8 Surprising Fitness Tips that Can Rejuvenate Your Workout

Some fitness tips are pretty much common sense pieces of advice you could probably work out for yourself. However, there are some pretty surprising ways to rejuvenate your exercise routine and keep your wellbeing in tip-top shape.

 

1. Go Barefoot for Whole-Body Health: Wellness expert Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen details, ‘If you refuse to wear shoes in the summer, you may enjoy better blood circulation, a happier mood, stronger bones and better posture. According to Barefoot in Toronto, a group that promotes a barefoot lifestyle, barefoot walking increases skin health, reduces foot calluses, builds arch strength and enhances sensory stimulation. Going barefoot also creates healthier toenails and reduces foot odour.’

 

2. To Burn Fat, Don’t Sweat it: Pawlik-Kienlen explains, ‘Sweat signals a rising body temperature, not necessarily an increased calorie burn (although most of us will sweat as we work harder).’ Brad Schoenfeld, author of 28 Day Body Shapeover, points out, ‘In the sauna you’ll sweat buckets but you aren’t burning fat. The best indicator of calorie burn is either heart rate or a rating of perceived exertion (RPE).’

 

3. Yelling Increases Your Fitness Levels and Confidence: ‘IntenSati is “active meditation”—a fitness programme that uses the voice and mind to intensify physical workouts,’ says Pawlik-Kienlen. ‘Participants say or shout empowering affirmations while kicking, jumping or lunging. For example, while punching, they yell, “I. Am. Strong. Now!” These motivational phrases boost confidence and distract participants from feeling fatigued, which increases the workout benefits. If you can’t join the programme, you may want to try this one in the privacy of your home gym.’

 

4. Interval Training Gives You the Best Results: ‘You can do too much cardio,’ warns fitness lifestylist Susie Shina, author of 60 Second Circuits: 1000 Ways to Get Your Body Back. ‘To burn fat effectively, one-minute sprint/recover repeats (interval training) on any cardio machine for a total of 20 minutes can be more beneficial than exercising at a steady rate.’ Otherwise, you can tackle your intervals outside by walking, running, biking or skipping.

 

5. Bond with Others to Increase Your Focus and Motivation: Florida-based John Kent, owner of Adventure Boot Camp for Women, notes, ‘It’s not necessarily resistance training, cardio or core work that keeps you fit. It’s meeting with others.’ Pawlik-Kienlen adds, ‘Healthy bonding moments—such as running hills or attending Pilates classes in a group setting—keep you motivated and focused on your fitness goals.’

 

6. Take Celebrity Wellness Advice with a Pinch of Salt: Los Angeles-based fitness instructor Torri Shack cautions, ‘Don’t believe everything you read about how the stars stay fit. Many celebrities work out four to six days a week for up to 90 minutes each time, have professional trainers and eat a clean, very calorie-restrictive diet. They don’t “just” do Pilates or yoga twice a week.’

 

7. Being Too Busy Can Actually Improve Your Workout: Personal trainer Keith Morton, founder of CityWide SuperSlow in Chicago, comments, ‘People are surprised at how little exercise they need to get and stay fit. It’s the quality, not quantity, of exercise that counts.’ Mississauga-based fitness trainer Marc Lebert adds, ‘If I give myself 20 minutes to work my legs, I know I have to increase my intensity. A time limit makes every set count.’

 

8. Diet and Attitude Pack More of a Punch Than Exercise: ‘When it comes to changing the size and shape of your body, exercise is only 30% of it,’ asserts Ariane Hundt, a New York City-based certified personal trainer and instructor at Brooklyn Bridge Boot Camp. ‘The rest needs to come from proper nutrition and a positive sense of self.’

Categories: barefoot, based fitness, boot camp, calorie burn, Celebrity Wellness, fitness tips, Interval Training, pawlik kienlen, Personal Trainer, reduces foot, stay fit, sweat

How to Get Started with High Intensity Interval Training

A lot of wellness experts are fans of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), but what exactly is it? And how can HIIT benefit your wellbeing? Fitness expert Kenny Thapoung explains, ‘HIIT consists of short, intense bursts of exercise with either active recovery (like less intense exercise) or complete rest in between. Cardio workouts and strength routines both qualify — they can both get your heart pumping AND fire up your metabolism thanks to the phenomenon known as afterburn. You can get a super effective workout in 20 minutes or less—even in as few as 4 minutes if you do Tabata-style training (20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy).’

 

So that’s HIIT, but how do you get started? There are many HIIT workouts out there, so it’s a good idea to look online for a routine or circuit that suits you. Before you get going with your HIIT routine, it’s also wise to run it past your doctor, just in case it doesn’t suit your individual wellness needs. If you’re struggling to find a HIIT routine that works, why not try this one from Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist Jen Ator, author of Shape-Up Shortcuts? Ator notes, ‘It’s a shortcut, fat-burning workout that actually works. It’s also one that leaves you with zero excuses.’ For this workout, you choose one of the interval patterns and then complete the exercises in order to burn calories, build muscle, and blast fat.

 

The Interval Patterns:

• 30:30 Do as many reps as you can in 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, and then move on to the next exercise. If you’re doing more than one round, rest for 60 seconds at the end.


• 50:10 Complete as many reps as you can in 50 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds before moving on to the next exercise. Again, rest for 60 seconds at the end if you’re doing more than one round.

 

1. Marching Glute Bridge: Ator instructs, ‘Lie face-up with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees (a). Lift your right knee toward your chest (b). Hold for two seconds; lower and repeat with your left leg. That’s one rep.’

 

2. Inverted Shoulder Press: ‘Place your hands on the floor outside your shoulders and raise your hips so that your torso is nearly perpendicular to the floor,’ Ator advises. ‘(a). From that position, bend your elbows to lower your body until your head almost touches the floor (b). Pause, then push back to start. That’s one rep.’

 

3. Alternating Switch Lunge: Ator notes, ‘Step your right leg forward and bend both knees to lower into a lunge (a). Press through your right heel to return to standing, keeping your foot lifted, then immediately step your right foot back and lower into a lunge (b). Press through your left heel to return to standing. That’s one rep.’

 

4. Skater Hops: Ator details, ‘Stand on your left foot with your left knee slightly bent and your right foot slightly off the floor (a). Jump to the right and land on your right foot, bringing your left foot slightly off the floor (b). That’s one rep. Jump to the left and continue alternating as quickly as possible.’

 

5. Rotating T Extension: ‘Start in a push-up position,’ says Ator. ‘(a). Keeping your arms straight and your core engaged, shift your weight onto your left arm, rotate your torso to the right, and raise your right arm toward the ceiling so that your body forms a T (b). Hold for three seconds, then return to start and repeat on the other side. That’s one rep.’

Categories: ator notes, body forms, foot slightly, high intensity, HIIT, hiit routine, intensity interval, interval patterns, Interval Training, rep nbsp, Workout

8 Expert Tips and Scientific Facts to Help You Burn Fat Fast

Weight loss is all about burning fat, but how do you do that in a way that doesn’t harm your wellbeing? We’ve rounded up the best expert tips and scientifically proven facts to help you burn fat faster and look after your wellness in the process.

 

1. Drink Green Tea: Wellness expert Hallie Levine details, ‘Green tea isn’t known only for its cancer-fighting benefits: It may help boost your metabolism, too. People who took green-tea extract three times a day saw their metabolic rate increase by about 4%, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.’ Joy Bauer, a New York City nutritionist and author of Cooking with Joy, comments that because green tea contains catechins, it increases your brain’s levels of the metabolism-speeding chemical norepinephrine.

 

2. Pump Iron: ‘A pound of muscle burns up to nine times the calories of a pound of fat,’ notes Richard Cotton, MA, chief exercise physiologist for myexerciseplan.com. Levine explains, ‘Weight training increases your resting metabolic rate, which is the number of calories you burn while sitting on your butt. What’s more, it gives your metabolism an added boost after you exercise: It remains in overdrive for up to two hours after the last bench press, according to a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.’

 

3. Eat Iron: Samantha Heller, RD, a nutritionist at the New York University Medical Centre, warns, ‘If you don’t have enough of this mineral, your body can’t get enough oxygen to your cells, which slows down your metabolism.’ Good sources of iron include lean red meat, chicken, fortified cereal and soy nuts.

 

4. Drink Plenty of Water: ‘A new German study found that when you drink 17 ounces of water (about two glasses) within a certain time frame, your metabolic rate shoots up by about 30%,’ says Levine. ‘Using these results, they estimate that by increasing your current water intake by 1.5 litres a day, a person would burn an extra 17,400 calories a year, resulting in about a five-pound weight loss.’

 

5. Get Your Thyroid Checked: Pamela Peeke, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Maryland and author of Fight Fat After Forty, points out, ‘The thyroid gland controls your body’s metabolism, so one of the first signs that it may be off is an inability to lose weight.’

 

6. Avoid Alcohol: While everyone likes a glass of wine with dinner, drinking water instead can help keep your favourite meals from going straight to your hips. ‘Alcohol slows your metabolism by depressing the central nervous system,’ Levine states. ‘A British study found that when alcohol was added to a high-fat, high-calorie meal, less dietary fat was burned off and more was stored as body fat.’

 

7. Start Interval Training: Researchers at Laval University in Quebec have shown that high-intensity interval training burns more fat than regular, consistent aerobic exercise. Glenn Gaesser, PhD, director of the Kinesiology Programme at the University of Virginia and author of The Spark, recommends, ‘Even if you just have 10 minutes for a quick workout, you can walk at a normal pace and then add in a 30-second bout of speed-walking every three minutes.’

 

8. Consume More Calcium: A study published in the journal Obesity Research found that if you eat low-fat dairy products, such as non-fat yoghurt and low-fat cheese, three to four times a day, you can lose 70% more fat than low-dairy dieters. Study author Michael Zemel, MD, director of the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, explains, ‘Calcium serves as a switch that tells your body to burn excess fat faster.’

Categories: expert tips, fat-burning, green tea, Interval Training, iron, metabolic rate, Metabolism, nbsp, study, study published, Weight Loss

Tabata: The Best Way To Mix Up Your Workouts

Tabata – it’s the new word on the fitness grapevine and it’s certainly making waves. A system of short, high-intensity intervals developed by Japanese professor Dr Izumi Tabata to improve the training and fitness of Olympic speed skaters. The method is behind it is timing – everything is based on 20 seconds of work followed by a 10 second rest, then repeated between six and eight times. The total workout comes in at around 4 minutes, but don’t be fooled by the time – this is 4 minutes of hard work at your absolute maximum effort. The small intervals force the body to keep moving before it recovers from the previous set of exercises. At some point between rounds six and eight, the body reaches its maximum oxygen intake so you’ll find that your muscles begin to shake and your lungs begin to burn around this point. But the best bit is that the aerobic and anaerobic pathways fires up the afterburn effect so you’ll be burning calories long after you finish your workout. This exercise strategy is certainly more of a formula than a set workout, but the options for Tabata are almost endless – it’s a really flexible way of exercising. Whatever you enjoy doing, you can make up the workout from that – from push-ups to swimming, the intervals can be created from anything. These are some of the best ones to really get your heart rate up and improve your muscle tone.

Burpees

Start standing, then crouch to a low squat with your hands on the floor. Kick your feet back to a plank, then down into the bottom of a push-up. Push off the ground and quickly return to the squat position, then jump as high as possible before squatting down again and jumping back into the next push-up.

Jump Squat

Begin with your feet hip-width apart, toes pointing forward, then sit back into a squat. Drive your whole body up through the heels, shifting your weight onto the balls of your feet as you lift off. Make sure that you land on the balls of the feet and immediately bend your knees into a full squat.

Lunge Jump

Start by standing with your feet together and then lunge the right foot forward, bending the knee about 90 degrees and keeping your torso vertical. Jump straight up and then switch legs while you’re in the air, ensuring that you lunge with the left foot forward.

Dumbbell Front Squat

Hold a dumbbell at the centre of your chest and do a basic front squat. Place your feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart, with your hips stacked over your knees, knees over ankles. Inhale and unlock your hips, bringing them back as the knees begin to bend, keeping your chest and shoulders upright. Continue until your hips are slightly less than 90 degrees from the ground, and then on the way back up, engage the core and drive through the heels until you’ve returned to standing.

Kettlebell Swing

Standing up straight with your feet slightly wider than hip-distance apart, then grab hold of the kettlebell with both hands – keep your palms face down and your arms in front of your body. Keep your knees slightly bent and drive the hips and bell back, but remember that it’s not a squat so the knees shouldn’t bend that much. In one fluid motion, explosively drive the hips forward while swinging the kettlebell, engaging the glutes and core.

Categories: body, Feet, fitness, hips, Interval Training, Knees, Squat, tabata

Top Tips For High Intensity Interval Hill Workouts

Running is a fantastic cardiovascular exercise that burns calories, improves your metabolism no end, and prevents heart problems. But if you really want to benefit from this particular exercise, you need to opt for a high-intensity form – in other words, high intensity interval training, or HIIT. Combining HIIT with hill repeats is a fantastic way to improve your fitness and your strength. Interval hill running is a particular form of high intensity interval training that is the ideal option if you want to shed the pounds, build on your endurance levels, and score high on the fitness and health scales. To boost your VO2 max, which measures your body’s ability to produce energy and use oxygen efficiently, all you need to do is sprint regularly at your absolute maximum three times a week. Furthermore, three 20 second sprints at maximum capacity three times a week could increase your aerobic capacity by as much as 15 per cent. Interval hill sprints are the ideal union between leg squats and sprints, as they engage fast-twitch muscles which increase your speed and pump your legs with lactic acid, which eventually develops fatigue resistance. If you’re looking to boost muscle, hill sprints are perfect as they are performed in opposition to gravity, as opposed to running on flat surfaces, so they build muscle mass.

When you begin a hill running workout, you need to bear four crucial things in mind. These are as follows: the gradient, the duration, the total number of sprints and the recovery period between each interval. The length and intensity of each sprint depends on your fitness level and what your goals are, so you need to find the right combination for you – there’s no ‘one size fits all’ workout here. The gradient should be fairly low if you’re a beginner, so aim for a hill with a gradient of four to eight per cent before you increase it. Sharp hills which have a gradient of 10 to 15 per cent have a better effect on your strength, but they are a lot harder on your calves and Achilles tendons, so they aren’t suitable for beginners. With regards to duration, this depends on how fit you are. If you’re new to exercise, you may find that your physically can’t exercise for too long without getting tired and out of breath. But if you want to boost power and speed, you should aim for sprints of 5 to 15 seconds.

 

If you’re hoping to improve fatigue resistance, sprints of 20 to 30 seconds are perfect. Finally, to improve your fitness overall and really boost your endurance, you should aim for sprints of longer than 30 seconds. Regular sprints are the way to go if you want to build lung power and muscle, so you need to do as many as you can, as long as you feel in control of it and are able to maintain good form. When your form begins to waver, or you can’t sustain the intensity of the sprint for any more time, you need to stop for the day and take a break. The next step is recovery – everyone needs to give their body time to relax. This is vital time as it gives your body chance to prepare for your next run, and to rejuvenate. Rest for 45 seconds to a minute for every 10 to 25 seconds of sprinting – this is a good rule of thumb to follow on every sprint workout.

Categories: exercise, fatigue resistance, high intensity, hill, hill running, hill sprints, intensity interval, interval hill, Interval Training, Running, sprints, technique

Tabata: What Is It And Why Do You Need It?

In today’s day and age, we all want a quick fix in terms of fitness, appearance and energy – athletes are no different. If you’re one of the many people who want an efficient way to workout, the question remains simple: Can you get a really great workout in a short amount of time, as short as four minutes? The answer is yes, if you’re using Tabata interval training. The premise is simple – you perform a high intensity workouts for a short amount of time  to tone up without taking up half of your day at the gym. But don’t be fooled – just because these workouts are quick to complete, it doesn’t mean that they’re easy. You’ll certainly know that you’ve been exercising. The formula is easy: you workout to your absolute maximum for 20 seconds, then rest for ten seconds. Then you do it all over again for a set amount of rounds. In order for them to work, though, you need to give your absolute all when you’re exercising. The idea behind this way of exercising is that you pack in as many repetitions as possible, into six to eight 20-second work periods. By the time your last round rolls up, you’ll really be feeling the result of your efforts.

You need to think of Tabata as a guidelines for creating high-intensity interval workouts – there’s no one set workout that works better than any other. As long as you stick to the 20/10 rule, you can use almost any exercise that you want to. The best thing about tabata workouts is that you can keep them interesting and fresh all the time, simply by mixing up the exercises whenever you feel like a change. As well as that, you can do these workouts anywhere, as all you need is a stopwatch and plenty of willpower. If you’re new to this form of exercising, or any exercise for that matter, then you should just aim for one bout of Tabata intervals. But as you build up strength and fitness, you’ll be able to increase how long you exercise for. You can build your own Tabata workout by selecting one or two exercises per circuit; you can complete six rounds of the same workout, or you can alternate between two if you wish. Other than your timer, you don’t need any equipment so they’re easy to perform at any time or place. Your bodyweight does all of the work here, along with your willpower and exertion.

Whatever you enjoy doing the most, be it skipping rope sessions or lunges and push-ups, you can include it with Tabata. You can also include weights into your routine if you really want to impact your body and muscles. Because of the simplicity of the Tabata design, you can easily top up other workouts and exercise sessions with Tabata interval training throughout the week – just be sure to give yourself plenty of time to rest in between, as the short space of time spent actually exercising is deceiving, and you’ll need time to rest. But what’s most appealing about Tabata is that it keeps things exciting. Exercise is something that become boring very quickly, and once our motivation slips it’s tricky to get it back. But with interval training, you can ensure that you keep fit, stay interested and save time in one fell swoop – a great way to keep fit if you’re strapped for time and creativity.

Categories: exercise, exercising, fitness, high intensity, Interval Training, tabata, tabata interval, time, Workout, Workouts

Can’t Think of a Fitness Resolution? Try One of Ours!

With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, now is the time to take a look at what you want for your wellbeing. Do you wish you could burn more fat? Or do your aims lie in building more muscle or gaining flexibility? If you’re struggling to think of what you want to do to take your wellness to the next level, or you don’t know what to do in order to achieve your goals, we’ve got the five most common fitness goals, as well as the expert advice you need to reach them.

 

1. Burning More Fat: According to Scott Weiss, DPT, ATC, CSCS, a New York based physical therapist and athletic trainer, you need to burn more calories overall if you want to burn more fat. The way to burn a higher percentage of fat calories is to take up long, slow distance exercise, but if you kick up the intensity you can burn the highest total number of calories and total fat overall. The “afterburn” effect of interval training – also known as excess post oxygen consumption (EPOC) – helps you to burn more calories, so Weiss recommends alternating 20-30-second sprints for every five minutes of running at your normal pace.

 

2. Running Faster: Whether you want to beat your friend in the next 10K or just top your personal best, you need to improve your stride length and frequency (or the distance you take with each step and how fast your legs move. Founder of Inspire Training Systems Neal Pire, CSCS, author of Plyometrics for Athletes At All Levels, explains, ‘Ultimately, running speed is based on the product of stride length and stride frequency. This involves increasing the strength and power of your hip extensors, especially your glutes and hamstrings.’ For this you need squats, step-ups, single-leg Romanian squats and calf-strengthening moves in your workout.

 

3. Lifting Heavier Weights: Pire notes that gaining strength requires two things: pushing yourself past your comfort zone and using weight that fatigues you at no more than six reps. Research suggests that doing two to six sets of six repetitions, and having two- to five-minute rest periods in between each set, will get you the best results. Pire adds, ‘Get rest between sets so that you can repeat your performance the following set.’

 

4. Increasing Your Endurance: Strengthening your heart, increasing your ability to uptake oxygen in the muscles and dealing with the by-products of exercise such as lactic acid is essential if you want to win out against your athletic opponents. Weiss notes, ‘You want to use a combo of long slow distance and high intensity interval training (HIIT)…Not only does HIIT help strengthen the heart muscle, but it stimulates a greater uptake of oxygen in working muscle. Plus, the more hydrated you are, the less likely you are to feel a burn while you work out – so drink up.’

 

5. Improving Your Agility: When you’re agile, this translates into dodging puddles on a rainy day or sidestepping a hole in the pavement when walking or running. Weiss comments, ‘Agility is the ability to start, stop and change direction efficiently.’ To improve your agility, Weiss recommends ladder drills, the 5-10-5 football shuttle test and figure-eight cone drills along with box jumps for advanced exercisers.

 

6. Increasing Flexibility: There are four kinds of stretching in which you need to take part if you want to increase your flexibility. Firstly, you need to take up static stretching, or lengthening a muscle and holding it for 30 seconds and focusing on one specific muscle. For passive stretching, you need to use a strap, gravity, body weight or another person to apply force while you relax. Then you need to incorporate PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) stretching, which involves a relax and contract method often used by athletes. Finally, Weiss recommends two to three sets of 20 dynamic stretches, which ‘includes multiple muscles and joints and provides the best crossover for exercise and sport.’

Categories: burn, calories, fat-burning, flexibility, Interval Training, Muscle, nbsp, strenght, stride length, weiss, weiss recommends

How To Lose Some Weight For Your Holiday

We all love going away on holiday, especially if that means a fun and warm break in the sun. But along with loving the feeling of sitting on a beach, swimming in the sea and getting the chance to really relax that you don’t really get at home, going on a beach holiday can actually cause a certain level of anxiety for us. For some people the anxiety comes from the stress of organising the holiday for others it is the stress of trying to afford the cost of the holiday. But a huge number of people also worry about the way that they will look when they are in their swimming costume on the beach.

 

If you have been lucky enough to book a holiday recently you may be feeling like this. Perhaps you’ve gained a little weight since your last holiday and you’re worried that you might not fit into your swimming costume like you used to. But don’t worry, all is not lost. We’ve got a really fantastic dieting plan that is the perfect way to help you drop those extra pounds very quickly and get in shape for your beach holiday. Based across just seven days, it is ideal for those people who need a quick fix to remedy their pre-holiday blues.

 

So how does it work? The plan is designed around a basis of cutting calories and going a lot of high intensity cardio work. In fact the overall goal of the plan is to create a daily calorie deficit of around 500 calories. When you consider that women generally need around 2,100 calories per day to maintain their weight, it’s clear that if you want to lose weight, you need to bring your calorie intake down. In the case of this diet, you’ll take it down to 1,600 calories and then workout to work off more calories.

 

On the first day of the diet you’ll eat for breakfast two scrambled eggs with one thin slice of wholemeal bread, without butter. Then enjoy a morning snack of an apple and six almonds. For lunch, have a salmon fillet with a butter-less roll, then a low-fat yoghurt and a half a carton of blueberries for your snack. Then for dinner have a low-fat chicken tikka masala made without the use of cream, with a small portion of brown rice on the side. To compliment this you’ll need to do interval training on the treadmill for 40 minutes.

 

Day two sees you having Weetabix for breakfast, celery and cottage cheese for your morning snack, baked sweet potato with ratatouille and feta for lunch, two satsumas for your afternoon snack and finishing the day with stir fried pork for dinner. Today is a rest day, so you don’t need to do any exercise.

 

On day three you’ll have porridge for breakfast, a slice of melon wrapped in prosciutto for a snack, bacon and lentil soup for lunch, a pear for your afternoon snack and Bolognese made with Quorn for your dinner. Then 50 minutes of interval training.

 

On day four have French toast for breakfast, miso soup as a mid-morning snack, chicken and avocado wrap for lunch, a small bunch of grapes for your afternoon snack and skinless cod fillet for sinner. Then complete a one hour walk for your exercise.

 

On days five, six and seven, simply repeat the contents of days one, two and three and you’ll be on course for a fabulous beach body that you’ll be proud to show off. So why not get started today?

Categories: afternoon snack, beach holiday, breakfast, exercise nbsp, holiday, holidays, Interval Training, morning snack, nbsp, Snack, swimming costume, Weight Loss

Is Your Daily Workout Giving You Optimum Calorie Burn?

Have you been focusing on your weight and fitness for a long time, but suddenly found that your weight loss has hit a plateau no matter how hard you work? Or have you been working out but think that you could kick it up a notch and make an even more significant difference to your wellness and wellbeing? Whatever the reason, there are always ways to boost your workout and improve the way that you are burning calories.

 

Interval training is the latest and greatest way to get cardio exercise into your routine. The technique has long been a favourite with competitive athletes, and it is now making its way into the amateur fitness circles. It is incredibly popular because it can reduce your workout time enormously whilst also increasing the number of calories that you burn.

 

In order to do interval training, spend around two to five minutes working out at a slow or moderate pace, and then increase your efforts to nearly your maximum ability and hold this for around 30 seconds to two minutes. Then go back to the slow pace again. Keep repeating this cycle as you work out, alternating between periods of intensity and periods of taking it easy. This throws your body out of homeostasis and requires it to work at restoring the balance for around 24 hours after your workout, which leads to an increased.

 

One recent study from the University of Colorado involved studying participants as they did a workout that involved four minutes of gentle cycling on an exercise bike, interspersed with 30 seconds of flat out spring cycling. Researchers found that after the workout was complete, participants continued to burn around 200 calories more than normal for the rest of the day.

Categories: burn, calorie, calories, Interval Training, nbsp, work, Workout

Seven Top Tips to Help You Get in Shape for Diwali

From the amazing food to the figure-hugging clothes, looking good during Diwali isn’t without it’s challenges. However, by making a few adjustments to your wellness plan, you can fix your fitness and wellbeing in time for the festivities.

 

1. Start with a good night’s sleep: According to ACE-certified Personal Trainer Sasha Gusain, who is also a fitness writer and editor for HealthyLivingIndia.org and HealthMeUp.com, ‘Sleeping right, on time and for the minimum six to eight hours every night is crucial to how you look come festival time.’ If you get plenty of regular, restful sleep, you’ll be better able to digest your food for the next morning, rest and recover more effectively after workouts and avoid the overall look of facial puffiness and weariness that comes from sleep deprivation.

 

2. Sort out your exercise routine: Gusain recommends planning a strength and cardio combination workout with a professional trainer. ‘Two weeks of regular workouts can help you trim the extra flab to a certain extent,’ she notes. ‘You won’t lose weight, at least nothing more than one to two pounds (at best – the healthy way), but you won’t add any more fat to your body.’

 

3. Try to clock five or six days at the gym for the next two weeks: Gusain advises, ‘Depending on workout intensity, plan the workout days in advance and stick to them. Don’t skip a single workout. You’ll be amazed to notice how much better you look and feel within just two short weeks.’

 

4. Incorporate interval training: Studies have shown that it isn’t the length of time that you workout for that makes the difference; it’s the type of activity and the intensity at which you do it. While this is a great method to keep your weight in check in the weeks leading up to Diwali, Gusain insists that it might become a way of exercising that you’ll fall in love with and stick to for life. She asserts that interval training ‘is immensely more involving and encouraging than hour after boring hour on the treadmill.’

 

5. Clean up your diet: With Diwali right around the corner, stopping eating healthy foods in the weeks leading up to the festivities will help you to look your best. This means you need to avoid all fried foods, greasy snacks, high sugar foods, and foods made with refined and processed flour. Gusain adds, ‘Avoid more than two to three helpings of high starch foods like white rice and potatoes during this phase as well.’ Moreover, as adding salt to foods causes you to retain more water and lose nutrients from your bones, cutting salt down as much as possible can get your body Diwali-ready.

 

6. Say no to your sweet tooth: While it’s OK to include a little bit of salt in your diet – and we’re talking about a very little bit here – any more than a teaspoon of white sugar every day is too much. Gusain explains, ‘Not only does white sugar add unnecessary calories to your diet, it removes nutrients from your body, and adds no nutrients of its own.’

 

7. Eat your fruit and vegetables: Veggies are ‘an important food group and help trim the fat, quite literally,’ Gusain says. ‘Strict fitness diets sometimes forsake the extra fruit sugar and follow just one or no fruits for daily consumption. This, however, is debatable and has many different schools of thoughts and reasoning. You should eat some fruits for the antioxidants, flavinoids etc, but if you’re on a strict calorie count, then trade the extra fruits for vegetables. Either way, a single serving of an apple, papaya, or pomegranate will benefit you as a healthy snack that satiates you and keeps you away from unhealthy snacking.’

Categories: Diwali, foods, fruits and vegetables, gusain, Interval Training, nbsp, weeks, weeks leading, white sugar, Workout

12 Minutes Ought to Do it: Study Changes Face of Fitness

If you want increase your fitness levels, four-minute bursts of high-intensity exercise will do the trick. This is according to a new study, published in the Public Library of Science’s PLoS ONE journal, which found that high-intensity interval training, such as running on a treadmill three times a week, helped overweight participants to give their fitness levels a 10% boost.

General wellness guidelines note that you need to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise a week to stay healthy. However, the findings of the study suggest that you can get the same results from 12 minutes of high-intensity exercise, spread across three sessions. Overweight volunteers who undertook the regime for 10 weeks increased their body’s oxygen uptake (which is a measure of fitness) by 10%, as well as slightly decreasing their blood pressure and glucose levels.

24 men, who were overweight but otherwise healthy, took part in the study. The researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim studied the effects of different exercise regimes on the participants, with half the men the regime taking part in four-minute sessions, three times a week, while the other half completed three 16-minute sessions, each divided into four-minute segments.

In terms of oxygen uptake, both groups demonstrated similar results, with an increase of 10% in the four-minute group, and 13% in the 16-minute group. However, while the blood pressure and glucose levels lowered by similar amounts in both groups, the more intensive 16-minute sessions were more effective at lowering cholesterol and body fat. According to the researchers, ‘These data suggest it may be possible to reduce cardiovascular mortality with substantially less exercise than generally recommended, provided it is performed in a vigorous manner.’

Dr Thomas Lee, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, commented, ‘Short episodes of very intense exercise can raise one’s risk for a stroke or heart attack or fatal arrhythmia during, or right after, the burst of exertion. I think this approach, which used to be known as “intervals”, is very reasonable and accepted among young athletes … I don’t encourage it among most of my older patients.’

However, Dr Arnt Erik Tjønna said the programme of brief but intensive exercise sessions could be a “time-efficient” method of staying fit, noting, ‘Since we know that more and more people are inactive and overweight, the kind of improvement in physical fitness that we saw in this study may provide a real boost for inactive people who are struggling to find the motivation to exercise.’

Categories: fitness levels, Interval Training, Research

Fight Stubborn Belly Fat with these Seven Ways!

No one loves belly fat from an aesthetic point of view, but this kind of fat is actually dangerous to your overall wellbeing. A portly midsection is a significant indicator of disease, signifying that your levels of the stress hormone cortisol are too high, and your wellness is at risk of deadly inflammation. However, a few simple changes can make you your very best from the inside out.

Firstly, start interval training. Sit-ups can help you gain that six-pack, but unless you shift the layers of fat above it you’re never going to see it! You need to work in some cardiovascular exercise between sit-ups, crunches, planks and other abdominal exercises in order to get the flat stomach you want and build a solid core. Between each abs-creating set, do 30 to 60 seconds of running on a treadmill, star jumps or use a skipping rope.

Next, don’t skip meals as this is actually counter productive. When you skip a meal, your body responds by storing fat, especially in your abdomen. To pacify cravings and rev up your metabolism (which you need to do to prevent fat storage) have small meals and snacks throughout the day. One thing you should skip, however, is sweet treats. Sugar causes unnecessary spikes and crashes in your blood and energy, and gets stored as fat when consumed in excess, so instead turn to sweet berries to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Fourth on this list is to boost your vitamin C intake, from foods like citrus fruits, broccoli, kale and bell peppers. Vitamin C keeps your cortisol levels under control and helps your body to produce carnitine, which converts fat into energy. Also, increase your intake of healthy fats. The high doses of omega-3 in avocados, walnuts and olive oil can improve satiety and boost your metabolism.

The last two belly fat busters go hand-in-hand; sleep and relax. Multiple studies have proven that too little or poor quality sleep leads to weight gain, as this depletes your energy levels, causing you to snack more throughout the day. Finally, you need to relax more as this can keep your cortisol levels under control, which, in turn, prevents weight gain. Try to make time every day, even if it’s just five minutes, to relax and meditate.

Fight Stubborn Belly Fat with these Seven Ways!

Categories: cortisol, cortisol levels, energy, gain, Interval Training, levels, relax, sit ups, sleep, vitamin c, weight gain