Medical advice may be desirable for some individuals before beginning an activity programme.
It is advisable to complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire or
PAR-Q, which assesses (in just 7 questions) your suitability to start or increase your activity levels.
To do this now, click here. If you answer yes to any of the questions, you should seek advice from a GP, practice nurse or health visitor before commencing any new exercise programme, especially if you are sedentary.
Every activity, habit or pastime that we engage in can be placed into a stage of behaviour, which relates to a level of psychological commitment. For exercise this is known as the Stage of Exercise Behaviour Change .
Which of these statements best suits you at present?
1) I do not exercise and I dont intend to start
2) I do not exercise but I am thinking about it
3) I am exercising but not regularly
4) I am exercising regularly but only started recently
5) I am exercising regularly and have been doing so for more than 6
months
6) I used to exercise regularly in the past , but I am not doing so
currently.
If number 6 sounds familiar, you should try to remember that to relapse is normal and it does not mean that you have failed or that you cannot restart exercising.
Dont try to exercise when you are tired, in a bad mood, pushed for time, on holiday or during bad whether. Doing so would simply be asking for further relapses and each relapse might reduce your confidence unnecessarily.
If you are at stage 4 or 5 then you will already be reaping the physiological benefits. To ensure you continue why not try alternating activities to avoid boredom.
Stages 1,2 or 3 mean that by following any exercise sessions, you will quickly begin to see and feel the psychological and social benefits.
It is not advisable to set purely physical goals when you are in the early stages of exercise behaviour change. This will only lead to not achieving these objectives and consequently feelings of failure and giving up on exercise.
Task
Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half.
On one half of the paper write down all the positive things you can think of that relate to being more physically active.
On the other half, list the negative aspects of being more physically active.
If you have more negativepoints, it may be relevant for you to spend your time gathering information about exercise until you have enough to persuade you to start.
If you start to exercise now you may be heading for problems with adherence and feelings of failure.
If you have more positives than negatives congratulations, you are ready to start increasing your daily physical activity.
02/06/2009