How To Practice a Resistance Exercise Routine

Before doing any exercise routine, please make sure you are healthy enough to exercise.  Check with your doctor before you start working out.

When starting an exercise routine, many people will jump to cardio exercises  like jogging or stationary bikes.  While this is better than not doing any exercise at all, this can be bad in practice. A resistance exercise routine can give better results in less time.  When you pair cardio with a resistance exercise routine, you can get even better results.

You do not need to go to the gym to do a resistance exercise routine.  You can purchase resistance bands or a set of free weights that you can use to get started with your exercises.  Sometimes some of these products come with a DVD or a pamphlet that can show you which exercises you can do with the resistance equipment.

A good routine to practice when you are starting out with resistance exercises is to use compound motions. Compound motions use more than one muscle group or joint to complete the exercise.  This is important because it can multiply the results you get from your resistance training, allowing faster results with fewer individual exercises and fewer reps per exercise.

Some of these compound resistance exercises, like Arnold dumbbell presses or lat pull downs, may take some practice to get the form right, but is it critical when you start a routine that you start the right way. Remember, if you do not exercise correctly, resistance exercises can cause injury.

You also need to rotate exercises so that you don't over train one muscle group or body part.  Here is a sample rotation that you can practice when you are starting, but feel free to modify it when you have had more practice with your routine.

• Monday:Chest/Back
• Tuesday: Arms/Shoulders
• Wednesday:Legs
• Thursday: Cardio or games like basketball, soccer, hockey and so on.
• Friday: Abs and any of the above groups where you want some extra attention.

Then take the weekend off, or do something less strenuous like hiking or biking.  Don't do resistance exercises over the weekend, because you risk over training; but make sure to get some exercise so you don't get out of practice.

Remember to take it slowly when you are starting your resistance routine, and expect soreness as a matter of course.  Practice your routine every day, and your results will surprise you.  Confidence and strength will follow your dedicated adherence to your resistance exercise routine.