Are You in a Fitness Rut?

Keep challenging your body!

One of the most important and effective things you can do during exercise is to challenge yourself. This is how you get results. Push harder...Run Faster...Lift heavier weights...Sweat more! It's so important to make your workouts actual workouts. It's call it a "work"-out for a reason. You have to work at it, plain and simple. Just like anything else you do in life. You have to train or "study" if you will, to see results.

I wanna talk about your hear rate for a moment. This is key when knowing how hard your working, and what range you should be at.

Once you've been exercising for several weeks, it's safe to increase your intensity, and I recommend working out at about 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. To monitor your intensity, first calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220 if you're a woman, or 226 if you're a man.
 

Once you've calculated your 85 percent rate, you can keep yourself at the right intensity by taking your own pulse throughout your workout. The quickest way is to count the beats for 6 seconds and then multiply by 10. You should check your pulse every 10 minutes or so.
 
Sometimes during weight training your heart rate will jump above that 85 percent mark, which is fine. If you're using weights, just make sure that your heart rate doesn't drop below 75 percent of your max for the duration of the workout.