The 5 Steps, Before You Start Your Health Campaign

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**The 5 Steps, Before You Start Your Health Campaign** You’ve decided to start a health campaign and you’re not too sure where to go, what to do or where to start! Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people experience these thoughts and for many it will prevent them from even entering a fitness centre, joining a boot camp or even maintaining a daily walking schedule. **Find Your Why**

The first stage and the most important is to find your why. Why do you want to start? What has brought you to this moment? There are thousands of reasons to start a health campaign, weight loss, look good, feel good or maybe you want to compete in an athletic championship. Whatever the reason you need to find the one that fits you, if you don’t you will experience challenges in staying focused, keeping yourself accountable and staying on track. It’s also important to know why you are training because if you don’t you will end up chasing someone else’s goals that might not meet your needs. This could potentially lead to feelings of guilt and you thinking what you’re doing isn’t working. **Health Check**

Now that you have searched and found your why and your motivation you need to find where you sit health wise. Depending on your age or fitness levels jumping straight into strenuous exercise can do you more harm than good. Book into a meeting with your GP, be honest with them and let them know you want to lose weight. Get a full health check which will also include a blood test. This will give you a great indication of where you are and it may even pick up any underlying health issues you weren’t across. You will also have a great base to work from, you’ll know what your sugar, fat and other chemical levels are at and what needs to be improved. **The type of training that will meet your needs**

There are many types and styles of exercises each with their own range of different routines and workouts so it can be quite confronting if it’s your first time getting active and selecting what it is you want to do. The 4 core exercise types include: **Aerobic / Cardiovascular (Cardio)** – Aerobic exercises more commonly referred to as Cardio, is exercise that uses aerobic metabolism. In short this type of exercise is vigorous, increases your heart rate raises oxygen and blood flow throughout your body. Exercises can include running, swimming or bike riding. **Strength / Resistance **– Strength training is commonly associated with gyms, weights and resistance training, used to build muscle mass and increase strength. **Flexibility** – Flexibility training includes exercise that requires stretching to increase your muscles range of motion such as Yoga. **Balance / Core** – Balance training or more commonly referred to as “Core” exercises are exercises that target muscle groups responsible for maintaining your body’s posture, i.e the ability to remain standing for prolonged periods of time. This can be achieved through using equipment that causes instability and forces you to stabalise. Of course we could also include coordination and endurance training but my belief is that it can be included in the above types. So what’s the best form of exercise? The easy answer, there isn’t. Everyone is different and different things work for different people. You will need to find the exercise that meets what you want to achieve. **Find your routine**

I think this is one of the most important aspects of training but it can be challenging to do if you’re new to it. This part of starting will take a bit of time as it will require you to research and learn exercises, don’t be afraid to ask others for help. The routine you choose will dictate the equipment you need and alternatively either limit or allow you to train different types of exercises. Alternatively, joining a gym which has a lot of equipment is also a great way to experiment and see what others are doing. If you’re not confident enough in being able to go it on your own and would like professional support you can hire a personal trainer who will walk you through the exercises and even develop a workout routine catered to your goals. **Have fun!**

If you want to make something work you need to make it fun, sure waking up the next day in pain might put you off at the start but eventually that pain subsides. It’s important that you not only get what you want out of your health campaign but that you enjoy doing it. It will help establish it as a routine, help you find new ways to keep fit and healthy and allow you to unlock your full potential. After all, your health isn’t a chore and you shouldn’t see it that way. Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed The 5 Steps, Before You Start Your Health Campaign. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below *I have paid for the rights to use these images through my Canva account*
Originally posted here: https://hive.blog/exercise/@melbourneswest/the-5-steps-before-you-start-your-health-campaign