Summer is essentially here and with the additional time you may be getting in fitness activities that you normally haven’t been able to. If I had to make a recommendation on how to proceed it would be take it slow and add activity in a progressive manner. This concept refers to the principal of “progression”. It basically says that you should add volume and intensity to exercise slowly and methodically. In doing so, you avoid overwork, injury and will make gains much faster that trying to increase your fitness levels overnight.
Here is a simple example. You may want to run a half-marathon in the middle of the summer. Of course you wouldn’t start out by running 10 miles your first Saturday run if you haven’t been running for the last 5 months. Instead use the principal of progression to add a mile or two to each distance run over time. Your Saturday runs may look something like this: week one 3 miles, week two 4 miles, week three 5 miles and so on.
This fundamental principal of exercise applies to everyone including professional athletes to people with physical disabilities and, applies to all forms of exercise including strength training, cardiovascular training and developing sport skill development.