There’s no easy shortcut to loosing weight and getting in shape. But, there are more efficient ways to accomplishing these goals. Here’s some “fitness shortcuts” designed to help you maximize your weight loss and fitness program.
Incorporate Intervals Into Your Fitness Routine – A recent study found that doing 10 four-minute speed bursts with two minutes of slow walking or cycling after each burst, and doing this interval workout three times per week, helped to ‘up’ the body’s ability to use fat as fuel during exercise by 25 percent after six weeks. Keep in mind that the intensity of each burst needs to be about about a 8 or 9 (with the top of the scale being 10).
Do a Different Routine Each Time You Workout – It’s easy to do the same routine during each workout. So, mixing up your routines may not seem like much of a fitness shortcut, requiring you to put a bit more thought into creating different workouts. But, do that one, and cycle through different workouts during the week allows you to keep things interesting, increase your intensity, and improve your overall results. For example, add weight training to more of your workouts. Or, try one day working extra hard on running (and light on strength) – and reverse that for the next workout.
Bypass the fat-burning zone. – Many cardio machines have a "fat burning" heart rate zone. Ignore that. Instead, keep in mind the more effort you put in, the more intensity you sustain, means the more fat you’ll burn. When you’re running, the "half effort" spot is what most machines define as a fat burning zone, and that’s the level you can do on an "easy day". Exercise at a slightly higher rate, and add intervals, will help you to burn extra fat.
Get Some Sleep! – When you’re stressed and exhausted, and that becomes the norm, your body produces cortisol – it’s a safety mechanism that causes your body to hold onto fat. Getting six-eight hours of rest per night can help you to not only recover faster from your workouts while decreasing stress, it also helps when it comes to your body shedding those extra pounds as well!
Increase the Incline On Your Treadmill – Running up an incline causes your body to burn more calories. The steeper you go, the more you’ll burn, as running uphill is harder than running on the flats. Doing hill intervals are a great way to burn extra calories while breaking up the boredom of a training session, all the the same amount of time you may have spend running previously.
Make your workouts even easier by saving time workout out at home. Fitness 4 Home Superstore features the industry’s top cardio equipment strength equipment, and fitness accessories. Stop into any of our three Phoenix-area stores to learn more!
