There are some simple things you can do before your workouts which will make them more effective. Some of them are absolutely obvious, however, many active people tend to forget about them. Keep these recommendation the next time you are going to exercise and you will see a great improvement in the quality of your workouts.
Sufficient sleep
Sleeping for a time which is sufficient for you is crucial to be effective in almost anything you are doing during a day. Your workouts are not an exception from this rule. It might seem that physical activity itself will energise you so it is not thus important whether you have slept enough at night or not. Unfortunately, it is not like this in the reality.
First of all, you will have to push yourself to exercise if you have not had a chance to sleep enough at night. Feeling energy deficiency can severely demotivate anyone. Another negative aspect of exercising while not being well-rested is the fact is that you will not be able to exercise thus well like you are doing it when you have slept enough. Even if you feel energetic enough for a workout, your body will have to pay more effort to performing simple exercises than usually. Needless to say, this will cause deterioration in your workouts. If it happens once in a while, it might not have a serious effect, however, if you are constantly not well-rested, you will notice a serious decline in the productivity during your workouts.
By the way, people suffering from insomnia will find workouts very helpful for improving the quality of sleep.
Having a sufficient meal at an appropriate time
One of the controversial questions regarding exercising concerns eating before workouts. Certainly, a lot depends on the time of the day which you have chosen for your workouts, however, it is still not obvious when you should eat and whether you actually should eat in the first place before your workouts.
You might also have heard about a possibility of burning more calories with particular types of workouts, for instance, with running if you exercise in the morning before breakfast.
In fact, fore running scientists have understood that this actually helps only for running with a particular heart rate. This can be done if you really feel good exercising when your stomach is absolutely empty. In the reality, professional sportsmen usually prefer having a meal around three hours before a workout. In such a way they feel energised enough to go through intensive exercises, whereas they are not suffering from any discomfort coming with a stomach stuffed with food.
Even though you might find it helpful to exercise without having any meal before that, you should be aware of the fact the level of sugar in your blood will decrease rapidly once you start your workout and this can cause very unpleasant sensations and even make you faint. You can include into your food regiment healthy snacks which will keep you energised during your workout.
A general recommendation for nutrition is having breakfast consisting of products with complex carbohydrates. When it comes to the meal which you will be consuming before going to sleep, a good practice will be choosing products high in proteins. This can be any product high in proteins, not necessarily meat. This will help your muscles to recover.
Drinking enough water
Certainly, you are aware of the fact you should drink enough water. Yet, not everyone knows ho0w much is enough for people during a workout.
A general plan for water intake is quite specific. It is recommended to have two or three glasses of water nearly two hours before your workout. It is recommended to drink water during your workout. the amount which should be consumed is between 100 ml and 250 ml every 20 minutes of a workout. When you finish exercising, it will be a good idea to drink two or three glasses of water.
Of course, this is general information and you do not have to do exactly in such a way. Your body might have its own needs which differ from these recommendations. Anyway, you should remember about the importance of keeping your body hydrated.
No matter how much water you need during your workouts, you should prefer water over any other types of beverages. Sweet beverages including juices are generally not a good choice, whereas specialised isotonic drinks are also not perfect. If your workout lasts for more than an hour, you can take such a drink, however the major intake of water should come exactly from water.
There re people who are not used to drinking pure water and they do not like this option at all. If you are one of them, you can always try to add some slices of an orange or a lemon into your water for adding it some taste.