a busy work life, children to take care of or illnesses that limit productivity such as anxiety and depression.
Often when we think about improving our health, we think of unrealistic routines at the gym and our eating habits. The truth is, the gym is a great tool for improving our health and it does not need to be hard.
There are plenty of ways to strengthen your body in the gym without feeling overworked.
Below we explore three of the most effective activities that can help improve your health over time. All three are affordable and easy to integrate into busy routines.
Morning Run
Going for a run in the morning can provide great benefits to your health, strength and endurance. You can run outside, or if the weather or conditions around you are not suitable, you can use a treadmill at home or the gym. There are typically a multitude of treadmills in the gym which means you will not need to fight for them like you might for weights.
It is a really good exercise to add into your daily routine as it can reduce your risk of certain diseases and joint pains whilst also relieving you of any stress or anxiety.
When you become consistent with your morning runs, you will find that your endurance will build up, allowing you to run faster and get further and ultimately burn more calories. This not only strengthens your body but can also allow you to lose weight which will significantly improve your health, if you are overweight.
While your endurance builds, so will your muscles. Specifically your glutes, quads and hamstrings. If you are looking to get stronger and more defined legs and thighs, then morning runs could be an easy place to start.
To have efficient results within your muscle definition, we suggest eating enough protein and carbohydrates before and after visiting the gym.
Carbohydrates will fuel your body before the workout, allowing you to push yourself further while the protein will ensure your muscles allow your muscles to grow and repair themselves.
An important feature on most treadmills is the incline. This mimics the hills you would come across when running outdoors. You can choose this option for a greater workout and faster muscle growth on your legs.
Choosing to run in the morning is a very calculated choice. Morning runs allow you to get your exercise out of the way which means you can relax in the evening.
Other benefits of running in the morning include having more energy compared to the evening. This means you can run faster and burn more calories compared to working out after work when you are exhausted.
Running in the morning can also increase your productivity at work as it is known to have positive effects on your memory, problem solving and decision making.
Swimming
Swimming is an activity most of us did in our younger years and now we might find ourselves occasionally re-exploring it when on holiday. This makes it easy to think of swimming as a fun activity rather than a form of strength training and a way to improve our cardiovascular health.
The motions used during swimming strokes work to tone the muscles in your back, shoulders, arms, thighs, legs, abdominal and chest. Essentially, swimming is a full body workout.
Swimming requires you to engage in a repetitive movement of pulling and pushing yourself through dense water. Pulling yourself through water over and over again can act as a lower intensity version of performing pull ups and lifting small weights.
Swimming is a fun activity as opposed to lifting weights in the gym which means it is a great option for improving your health as you may feel more inclined to stick to it.
Other enticing factors of swimming include benefits to your posture, endurance, flexibility and overall mood.
You can choose to swim in a local indoor swimming pool or even try your hand at open water swimming. There are a great number of differences between swimming indoors vs outdoors, but the most important thing to consider is that you know how to safely swim in open water before venturing out there.
Swimming indoors is a really easy option as most gyms include this within their amenities and you have an added layer of safety compared to outdoor swimming.
Walking
Walking is one of the easiest ways to improve our health as it is a low intensity activity, it does not require any fitness knowledge or training and most importantly it is free.
Daily walks will provide you with great benefits to your cardiovascular health while still giving you the feeling of a workout. It is also a great way to end your intense workout days. Using the walk as a way to cool down and lower your heart rate after a strenuous workout.
The running theme within all three activities we have mentioned is that none of them require a great deal of effort, money or dedicated chunks of your time.
Each activity is flexible in the sense that you can do 5 minutes or 50 minutes and you can do them at whatever pace, and time suits your lifestyle best. This makes the process of improving your health much easier and increases the success rate.
Walking will provide slower results than swimming and running, but it is important to remember that slow and steady indeed wins the race. If you choose to walk at a more brisk pace then you will also improve your endurance and cardiovascular functionality.
To take this activity to the next level you can add ankle weights into the mix which will further develop your leg muscles and increase the intensity of your strength training.