If you want to stay healthy, you should always do some kind of exercise every day of the week. Even though it can be tiring, especially at first, exercising can help you get fit and stay healthy, even though it can be hard at first.

First Things First: Get a Health Check

Before starting any kind of fitness program or workout routine, it is important to check first with your doctor or fitness specialist if you are able to proceed. 

Sharing your medical history and getting advice from a health professional is vital before exercising, especially if you plan on doing moderate to intense workouts.

If you are planning on working out in a gym and getting a personal trainer, you could also consult with them when it comes to health checks. Most gyms now require first-time members to undergo a general health evaluation before starting any kind of program.

Types of Exercises You Can Try

When we talk about exercise, we often imagine very demanding and arduous routines like lifting heavyweights that have us catching our breath and dripping with sweat. But there are various other activities that can be done in order to boost fitness.

Each of these exercises has its own important role in maximizing your fitness:

• Aerobic Exercise – This type includes dancing, swimming, running and even heading out to a tennis court to play ball. These are the kind of activities that focus on working out your cardiovascular system.

This type of exercise should include forms of constant movement that can get your heart rate up. Aerobic exercises can help decrease the chances of cardiovascular disease as well.

• Flexibility Exercise – When it comes to this type of exercise, it mostly focuses on stretching out your muscles like the calves, hamstring and thigh muscles. This is typically done before a workout to reduce any kind of injury and will often save you a future trip to an osteopath or physiotherapist.

• Strength Exercise – This is where all the weight lifting, crunches and push-ups come in. This type of exercise boosts your strength and muscle power as well as help you in your journey to weight loss. 

• Balance Exercise – In this type of exercise, you will be able to enhance your capability in controlling and stabilizing the position of your body. Examples of exercises under this are tai-chi, yoga and Pilates.

• High-Intensity Interval Training Exercise – The HIIT exercise consists of workouts that have short bursts of intense exercise followed by recovery periods before returning to intense bursts again. 

This can be done with a variety of aerobic exercises, as what matters is the pattern of intervals. Hence, you can do HIIT with sprinting, jumping rope and biking as long as you maintain the intense-period-followed-by-recovery-period pattern.

• Bootcamp Exercise – With Bootcamp exercises, your main goal is to be lean. This conditioning and full-body strength workout focuses on enhancing fat loss, metabolism, and burning a lot of calories as quickly as possible.

Examples of workouts often used here are high knees, windmills, and jumping jacks.

All of the exercises mentioned above can be combined into one workout or done individually. 

Things to Do and Places to Go in Vancouver to Get Fit

There are tons of activities to do and places to go in Vancouver in order to get fit. In this guide, we’ll give you our top picks for both indoor and outdoor settings.

• Gym – Of course, it’s a no-brainer that the first place we all go to work out is in the gym.  It is complete with all the equipment needed like treadmills, rowing machines, chest press, leg press and many more.

There are tons of gyms in Vancouver that you can try out. There’s the Studeo gym, Anytime Fitness and the Function Health Club, to name a few of the popular ones.

• Jogging in parks – Vancouver is one of the best cities for jogging. There are various places where you can jog with a great view, from the Stanley Park Seawall to Arbutus Greenway, to the Spanish Banks and even Jericho Beach.

• Rock Climbing – This activity can strengthen your muscles, improve flexibility, challenge your cardiovascular system and help fight chronic disease.

If you are into rock climbing, then Vancouver has the best spots for you. Some of the most popular places to go to are the Lighthouse Park, Cypress Falls Park, Cal-Cheak and the Nordic Rock.

• Indoor Bouldering – This is basically rock climbing but indoors and the only equipment you need is a pair of climbing shoes. The best place to try this out is at the Hive Bouldering Gym, The Edge and Cliffhanger.

• Cooking Classes – Aside from physical activities, having a balanced diet and healthy meals while working out and getting fit is very important. In Vancouver, we’ve already reviewed various cooking classes you can join to learn more about this.

• Hiking – Hiking is a good activity to do as it is a powerful cardio workout. This can essentially lower your risk of any kind of heart disease, as well as improve your blood pressure and blood sugar levels. 

The best places to hike in Vancouver are the St. Mark’s Summit, Quarry Rock Hike, Grouse Grind Trail, and the Pacific Spirit Regional Park Trail.

Tips for Your Workout Plan

When it comes to working out, whatever your reason may be for going through it, motivation will always be the key to hitting all your fitness and health goals.

Here are some tips to help you encourage yourself:

• Set some realistic goals – Writing down some simple goals will help you push through the entire process of being fit and living healthy. 

Some possible goals are maintaining a workout schedule, trying out different workouts every month or perfecting your form. 

It is important that you keep your goals practical, realistic and achievable. 

Having attainability can help you get off to a strong start with some important triumphs. A successful fitness journey increases the likelihood of you staying on track.

Early achievement builds confidence, which can lead to long-term success.

Getting some form of exercise should be a regular component of your daily routine at all times. Exercise, despite the fact that it might be exhausting, especially at initially, can result in improvements in both your fitness and health.

The good news is that there are a variety of strategies to get healthy these days. To begin, we’ll go over the basics of getting fit in Vancouver: trainers, health care specialists, fitness facilities, and other resources that can assist you in achieving your fitness goals will be discussed.

• Do simple daily exercise – Exercising doesn’t mean that you should always push yourself to the limit. There will be days where a simple jog in the park or a brisk walk for an hour is enough.

Listening to your body’s cues regarding what is going on while exercising is extremely important because it can save your life. These signs will tell you whether or not you are pushing yourself hard enough, or whether or not you are letting yourself off the hook.

The important thing is that you keep your body active in order to improve your health and reach your fitness goals. 

• Have healthy eating habits – Generally, having healthy eating habits is a must. This will not only improve your health in the long run but will also help your exercise plans by providing the nutrition you need to sustain your workouts.

It is essential to talk to a dietician or nutritionist when planning your healthy meal list. They will tell you which food is good and bad to eat.

• Get lots of sleep – Sleep will essentially decrease your risk of burnout by helping your body recharge, so having at least 6-8 hours of it is crucial. 

• Stay motivated – Having a positive mindset when it comes to getting fit and working out is key. With this, you will no doubt be able to push yourself and reach your fitness goals.

• Reward yourself – It is also very important that you reward yourself whenever you hit a fitness goal. Most people do this by having a cheat day, but always keep in mind not to let it ruin your progress.

There are various ways you can reward yourself, from finally eating that slice of cake that’s been sitting in the fridge, to relaxing at home. You can even try eating ice cream, or getting a massage and going to a spa. This will reinforce positivity for a job well done.

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