Staying thin and in shape is crucial for many people — which is why setting up an exercise system is so critical. It may shock you to find out that research studies generally demonstrate that only two core kinds of exercise are successful — which suggests that you can't just select any type of exercise to lose weight.

Since so many people struggle to deal with the motivation to exercise, choosing the most efficient kinds of exercise is imperative, since the less time it takes you to exercise - and the less time you throw away on exercise that is not efficient - the more likely you will be to persist in your exercise routine and therefore to reach your personal weight and strength goals.

Our first type of exercise that has been routinely proven to help people lose the pounds and get trim is progressive resistance. Briefly, progressive resistance is a particular type of strength training. How it works is that it is slowly increasing the amount of weight that you lift, the number of sets, and number of reps performed. As a result, your muscle fibers are never strained or subjected to damage - instead, they slowly and steadily strengthen without any setbacks.

Our second type of exercise that has been studied thoroughly is cardio training. Cardio training is any type of exercise that results in the heart beating at 60 - 85 percent of its maximum rate. Some examples of cardio training might be jogging, jump rope, aerobic exercise, or treadmill, as well as others, but it is your choice.

Even though progressive resistance and cardio training alone have been discovered to be extremely efficient kinds of exercise, researchers now know that the combination is the best bet for success. If you combine both progressive resistance and cardio training, you will strengthen muscle groups and build general endurance. According to a scientific study, exercisers who performed both cardio and progressive resistance over a two-month period lost 45 percent more than exercisers who did cardio or progressive resistance alone.

As crucial as the type of exercise you choose is, the way in which you exercise is also vital. It probably will come as no surprise that consistency is what you should seek. Exercising in an irregular manner may put strain on your muscles and will likely not aid you to build strength and endurance. At the same time, it will not improve your overall health. According to many scientists, the best regime is to exercise for forty minutes to an hour 3 - 5 times per week.

Unfortunately, for a significantly sized percentage of the population, getting enough exercise is not as simple as showing up at the health club a few times every week or listening to what researchers write. For this subset of people, the motivation to exercise is the primary issue - this group of people simply doesn't want to go to the gym. Actually, they may fear any and all exercise, to the point of problematic anxiety.

It is unknown what percentage of the American population suffers from problems with the motivation to exercise, but scientists say that about 20 to 40 percent of people say that they "hate" or "dread" exercise. Even more people may have less severe exercise motivation problems, feeling that although it is relatively simple to dedicate themselves to an exercise regime for a short period of time, motivation eventually degrades, leaving them back where they started - out of shape and weighing too much.

If you're a person who struggles with exercise motivation, you will be glad to know that there are some simple strategies to handle the struggle. In a recent study, subjects who needed to begin an exercise program received a short learning program that aided them to select the best kinds of exercise, were provided with a motivational therapist, and received a short course in hypnosis. After 6 months, they were re-evaluated. It turned out that over 85 percent of the volunteers had stuck to an exercise program during the entire 6 months. Even better, they lost an average of 15 more pounds than people who were not given hypnotherapy.

If you are interested in the results of this study, it might be a good idea to investigate the possibility of locating a motivational therapist, habit control therapist, or therapist who deals with hypnotherapy. These kinds of therapists are provided with special training in assisting people to overcome anxieties, build the motivation to exercise, and reinforce the creation of good habits. One more possibility for exercise motivation is self-hypnosis - which is a simple and inexpensive process that helps individuals develop control over their own inborn abilities to be motivated.

Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis are risk-free methods to increase motivation that are proven to offer success in the case of exercise motivation. Hypnotherapy functions by the use of hypnotic relaxation to evoke the powers of the unconscious mind to influence behavior modification and the formation of habits. Hypnotherapy is an excellent choice for people who are adverse to exercise due to the fact that it can help provide the motivation to get trim and lose the weight easily and effectively.

 

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in all aspects of weight loss through hypnosis, including exercise hypnosis motivation CDs since 1978. Visit his Neuro-VISION self hypnosis website to benefit from Free hypnosis newsletters, videos, and articles.