The key to sticking with an exercise program is choosing activities you enjoy, and mixing it up when you start to feel bored with your routine. Keeping your regimen varied also helps work out your entire body instead of just a few muscle groups. Here are a few to get you started.

Strength training

The best option to start may be to hire a certified personal trainer for three or four sessions to develop a plan for you and show you how to properly use the equipment. You can use weight machines, free weights, or resistance equipment like specially made rubber bands, and you can strength train at a health club or at home.

Strength training videos that show you how to use common household items such as food cans and water bottles can help save expenditures on weights or other fancy equipment. In any case, if you don't use the proper form, you can injure yourself, so you do need to learn how to use the equipment, whether it's from a personal trainer, a video or a book. Be sure any video or book you use is up to date by looking at the date it was published as some once-popular strength training exercises have been found to be potentially harmful.

Strength training is important to women of all ages. In young women, it can set the stage for a lifetime of stronger bones. In women over age 30, it can help slow or reverse the natural process of the degeneration of your muscles. And studies have shown that older women who strength train not only maintain bone density but also are at a much lower risk of hip fractures, due in part to the improvement in dynamic balance that often accompanies stronger muscles.