subject: The Stages Of A Workout Program [print this page] When beginning an exercise routine you should be prepared to progress in stages. There are basically three stages that make up a long term exercise program. When you first start you will be in the beginning stage. After some time passes, if you wish to progress you will need to enter the intermediate stage and if you want to improve even further youll want to enter the advanced stage. While each stage may be perceived as just as challenging as the next, they are very different stages. Just as well, you should expect to improve in different ways during each stage. In this article I will explain the characteristics of each stage so that you can be prepared for what you can expect to get out of each.
When you first start a long term exercise program you will be very new to exercise so your workouts should be relatively light. If you start with too challenging of a routine you may find that you have a harder time recovering from your workouts. It is in this stage you may have a harder time burning fat than in other stages because you arent producing that many fat burning hormones and enzymes. As you become a little more conditioned this will change. You will however notice a stark increase in your strength. It is usually in the beginning stages of your program that you actually notice a faster increase in strength than at any other point in your program. The beginning stages of your program wont last very long if you are persistent and stick to your routines.
When you move onto to the more intermediate levels of your routine you will have to increase the length of your workouts as well as the volume which means youll want to fit more into your workouts. If you have been doing regularl cardiovascular exercise you should have increased the amount of fat burning enzymes you produce which would make burning fat during cardiovascular exercise even easier. During this stage you probably wont get stronger at the same quick rate you did in the beginning stage but you will definitely get stronger at a steady rate if you do things correctly. It is easier to run into brief points where your progress plateaus so you will have to make occasional adjustments to your routine to get past them. For people who arent extremely enthusiastic about exercise this is a good stage to exercise in because your workouts are long enough where youll see results but short enough you wont be completely miserable.
The last stage of a long term workout program is one that you may not have to enter if you are satisfied with your results during the intermediate stage. It is in this stage where things become a little more challenging because the training volume of your workouts will have to be much greater. You will have to do more sets to continue getting stronger and you probably wont be able to fit as many exercises into your routine so you will have to split your routines even more. When it comes to your cardiovascular health you could probably use the same routine you established during the intermediate stages of your routine and keep seeing results. You could also increase the intensity of your cardiovascular exercises to enhance your aerobic capacity but for the sake of maintaining a healthy body composition you may not necessarily need to.
It is very important that you start an exercise program so that you can maintain a high degree of health and effectively reduce your chances for developing various diseases. I hope this article has prepared you for what you should expect once you begin you routine.
