Spring is all about growth. New blossoms, check fresh starts, mind beautiful growth.

Just as we grow in knowledge and patience, viagra sale we can grow in our fitness, too. As we increase and vary our exercise, our fitness levels bloom.

When (and Why) to Increase Exercise for Fitness Growth

You and your family became diligent about incorporating activity into your daily routine. Perhaps you’ve been exercising regularly for a few weeks or months now. How do you know when to increase your exercise time or intensity? Why change anything about your current fitness routine anyway?

(Quick note: The best way to safely increase your exercise is to gain individualized advice from a medical professional, like your child’s pediatrician or your family doctor.)

Why Change: Your body strives for equilibrium and gets used to certain exercises after regularly performing them. (For example: After performing 10 push-ups 2-3 times a week for 4 weeks, those 10 push-ups get easier. You can now do more than you may have been able to before!) To continue to see improvements in your fitness level, you add progressive elements to your workouts.

When to Change: Make some changes when your current activity routine or specific exercise becomes too easy or after a regular period of working out. (This point will look different for each person, but usually at least 2-3 times a week for 2-4 weeks at minimum.)

What to Change (and How Much): If you increase training too quickly, you may put yourself at greater risk for injury. The general rule is to progress no more than 10% at a time, be it weight added, time added to a single workout, or workouts/activities added to a week. (So, if you lift 20 pounds on bicep curls, increase by 2 pounds. Or if your family is currently working out 200 minutes a week, add no more than 20 minutes to a workout the next week.)

You can increase workout time, vary exercise type, increase frequency of your exercise, or increase intensity by weight or work exerted.

How to Grow When You’ve Plateaued

Perhaps your teenager is working to increase her mile speed and gets stuck at a certain point. Or you saw weight and endurance results from your regular training routine for months, but now your progress seems stagnant. What can you do?

Sometimes all you need is a little variety:

–Add in a completely new activity. If you run and bike regularly with your kids, include a family day of canoeing around a pond at a nearby park. Engage different muscles at different intensity levels than your norm.

–Increase intensity by working out faster or with added weight.

–Increase duration by increasing the amount of time you and your kids play basketball or how long you run.

How To Increase Exercise for Kids

The general overload principle shared above typically works for children, too. Err on the more cautious side of increasing activity and intensity even slower than with adults. Help your children gauge how they feel and what it feels like to push too hard (or not hard enough). One simple self-measuring indicator for intensity is the “talk test.”

• Can you exercise and sing? You can probably work harder.
• Can you only say one or two words at a time while you exercise? You might be working too hard.
• Can you exercise and hold a conversation while taking a breath every few words? This might be the right level for you!

Try out small changes to your regular exercise routine, and see how little steps help nourish growth!

What small changes can your family make this week to boost your fitness progress? Share any questions or thoughts in the comments below. (If you have a question, I’ll do my best to answer or find the answer for you!)