How Often Should I Exercise To Get Results?
Toned muscles, a strong core; cardiovascular fitness for health, stress relief or endurance for sports and recreation: Whatever your reason for working out, it’s results you want. If you exercise regularly and maintain the habit, you’ll begin to see and feel results in weeks. Here’s how.
Strength Training, Including Pilates:
If you’re a beginner: For the most rapid change, beginners should do Pilates twice a week. “Pilates is a new physical language that you have to learn,” says Susan Moran, senior vice president of Power Pilates, an APOGEE Wellness company. Beginners will get results if they practice twice a week for an hour. “Just two hours a week—it will change your life!” says Susan.
Beginners can also strength train—with weights or other types of resistance—twice a week, says Jane Nielsen, APOGEE’s Fitness Manager. “It just takes 20 minutes,” says Jane. “You don’t need hours and hours.”
If you’re already active: Schedule in three weekly Pilates sessions and increase the frequency of your strength training to three or four times a week, says Jane. To allow your muscles a day to recover, don’t do the same exercises two days in a row, she says. “You might do lunges one day and work on inner and outer thighs the next,” says Jane. Ask an APOGEE trainer to create a list of exercises that challenge different muscles, reducing your risk of injury while working all of your muscle groups.
The exception: “You can work your abs every day,” says Jane.
Cardiovascular Training
Running, walking, cycling, striding on the elliptical, and indoor rowing build cardiovascular fitness, ease stress, reduce risk of chronic disease and help you maintain or lose weight.
If you’re a beginner: Schedule 30 to 45 minutes of cardio three to five times a week, says Jane. Start with a goal that you are sure to accomplish; it’s better to be conservative and meet your goal than be ambitious and set yourself up for failure. “People say they want to workout six or seven days a week but that’s almost impossible,” says Jane. Both APOGEE White Plains and Bedford Hills have a wide selection of group cardio classes to motivate you.
If you’re already active: Maintain a habit of 45 minutes of cardio five times a week. Ask an APOGEE trainer about making one or two of your workouts longer or more intense. Try a Spinning or Indo-Row class; there are challenges built into every session!
“Do cardio, Pilates and strength training every week and eat a healthy diet and you’ll look great,” says Jane. “Why wouldn’t you?”
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How Often Should I Exercise To Get Results?
10 Minute Solution: Pilates for Beginners
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NO TIME TO EXERCISE?
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Exercise of the Month- Side Kicks!
One of my favorite series of exercises in the pilates method is the Side Kicks Series. This month, we will focus on balance, control, and coordination during these exercises, and work our way into more advanced versions of Side Kicks and exercises like them.
Benefits of Side Kicks:
-balance
-core control in a side-lying position
-coordinated movement of one leg at a time
-lengthening
-toning
-upper body stability
-great for during pregnancy
Side Kicks Relates to the Following Exercises:
-Single Leg Circles
-Leg Springs on the Tower
-Star on the Reformer
-Side Lying Swan (on the Wunda Chair)
Side Kicks Can Be Done on the Following Equipment:
-the Mat
-Tower
-Reformer
-Magic Circle
-physioball
Side Kicks is the type of exercise that is both challenging and highly satisfying at the same time! Total balance must be found within the whole body in order to do the exercises properly- if there is an imbalance, the body will rock back and forth while the leg moves. This month, we will explore the different ways to find balance during Side Kicks- which includes using your core, elbows, toes, shoulder position, and leg rotation.
We will also have fun with the many, many variations and possibility with leg movements in the Side Kick Series- such as the kicks, circles, lifts, bicycles, ron de jambe, scissors… the list goes on and on and on.
Not only will we work with the Side Lying Kicks this month, but we will also work with the Kneeling Side Kicks- a much more advanced version of the exercise.
In actuality, Joseph Pilates’ original Side Kicks exercise included ONLY the Kicks, the circles and everything else was added in later. He also included the Kneeling Side Kicks as number 27 in his original 34 mat exercises. This is a great example of how, as pilates exercises advance, the required amount of upper body strength and stability increases. By practicing Kneeling Side Kicks, one really prepares the body for advanced work on the reformer and the chair.
There are many common challenges to Side Kicks, and the good news is that these challenges are quite often easy to fix with a few adjustments here and there to the alignment of the body. What if you angled your elbows forward, or back? Do you feel your neck working? Where should your ribs be? Can you keep a neutral pelvis while lying on your side? Which leg is the “working” leg? Are your shoulders involved in Side Kicks? Should they be?? This month, we will explore all of these questions, and find the proper position for Side Kicks and Kneeling Side Kicks for every body.
Here is a video of Ellie Herman doing a Side Kicks series with some fun variations:
Read the rest here:
Exercise of the Month- Side Kicks!
Exercise of the Month- Side Kicks!
One of my favorite series of exercises in the pilates method is the Side Kicks Series. This month, we will focus on balance, control, and coordination during these exercises, and work our way into more advanced versions of Side Kicks and exercises like them.
Benefits of Side Kicks:
-balance
-core control in a side-lying position
-coordinated movement of one leg at a time
-lengthening
-toning
-upper body stability
-great for during pregnancy
Side Kicks Relates to the Following Exercises:
-Single Leg Circles
-Leg Springs on the Tower
-Star on the Reformer
-Side Lying Swan (on the Wunda Chair)
Side Kicks Can Be Done on the Following Equipment:
-the Mat
-Tower
-Reformer
-Magic Circle
-physioball
Side Kicks is the type of exercise that is both challenging and highly satisfying at the same time! Total balance must be found within the whole body in order to do the exercises properly- if there is an imbalance, the body will rock back and forth while the leg moves. This month, we will explore the different ways to find balance during Side Kicks- which includes using your core, elbows, toes, shoulder position, and leg rotation.
We will also have fun with the many, many variations and possibility with leg movements in the Side Kick Series- such as the kicks, circles, lifts, bicycles, ron de jambe, scissors… the list goes on and on and on.
Not only will we work with the Side Lying Kicks this month, but we will also work with the Kneeling Side Kicks- a much more advanced version of the exercise.
In actuality, Joseph Pilates’ original Side Kicks exercise included ONLY the Kicks, the circles and everything else was added in later. He also included the Kneeling Side Kicks as number 27 in his original 34 mat exercises. This is a great example of how, as pilates exercises advance, the required amount of upper body strength and stability increases. By practicing Kneeling Side Kicks, one really prepares the body for advanced work on the reformer and the chair.
There are many common challenges to Side Kicks, and the good news is that these challenges are quite often easy to fix with a few adjustments here and there to the alignment of the body. What if you angled your elbows forward, or back? Do you feel your neck working? Where should your ribs be? Can you keep a neutral pelvis while lying on your side? Which leg is the “working” leg? Are your shoulders involved in Side Kicks? Should they be?? This month, we will explore all of these questions, and find the proper position for Side Kicks and Kneeling Side Kicks for every body.
Here is a video of Ellie Herman doing a Side Kicks series with some fun variations:
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Exercise of the Month- Side Kicks!