Here are a few different ideas and tips for your exercise regimen.

Gardening

Plant a garden of your own. Creating a garden can be quite an effective workout. You need to loosen your soil, dig rows, plant seeds and/or tiny plants, weed, pick your crops, and use all the various tools involved. An additional benefit is that you would be growing your own vegetables and herbs.

Start Small

When using exercise equipment, begin with smaller machines at first. Small muscles tire out before the larger ones, so you should start small and build up your smaller muscle groups first.

Do It with Class

Try various types of fitness classes to keep yourself excited and interested. Try a dancing class or yoga class, or swimercize at the local pool. If you don’t like a particular class, you don’t have to take it again, but it will burn some calories just trying.

Vary Muscle Groups

Exercise one muscle group at a time. Start by choosing a muscle group like the chest. Then move to the lower body. Then work out the arms. Then the core of your body – your back and abs. Rotate through these various muscle groups to tone every part of your body evenly, giving each muscle group adequate rest until it’s their turn again. A full rotation can be over a period of days, if need be.

Rep / Weight Ratio

The basic strategy to increase muscle mass is to simultaneously do fewer reps and lift more weight. Start with weights that are lighter in order to warm up your muscles. The first set could include reps of 20-30 seconds. The second set should involve slightly heavier weights for which you do fewer repetitions. Add a little extra weight for each subsequent set.

Schedule

Set a schedule for exercise if you’re having difficulty committing to exercising. Plan the number of days, and stick to it. If you end up missing your workout for whatever reason, then you need to schedule one as soon as possible and give your full attention to the workout.

Biking

Try to maintain 80 to 100rpm when you are riding your bike to work. You will be able to ride longer this way without causing undue strain to your knees. This is the ideal rpm range that you should be aiming for.

Be Creative

Challenge yourself by devoting just a few minutes of each day trying to dream up new ways to work exercise into your daily routine. Maybe you’re looking for an old cooking pot in a lower cabinet and realize this is a good deep knee bend routine that you can repeat every day. Maybe you realize that reaching to the top of a closet can be a good exercise. Anything that requires stretching or lifting can be reinvented as a home-based exercise.

Padding

Note that working on a machine or surface that has insufficient padding can hurt your back, joints, muscles or skin. It’s more than just a matter of comfort. Your body isn’t supposed to be beaten against hard surfaces.

Breathing

You can enhance your workouts effectively by learning how to control your breathing. Try forcefully exhaling when your shoulders come to their peak during sit-ups. The contraction of a deep breathing causes your abdomen’s muscles to do harder than necessary.

What little tidbits of information can you offer from your experiences? Please share them below in the comments section.