Benefits of Interval Training

We all know that exercise is essential for controlling blood sugar, normalizing insulin levels, and getting or staying in shape. There are different techniques that can help you exercise, and Interval Training is one of them.

What is Interval Training?

Rather than just doing cardiovascular exercise, Interval Training is a type of physical training which involves bursts of high intensity work and then followed by periods of lower intense workouts.

Interval Training can be used with different types of exercise methods, such as running, stair climbing or cycling.

Most adults should be able to handle this type of exercise, but if you have a known heart condition, you should see a doctor (cardiologist) first to give you the clear to start incorporating Interval Training into your exercise routine.

How to Incorporate Interval Training

During your Exercise:

1)  Choose an exercise  such as the treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical machine.

2) Warm up.

3) Exercise: Workout at an intense pace for 30 seconds, then recover with a lower intensity for 90 seconds.

4) Rinse and repeat for 8 sets, for a total of 16 minutes.

5) Cool down.

Important: You can do Interval Training one or two times per week in replacement of your regular exercises during the week. You shouldn’t do Interval Training more than two times per week, due to the extreme intensity and strain that is placed on the body. As Interval Training can be very healthy for you, you don’t want to over train, since this increases your risk of injury.

Before/After  your Exercise:

Sleep! You need to be well rested to maximize the benefits of your workout.

Drink plenty of Water . Don’t drink soda (especially diet), sugary juices, or vitamin water.

Eat a well-balanced diet, and be sure that you are consuming a proper amount of calories. It’s very important that you stop eating Junk Food and Candy! Proper nutrition is vital for exercise, especially when you perform an intense workout such as Interval Training. Sugar and grease are the last things your body needs.

What sets Interval Training Apart

Improves Aerobic Capacity – Helps to increase the length of workouts and at varying intensities.

Boosts Fat Burning – With the intense workouts mixed in with regular paced exercises, most people will notice a decrease in body fat.

Increases HGH – Interval Training helps to increase the Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which is a natural growth hormone which aides muscle strength.

Boosts Metabolism – Interval Training helps with burning fat throughout the day by increasing your metabolism.

Start seeing the results of a healthier lifestyle with Interval Training! Who’s ready to start?

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This is a must with every workout!

Whether you are swimming, running, or riding a bike…you should make sure that you do a proper warm up and cool down with your exercise routine. Unfortunately, a lot of people try to skip this essential workout “must”, without ever realizing that they are missing a very important piece to the puzzle.

I’ll give you some reasons why a proper warm up and cool down are important.

Warm up

Warm ups should be easy and short. Having a proper warm up helps provide blood flow to your heart and muscles. With the increased blood flow, the lactic acid in the muscles is minimized, which increases the overall performance of the workout. Synovial fluid is released into the joints which allows increased elasticity in the muscles and increased flexibility for the tendons and ligaments. A good warm up also helps activate the nervous system before your workout.

To prevent injury during your workout, be sure to properly stretch after your warm up. Do not stretch before your warm up, since this can cause injury.

Cool down

After your workout, it is very important to allow your heart rate to return back to a normal rate. You should do this by decreasing your pace, slowly by slowly until your heart rate has decreased. You should focus on breathing in slowly as you continue to decrease the intensity of your workout. This should take about 5 minutes, longer if you had a more intense workout.

Stretching after your cool down is important to prevent injury, help relax your muscles, and quite honestly – just feels great to stretch your muscles after you have had a good workout.

Sum it all up…

Here’s the bottom line when it comes to a warm up and cool down: Both help to prevent injury, and help maximize your exercise experience. What good is getting injured when you are trying to lose or maintain weight? It’s important to stay healthy, which includes staying injury-free.

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Tags: cool down, exercise, Fitness, flexibility, Healthy, injury, Stretching, Synovial fluid, warm up, Weight Loss

Walk, Jog, or Run?

Is walking better for you, or is jogging? What about running?

Walk

Walking is a lot easier on your body than jogging or running, and if you have been out of the gym for awhile, walking is an excellent place to start. Walking is also a great cardiovascular exercise, and should not be looked at as an inferior workout to either jogging or running. Try to keep a steady brisk walk, and this is a great way for you to burn calories and lose weight.

Focus on walking correctly, get good comfortable shoes, breathe correctly, and work your way up to speed walking. If you have ever had a knee injury, you might want to stick to walking until you have fully recovered from your injury. Never feel like you have to go faster than what your body is ready for, or capable of.

With any other workout that you do, walking is also a great cool down.

Jog

If you like a short and intense workout, jogging might just be for you. Jogging takes less time for the same calorie burn and cardiovascular benefits compared to walking. Be sure that you have great shoes, and that you are jogging correctly. Jogging can be really hard on the knees and shins if you jog “wrong”, jog for a prolonged amount of time, or even if you didn’t properly stretch before or after your workout. Something important to also keep in mind, is to breathe correctly. It is important that you breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. If you need help practicing this, try walking until you can get the hang of things.

Run

Most people who say then went “running” actually went “jogging” instead.  Running is faster than jogging, and if you are on pace to finish a mile in less than 9 minutes, you are “running”. Just like walking and jogging, running is a great cardiovascular exercise, but takes much faster to burn the same amount of calories as it does for walking or jogging. Just know that this is an intense workout, and not for those just trying to get back to the gym. This is something you should work up to, but you don’t have to reach this point.

Which one is for me?

Do what is best for your body. Because I have had a knee injury in the past, I am not pushing myself to run, and I even limit the amount of jogging that I do. Am I depriving myself of anything? No. Whether you walk, jog, or run,  you are having a cardiovascular workout, burning calories, and getting a great exercise in. As long as you are properly warmed up and prepared, whether you walk for an hour, jog for 15 minutes, or run for 3 minutes, your body will thank you.

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