know yourself better

so Christmas is over but still, this is unbelievably hilarious! haha. so enjoy. (:
wellz. so people in singapore are starting to go back to school. good luck to y'all (: go own the exams and dont fall asleep in class. harhar. brings back memories of times in NJ. unbelievable times. spamming singlish 24/7, talking about crazy random stuff, watching pirates of the caribbean on zh's itouch at during physics, playing bridge before class etc. lol. totally spankin times. crazy people like cris and jingho who are frm vietnam and malaysia but learnt how to speak chinese cantonese and hokkien in the shortest amount of time. soccer games with the class and 04 and any1 else that we can grab. jac with her piglet~lawrence and his bird~justin and his canoe~the "twins" zh and ryan who have the same birthday but the similarities end there. haha. dang dont i miss those days. but oh well, good times dont always last. at least i get to visit occasionally~? MAN 0hthree ftw. hah.

so this is the first health and fitness tip that shall be posted. These are things I've learnt from my personal experience both from fitness and psychology, and also from other sporting professionals who have had and still have professional sporting careers of their own, have had and are still undergoing University education of fitness training, and are currently coaching me. These tips will generally be uh general guidelines and applicable to all. At times I shall dive into certain specifics. These first few tips that would be given would help you to know your own body better.

We all want to be healthy don't we? To improve your fitness, you must first know where are you at, and what your purpose is. Only then can you set goals, only then can you know how much you need to do. So first do that. Set a goal. Determine your purpose. I suggest that at the very basic level, we all set a target to maintain a basic level of health. Despite your purpose or your current level of fitness, it is a good idea to do the following. The first advice to help you know yourself?

1) Know what your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is.

To find out what it is, simply take your pulse immediately once you wake up. This is the point of time where you are in the greatest state of rest as you just woke up and havent been walking around. You can take your heart rate for 10seconds and multiply that number by 6, or take it for 15 seconds and multiply it by 4. Take your RHR over a week and average the total. This is your BASE HEART RATE (measured in Beats Per Minute, BPM) that you would be working with and we will use this number more in the future. As a general rule however, you do not want your RHR to be high. That means that your heart is working hard to keep you alive. The lower that number the better so watch that number and take your heartrate everyday to measure where you are! Now even if you dont intend to be working out much, this number is still useful. If you wake up one morning with your heart-rate about 8BPM higher than your Base Heart Rate, your body is telling you that you are sick and in the process of recovering. Thus in this situation, rest would probably be a good idea.

So yes thats the first thing. Know your RHR (: and you will know who you are. Give it a shot! Open up your new fitness log and plug in your goals and heart rate!