Your exercise tip – Our perception of exercise makes or breaks it.
How we see our exercise or any exercise, evokes emotions that will make you consistently successful with your routine or undermine our efforts at every turn. If you see exercise as something that you like doing, enjoy the benefit of and understand the implications of not exercising, you don’t question it. At times you may not be as consistent, but you still make the efforts on a regular basis.
When you see exercise as traumatic, exhausting and possibly a waste of time, it can become quite challenging. When you are exercising, your mind will continually undermine your efforts and question the fact that if you don’t like it, why do it? If you are having these thoughts, as soon as exercise becomes challenging, you will immediately revert to that negativity and most likely stop.
If you are experiencing this and want to change, write down those times and what you actually hear your head saying to your brain. Look for patterns, for example the time of day you exercise and how successful you were at keeping on track. If you are tired at night while trying to exercise, that mind will kick in and try and have you discontinue. If this turns out to be the case, you may need to tweak your exercise times.
Your health tip – Fruit and vegetables, are you getting in enough?
It turns out we are not. Have a read of this.
Exercise of the week – basic bicycles and advanced bicycles
This week we are looking at an exercise that can help work those lower abdominal areas as well as the hip flexors (the muscle that help us lift our legs when we walk). They are a simple exercise and add variety to your abdominal routine. Tips for the bicycles are:
- Start with the basic version, until you are comfortable with your speed and control of the movement.
- Try to have the returning leg all the way in before you move the opposite leg, on the basic bicycles. On the advanced version, keep them moving smoothly and continuously.
- If you feel pressure in the lower back, raise your feet higher and reduce the distance you push the leg out to.
- If it hurts, stop.
Your life tip
Try and find a way to let go of those things that you cannot control.
This week’s wise words
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight with no vision.”
Helen Keller
Have a great week and keep healthy in 2017. David.