If something is fun, you are more likely to stick with it; exercising is no different. It should be something you look forward to doing each workout day. Below are 4 tips to make your next workout something you look forward to doing.

Exercise with a partner

Not only does exercising with another person make you accountable to them, and harder to skip a workout, but it gives you someone to keep you company. That partner can be your better half, significant other, a personal friend or someone you met at the gym. Also it can be safer if you are with someone you know.

Give yourself a challenge

If you exercise, you most likely have a competitive spirit in you. To make things more interesting, give yourself a challenge. That could be anything from exercising more times per week, to walking/running greater distances, to learning new routines or exercises. Whatever it is, you will have more fun if you are working toward some goal.

Vary your routine

Regardless of what you do, if you do the same thing long enough, you will get tired of it. Exercising is no different; to keep your interest level high, vary your exercises or routine. You should be doing cardio, strength training and taking one day off per week anyway, but instead of doing the same cardio routine, mix it up.

Maybe one day you’ll walk or run; another day ride bike; a third day swim laps or do water aerobics. Even if you have different workouts each day that you exercise, don’t get into the rut of doing the same routine on the same day each week. As they say “variety is the spice of life.”

When strength training, focus on working a different set of large muscle group each time you work out. For example, one day do upper body; the next day lower body. Every once in a while surprise your body, and out of the blue, throw in abdominal core routine. Just like in cardio, you can further mix it up by varying the types of exercises you do within each type of workout.

Reward yourself

All of us like rewards as recognition for accomplishing something. Make it a point to reward yourself when you accomplish a fitness goal. It can be anything as long as it is something you enjoy or can use. For instance, maybe you decide to go see a play when you reach your weight-loss goal. Or buy a new exercising outfit because your old one no longer fits.

Usually you want your reward to support the goal you have achieved, but it doesn’t have to. Maybe your reward for reaching your weight-loss goal is a small dish of ice cream or some other food you have been craving. As long as it is in moderation and you do it only this once, go ahead and indulge – celebrate your accomplishment with something you want and will enjoy.

If you keep your workouts fun, you are more apt to stay exercising. Now go out and enjoy yourself!

Here Are 5 Exercises You Can Fit Into A 10-Minute Workout

Study after study has shown that multiple 10-minute intense workouts throughout the day are more beneficial than one 30-minute less intense one. Not only does it rev up your metabolism better, but it keeps at a higher rate for a longer period of time. But to get the maximum effect from an abbreviated workout, you have to increase the intensity.

Here are 5 non-equipment exercises that you can fit into a short workout:

• 50 jumping jacks
• 15 squats
• 15 push-ups
• 15 lunges
• 15 dips

Perform three sets of each exercise. Take a short 10 second break between each set.

Jumping Jacks

Also known as side-straddle hops, this is the same exercise you did as a kid. From the standing position, arms at your side and legs together, jump up and spread your legs to shoulder-width apart or more. At the same time raise your arms over your head and touch your hands together. Then jump up again and return to the starting position.

Squats

The starting position for this exercise is standing up straight, feet shoulder-width apart and arms stretched outward in front of you with your palms facing down. Inhale, tighten your abdominal core muscles and while keeping your back straight as possible, bend at the knees while looking straight ahead. Once your butt is even with your knees, exhale and return to the starting position.

Push-ups

These can be started from the position of either your knees on the floor, or knees up and legs in a straight line with your back. With your weight resting on your arms and keeping your back straight (like you had a board strapped to your back), bend your elbows and lower yourself down to the position where your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Push yourself back up to the starting position.

Lunges

From the starting position of standing up, take one big step forward making sure to keep your back straight. Bend your forward knee to about 90 degrees. At the same time, on your other leg, drop the back knee toward the floor, but not touch the floor. Now, push yourself off with your front foot and back to the starting position.

Dips

The last exercise requires a chair, bench or other elevated flat surface. From the starting position of your arms behind you, hands resting flat on the elevated surface, your body at about a 45 degree angle from upright and facing away from your elevated surface, bend your elbows and lower your body down until your forearms are parallel with the floor. Now push yourself back up to the starting position.

Between all of these exercises, you get a good workout of your upper and lower large muscle groups in addition to working your abdominal core in ten minutes of time. Perform the three sets in circuit training fashion, meaning to run through all of the exercises one-time before going back to do the first one again, and enjoy the burn!

In the previous 15 minute fitness tip we took a look at exercising while you’re traveling. Next up, we’ll look at “5 Tips for Exercising When You Are a Stay at Home Mom”.

Going to a gym five or more days a week to build up your muscle mass can be time consuming, really expensive, and it’s something that not everyone wants to do or can afford. Even if money is not an issue, the fact of having to “go to the gym” is.

What’s the alternative though?

The answer is that you can start building muscle mass right now and do it without using any weights or exercise equipment at all. Many people believe that you have to “pump some iron” or use heavy resistance equipment to build muscle mass. In reality, there are some really effective exercises you can do right in your home or office that can provide some really great results.

Using Your Own Body Weight to Build Muscles

The easiest and most common exercises you can do without using weights would be squats, pull-ups and push-ups in their most basic form. If you’re severely out of shape, beginners yoga or isometric exercises can be good, but some of these types of exercises can be tricky and it’s important that you perform them correctly.

Some Tips on Building Muscles Without Weights

Push-ups: When doing pushups, you might find that you can’t even manage to do a single push up. If this is you, then try to doing them on your knees as this reduces the difficulty greatly. If this is still too much for you then do your push-ups off the wall standing upright.

Once you can do a set of 10 start increasing the difficulty gradually like moving from standing upright to a set of stairs. Once you can do a set of 10, increase again by doing your pushups on your knees. Next, move to the full body pushup and once you get used to these, and you will in time, go back to the stairs putting your feet on the first step or two with your head facing downward for an even more intense muscle building workout.

Pull-ups: For doing pull ups you need a pull-up bar which can be mounted between a doorway. Pull-up bars are relatively inexpensive and it’s very important that the bar you use can easily sustain the weight of your entire body – plus some. If you can’t afford or do not have access to a pull-up bar, go to your local playground and use the monkey bars as your pull-up bar.

Just as in doing push-ups, if you are unable to do one single pull-up ask your spouse or a workout partner to help you take some of your weight off by assisting you in doing your first pull-ups. If help is unavailable or you’re just too shy to ask, use a stool to help reduce the weight that your arms need to lift. Continue with this help until you can do two pull-ups, and you will, then work on your own. Push yourself in each workout session until you can do 3, 4, 5…

And you will.

Squats: When you do squat exercises you want to put your hands behind your head then squat down while making sure that your knees do not go over your toes. What you want is to push your butt out and try to keep your knees behind your toes.

It’s a good idea to stretch your legs a bit before starting your squats then begin by squatting down as far as you can and then stand back up fully erect. These can be challenging at first but as you begin building up your leg muscles, and you will, they’ll get easier. Soon you’ll be doing complete squats and you’ll develop your ability to do more and more reps as time goes on.

Key Points When Building Muscles Without Weights

A key point to remember when you’re building muscle without using weights is that as you improve, and I’ll say it again… you will improve if you keep after it, is to constantly challenge yourself to do a little more in each session.

Another important point is that adding more reps without adding additional weight will increase your endurance level but not be as helpful at increasing your muscle mass. So, you’ll want to get creative of finding ways to keep up the intensity of your exercises.

A good way to increase your intensity is do things like placing your feet on a step or sofa while doing push-ups. When this gets easy to do move on to doing one arm push-ups… one arm pull-ups and one legged squats.

You get the idea. Just keep adding more resistance if you want to keep building muscle mass. Something as simple as a backpack with some bottles of water inside could do the trick once you get to this point. Each quart of water weighs right at 2 pounds each so you can easily judge what you’re adding each time.

As you can see, you can get pretty far at building muscles without buying weights or gym memberships just by using a little creativity. Visit http://MyFitnessNut.com for more muscle building tips and fitness ideas.