Perhaps your primary care doctor has recommended you exercise more, or you’ve had a recent health scare.

Maybe your family’s been nagging you to get off the couch or you’ve decided yourself that it’s time to lose some weight.

How do you find the motivation, time and resources to get fit, particularly if you haven’t exercised in a while?

How do you choose the best type of exercise? And do you need a health check before you start?

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO EXERCISE

MOTIVATION 

Understanding the effect a sedentary lifestyle has on your health often hits home only after a serious event such as hearing bad news from your doctor. For some people, that’s often enough motivation to get started.

Surviving a serious illness as a result of an inactive lifestyle, such as a heart attack or stroke, can also be frightening enough to provide a great deal of motivation.

So, if you have not exercised for several years or haven’t exercised before, a it’s a good idea to get a health check with your primary care doctor before starting.

Then you need to keep motivated enough to stick with your exercise program. You can track your training or fitness level and set some achievable goals to keep going.

LACK OF TIME 

Finding the time and effort to fit exercise into your daily routine is challenging. We know being  ‘time poor’ is a common reason for not exercising. And many people such as office workers, vehicle or machine operators have low activity levels at work and don’t feel like exercising after a long day.

One way to get around these barriers might be to attend a group exercise session or join a sports club. If you find exercise boring, you can encourage a friend to join you or join an exercise group to make it enjoyable. If you played sport in your youth, that might provide an option.

Having a friend to exercise with or team mates to support you gives a sense of commitment so that you have to be there and will be challenged if you fail to show up.

RESOURCES 

You don’t need to join a gym with a lot of fancy equipment to get fit. There are many YouTube videos of safe routines that you can follow and adjust as you get fitter.

This one demonstrates a 15 minute cardio exercise routine that you can do at home.

VIDEO

Many exercises – including squats, push ups and sit ups – don’t need special equipment. And rather than improving muscle strength with weights at the gym, you can fill milk bottles with water instead.