How to come up with an effective fitness routine

When you’re coming up with your own fitness routine, whether it’s for the gym or in any other sporting facility, it’s very important to start out by determining your health goal.  Your health goal with lay the groundwork for what kind of exercises you have to do, and how often you need to do them.

Here’s a quick guide.

Weight loss:  Weight loss routines usually emphasize cardio exercises with a bit of weight training to strengthen your body for more cardio.  Jogging, swimming, cycling, and high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, are the main exercises for weight loss.  In a typical 4 to 60-minute routine, 30 minutes should be devoted to cardio.

Bodybuilding:  Bulking up, or the bodybuilder’s routine requires more weight training and isolation over compound movements.  These exercises build up muscles more than stamina.  The ideal schedule is to work a pair of muscle groups a day, with a rest day in between for a bit of cardio. 

Sports:   For athletes, combining both strength training and HIIT works best.  This not only boosts endurance and stamina, but it also strengthens muscles and pushes one’s heart rate to the limit, to prepare him for competition. 

John Clemenza is an 18-year-old surfer from Oahu, Hawaii, who has been exposed to all sorts of watersports in his home state. He is the typical surfer dude who dons clothes by Volcom, Quicksilver, Hurley, and O’Neill. More on John and his interests, including his fascination with New York, can be read here.