Well, other than working out on a regular basis, what you do before and after hitting your exercise routine really matters. In most cases, people forget that these nitty gritty details do have a hand on your overall results. Here are some of the things top trainers and fitness gurus’ advice you to do before and after your workout session.
Eat Well
Food is the fuel that drives your body, as such, make sure you eat a well-balanced diet daily. It is crucial that you eat an hour or two before hitting the gym. Additionally, you can take your performance enhancements at this time. Your muscles requires glucose for power and energy during workouts. When you train on an empty stomach, your body will resort to burning muscle mass to fuel itself. Making sure you eat a pre-workout meal or snack is very vital to give you energy for a good sweat session while also helping you build and preserve muscle mass.
Make Sure You Get Enough Sleep
Your body shifts into recovery mode during sleep. According to health experts’, nearly all systems of your body, muscular systems included benefit from enough sleep. Additionally, sleep gives your muscles time to repair and rebuild themselves. If you want to ace your next training session, make sure you get at least seven hours of sleep per night.
Get Yourself into The Zone
Fitness experts recommend that you have a set of headphones and energy filled playlist. This will come in handy in staying focused and helping you push through your training session. Additionally, avoid distractions such as, texting or scrolling through your phone, best bet is to get your music going and set your phone into airplane mode.
Don’t Forget to Warm-up
It is important you prepare your joints and muscles for the upcoming physical activities in order to give your best. A proper warm up will increase your body temperature, boost blood flow to your muscles, and stimulate your muscles and joints thus preventing injuries.
To warm up you can either do light jogging, skip, stretch routine, or even do jumping jacks to make your body active.
Stretch and Cool Down
After you are done with your main training routine remember to spend some time stretching and cooling down. The amount of time you will spend relaxing your mind and body goes a long way in bringing the best results out of your training session. Additionally, you will steer clear from suffering burn outs or fatigue.
Keep Track of Your Daily Progress
Always record what you did on daily basis, the number of reps, distances and weights lifted. This will help bring a sense of accountability or whether you are improving or not. Other than that, it will help you to push yourself to greater heights during the next session.
Staying fit and healthy is one sure way of ensuring you enjoy your life to the fullest. Nonetheless, having a fit body doesn’t come easy. It requires commitment and discipline to adopt and stick to a healthy lifestyle. Talk of sticking to your healthy daily diet-having to say no to that happy hour beer invites by your workmates-, and exercising regularly.