Twelve-Month Plan: First-Quarter Check-up

At the beginning of 2016, we were all talking, and writing, about New Year's resolution ideas. And as stated then, the term no longer exists past February. But after a few months of working with some great goals for yourself, where are you now? Are you well on your way? Did you fall off the wagon? Are you ready for the spring and summer season?

As you may recall, I made a 12-month plan for tackling health and fitness goals with the Twelve Months of Fitness article. If you are still on track, you should be moving more often as part of your daily recreation, eating better, drinking more water per day and now starting to work on your stress levels.  Here are some ideas to progress further and deeper into these concepts that will make you healthier and feel better.

If you were following the 45-day plan and did five days of workouts per week, you might be looking for new ideas to take it to the next level. Here are some intermediate-level ideas that you can do at home or at a gym.

Circuit Training 101: Building quick resistance training workouts is the outcome of making circuits. If you do it right, you can get a full-body workout in 15-20 minutes with or without a lot of equipment. 

If you are looking for a system to manage the entire body in a single workout, arrange the exercises in the following groups: Upper body push, upper body pull, legs, full body and core, followed by cardio.

Here are two options:

• More beginner/intermediate-level ideas

Eating Better and drinking more water: After first building a fitness habit, these two next critical elements of health usually fall right into place as the body actually starts to crave better foods and more water. Simply eating better, drinking more water and a commitment to daily exercise is the foundation to beating chronic stress. See more details here.

Getting Fit So Exercise Can Help You Decrease Stress: You have to be somewhat fit to use something like a four-mile run or a half-hour swim to help you metabolize the stress in your life. If you are not in good physical condition, a long run or any physical activity "like you used to do" can add more stress to your body as well as your mood. Avoid the pain of doing too much, too soon and progress into daily fitness with something as simple as a walk around the block or even a 10-minute break at work in the parking lot.

The goal is to get moving and breathe deeply. This will help you more with stress relief than crushing a hardcore workout that you are not prepared for physically.  But eventually, when the foundation of fitness is built after a few months of basic activity, you can progress into more difficult workouts in the gym or on the road.

Just because the New Year's resolution may not have worked for you a few months ago, there is still plenty of time and reason to get started again. Just follow the pathway listed in the Twelve Months of Fitness. 

A year from now, you will be glad you started today.

Stew Smith is a former Navy SEAL and fitness author certified as a Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Visit his Fitness eBook store if you're looking to start a workout program to create a healthy lifestyle. Send your fitness questions to stew@stewsmith.com.

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