There’s a lot of fitness advice out there, and the internet definitely hasn’t helped matters. While you used to be overwhelmed with wellness tips from trainers, TV shows and fitness magazines, now you have every fitness enthusiast with a blog bombarding you with information about your wellbeing. Surely, it would be better if all the game-changing fitness tips were in one place. Luckily, they are! Keep reading for the advice you actually need for upping your performance.
1. Stop slow cardio and start interval training: According to Susy Sedano, the community manager of LiveStrong.com with a MA in Clinical Psychology, ‘The road to a leaner body isn’t a long, slow march. It’s bursts of high-intensity effort paired with slower, recovery efforts. Fifteen to 20 minutes of interval training performed like this can burn as many calories as an hour of traditional, steady-state cardio. And unlike the slow stuff, intervals can keep your body burning long after the workout ends.’
2. Always, always, brace your core: Bracing your core before every exercise is vital for making sure you don’t do yourself a mischief. Sedano explains, ‘Your core’s much more than a six-pack of muscles hiding beneath your gut – it’s a system of muscles that wraps around your entire torso, stabilizing your body, protecting your spine from injury and keeping you upright. Fire these muscles before every exercise to keep your back healthy, steady your balance and maintain a rigid body position. You’ll get the added bonus of isometric exercise for your middle, which could reveal the muscles in your core you’d like everyone to see.’
3. Swap trade machine exercises for free weights: ‘Machines are built with a specific path the weight has to travel – one that wasn’t designed for you,’ says Sedano. ‘If you’re too tall, too short, or your arms or legs aren’t the same length, that fixed path won’t match your physiology and you’ll increase the likelihood of injury and develop weaknesses. Trade your machine exercises for dumbbells, barbells and medicine balls to build strength in ways more specific to your body, while also working all the smaller stabilizing muscles that machines miss.’
4. Sort out your shoulders: During any exercise, you need to tuck your shoulder blades down and back. Sedano notes, ‘By sliding your shoulder blades down and back before an exercise – like you’re tucking them into your back pockets – you can improve your results and protect from injury. It helps activate your lats for pulling exercises, work your pecs more completely in pushing exercises, keeps your chest up during a squat, and can reduce painful impingement on your rotator cuff during biceps curls.’
5. Increase your range of motion: ‘Add more work to each rep and increase the efficiency of your workout by increasing the range of motion – the distance the main motion of the exercise travels to complete the rep,’ Sedano recommends. ‘Squat deeper. Drop the weight until it’s an inch or two above your chest. Raise the step for step-ups. Elevate your front or back foot on lunges. Get more from each move and your body will thank you.’
6. Make every rep an explosive movement: While the “lowering” portion of any exercise should involve slow lifting, during the concentric portion – where you push, pull, press or jump – you should move the weight or your body as quickly as possible. Sedano adds, ‘Even if the weight doesn’t move that fast, the intention of moving the weight quickly will turn on your fast-twitch muscle fibres, which will make your body more athletic and train it to use more fat as fuel.’
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