Is Working Out One of Your New Year's Resolutions? Here is Some Advice on How to Succeed

Today is January, 3rd.

Many people have new year's resolutions. Maybe you want to earn more money, work harder, be kinder to people, lose weight or improve your health and fitness. I cannot be much help with the first three, but I might be able to help you with the latter three resolutions.

The best day for making your new year's resolutions a reality is today. Let's start right away. And many people do start with lots of enthusiasm at the beginning of the year. I would say that most people actually start with too much enthusiasm. Then their regiment is too hard and they give up at some point.

Here is some advice in case "working out" is one of your new year's resolutions, so that you won't be one of the people who started too hard and stopped too soon:

What is a workout?

A workout is just telling our body where it needs to improve. That is the whole point. Muscles don't grow while you're working out. Your stamina doesn't improve during the workout, either. All that happens afterwards. In what we call the "recovery phase".

The point of the workout is to send a signal to our body that it needs to improve itself. That means our workout should be hard enough that our body realizes it needs to improve. Once we reached that level, our workout is done. No need to destroy yourself and your motivation.

Especially if you are new to working out -- or if you started again after a long time (a couple of weeks without workouts is enough to be classified a long time, unfortunately) -- you don't need to work out a long time and you don't need a lot of strenuous effort to send your body that signal.

Many people start working out way harder than they actually need to. And then they lose their motivation to continue. Don't be one of them.

Instead, start easy. And increase your level of exertion when you feel like the workout is not strenuous enough anymore. That way you will increase your chances of succeeding by sticking to a manageable routine.

Especially if it is the first workout after a long break, only go to an exertion level of at most 80% of what you think you can manage. After the workout is done, you should ideally feel more energized, not less energetic. And your muscles should not be extremely sore. They should feel a little sore at most. Actually, it's even better if you're not sore at all after the workout. Slow and steady wins the race.

Think of it like sunbathing: If you want to achieve a dark complexion of your skin by exposing it to sunlight, you might think that you achieve your goal faster if you sunbathe an entire day without any skin protection in the middle of summer (on the northern hemisphere). That is not true at all. If you overdose on sunlight, your skin might burn, hurt or even peel off. The fastest way to achieve a nice tan is to sunbathe a little each day. The same is true for workouts. Work out more often rather than harder.

How often should you work out?

That is up to you. I suggest at least two easy workouts per week

The reason is that our body gets rid off muscle mass it does not necessarily need. It starts that process about 3 days after the most recent exercise. Use it or lose it. That's why twice a week is pretty much the minimum. If you want, you can work out pretty much every day if the workouts are not too strenuous. But start easy and light. That will help you stick to your plan and eventually, you will achieve your goals. Don't try to take any shortcuts. The long way is actually the fastest way to get there in the long run.

I wish you a great and successful year!