Warm Up

The main thing you want to accomplish is to get your body ready for the physical activity to follow. You are preparing it for action by getting your blood circulating. For those of you with poor circulation, taking a hot shower first will help the blood to get moving. Light walking or a few calisthenics will also be effective warm up actions.

I just saw an article that said you need less of a warm up for running shorter distances. This is only true up to a point. Thirty seconds of warm up is not sufficient for even a short workout. A minimum period of five minutes is required to warm up for any run. Later, when your workouts become longer or more intense, you will be warming up for 15 minutes or more. Even an hour is recommended before a really long race, but that is beyond the scope of what beginning runners will need for now.

Cool down

This is like a warm up in reverse, except that now you stretch to keep the muscles from tightening up. You want to allow your body to return to a resting heart rate very gradually. The longer you work out, the longer your cool down will take. Again, five minutes is the very minimum amount of time to allow for your cool down.

These tips are only two out of many that you should consider when starting a running program. You can find many more useful running tips at a website like Running Tips 4 All. The most challenging steps are the ones that get you off the couch and out the door. The rest is easier! Just remember to “always put one foot in front of the other”.

The way to make sure you are living healthy is to make a series of small changes, then take more steps and bigger changes – just don’t try to do it all at once.  For example, by adding fruit to your cereal you can increase the antioxidant intake your body receives and by drinking an extra glass or two of water every day is another way to make sure you move in a healthy direction.  The key is to keep adding things to your lifestyle rather than getting complacent with a few small changes.

One of the biggest problems facing Americans is a simple lack of activity.  Everyone knows its good for them but many simply avoid it like the dentist either because the have no time or they feel it is just too hard.  In all reality those people are just making excuses and think its okay to waste millions of taxpayer money on their personal fatty health care needs.  Even small things like taking a walk at the end of the day can increase your metabolism and help to burn fat.

Just increasing a little movement can do a number of great things:

• Reduce your risk of heart failure, stroke and even diabetes.

• Increase your joint stability.

• Improve and diversify your range of movement.

• Maintain flexibility as you age – this is vital to living better.

• Bone mass can be easily retained with a better lifestyle.

• Osteoporosis prevention.

So even if you decide you want to take the slow and simple start you can see that the long term health benefits can be great.  One study conducted showed that even a menial ten percent body weight reduction was able to reduce cholesterol, blood pressure and increase life longevity.

The problem with making small changes is that we live in a now society where we are convinced we need everything right now.  There is no quick fix to changing your lifestyle, after all it took you a lifetime to make it.  Just start with simple changes, maybe buy used treadmills so you can take a light walk even in bad weather.