workouts Archives

Tips & Tricks to Make Your Workouts More Exciting

Workouts can become tedious at times, especially if you repeat the same routine every day. The initial excitement wears off, and it is easy to lose motivation. But it does not have to be this way. Your fitness program can become an activity you enjoy rather than merely another chore on your to-do list by making small modifications. Including diversity, entertaining challenges, and new elements will help you rediscover your passion for fitness while staying motivated and energized.

Switch Up Your Scenery for a Fresh Perspective

Changing your surroundings is one of the simplest ways to reinvigorate your workout routine. Try exercising outside rather than in the same gym or at-home configuration. Adventure is added whether one runs or walks across a park, hikes a fresh track, or bikes along a picturesque road. The fresh air and change of surroundings might improve your attitude and help the training to seem less regimented. If outdoor exercise is not possible, try a new gym or another area of your house. Rearranging your space or using ambient lighting or music will also help to create a more pleasant environment, which will help you to remain motivated and involved.

Incorporate Fun Challenges and Games into Your Routine

Including a playful component to your exercises will help your otherwise boring chore become an exciting, competitive experience. Create personal goals, including striving to surpass your record for distance, time, or repetitions. Think about signing up for a fitness challenge among friends or relatives so you can encourage one another and take advantage of some friendly competition. Fitness apps that transform your exercise into a game also reward you for success and advancement. These minor adjustments instill a sense of purpose and accomplishment, making the workout feel like an exciting game rather than just exercise. You’ll find yourself pushing harder without even realizing it by keeping it light and enjoyable.

Experiment with New Workouts and Exercise Styles

Monotony is the enemy of motivation, so break free from your usual routine and try something completely new. If you run regularly, mix things with a dance class or try swimming. If weightlifting is your preferred activity, think about including a yoga class or a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program. Trying different workout methods not only tests your body in new ways but also keeps your mind active. It’s an opportunity to learn new skills, discover hidden talents, and figure out what you enjoy most about fitness. Targeting several muscle groups also helps balance an exercise program and increase general fitness.

Use Music and Technology to Elevate Your Experience

The right music can change your workout and provide the drive and energy you need to complete even the hardest activities. Use programs that create a playlist depending on your tastes or compile playlists full of energetic tunes to match the intensity of your exercise. Syncing your movements to the beat of the music can make the workout feel more rhythmic and fun. Additionally, you can benefit from technology such as fitness trackers and apps that offer guided workouts, track your progress, and give feedback. Interactive classes and virtual reality exercises provide a special twist that increases the immersive and interesting aspect of fitness. Including music and technology gives you even more fun that keeps your body moving and your mind focused.

Prioritize Comfort and Confidence with the Right Workout Gear

Your performance and satisfaction during an exercise can be much influenced by the clothes you wear. Choosing comfortable, well-fitting workout clothes for older women allows you to move freely and concentrate on your workout without distractions. Appropriate workout attire not only improves comfort but also confidence, thereby helping you to feel good about yourself as you exercise. Breathable materials, smart designs, and useful features catered to your needs produce a fun and useful exercise environment. Making the appropriate gear investments helps you to easily meet your training objectives and stay motivated and dedicated to your health journey.

Conclusion

Revitalizing your workout routine does not necessitate a major overhaul; rather, it entails making small, enjoyable changes that make exercise feel like a rewarding part of your day. You create an interesting and dynamic experience by changing the surroundings, adding challenges, attempting different styles, employing music and technology, and including social components. Instead of dreading your workout, you’ll begin to look forward to it because it provides an opportunity to have fun, relieve stress, and care for your body. With a little creativity and a new perspective, your workouts can become one of the highlights of your daily schedule.

9 Unconventional Exercises to Try This Summer

The new year may get all the hype for resolutions. However, do you remember how cold and icy January can get? Summer is a far superior season for starting a new program, with fresh air and sunshine beckoning you to get outside and move your body.

However, there’s no need to stick to the tried and true. Why not mix things up and engage muscles you typically neglect by finding something completely different from your routine? Doing so might be just the ticket for busting through that plateau. Here are nine unconventional exercises to try this summer.

Rock Climbing

Are you seeking a hardcore yet low-impact fitness regimen that works every muscle while making you feel like the amazing Spiderman? If so, rock climbing may be your ideal unconventional exercise to try this summer. Begin by honing your skills in an indoor facility, then graduate to the big mountains as you attempt increasingly more difficult climbs.

Rock climbing won’t only keep you strong. Do eye problems run in your family? This sport increases your visual acuity as you scour the next spot to place your hands and feet. It also improves overall speed and agility, stretching your muscles as you reach for the next rock while strengthening them and getting your heart pumping all at once.

Aqua Yoga

Summer is the perfect time for enjoying hot yoga — some days might reach the 105° mark with 40% humidity, especially if you live in parts of the desert southwest. However, what if you don’t like the idea of slip-sliding across a sweat-slick mat while you hold a downward-facing dog?

Why not give aqua yoga a try? You can find classes for all levels, and you might discover pool workouts are easier on your joints if you have creaky knees and better for holding poses like a dancer, thanks to the water’s support. However, opt for yoga on a paddleboard if you want a balance challenge. You’ll strengthen your core and getting a bit wobbly means enjoying a cool dip in the pool.

Uniwheeling

Have you met the Onewheel? This combination fitness gadget and transportation device looks like a skateboard with a fat tire smack dab in the middle. Using one works your core and balance while getting you where you need to go.

It takes a bit to feel comfortable, but it shouldn’t take long to get the knack of riding this device. When you want to accelerate, you lean forward. If you’re going to stop, you lean back. Please always remember to wear your helmet — safety first.

Ice Skating

The swimming pool isn’t the only place you can beat the summer heat. Why not head to your local ice skating rink for a cool workout that blasts your quads and hamstrings.

You might want to take a lesson or two if it’s your first time on the ice. Are you partnered? Why not try this activity together?

Parkour

What’s the fastest way to get from here to there? It’s a straight line — but sometimes, pesky objects like fences and stairwells get in the way. Enter parkour.

This sport has you running, jumping and vaulting over obstacles while you improve your overall strength, fitness, balance and spatial awareness. It’s a terrific confidence booster that encourages self-reliance and creative thinking — what’s the best way to get over that wall?

Live Action Role Playing

Do you live to indulge your nerdy side? If so, live-action role-playing might be your ticket to a fitter summer.

This activity lets you dress up in costume, transforming into a medieval knight. Sword fighting gets your heart pumping and builds impressive shoulder strength — just be sure to use a wooden prop instead of the real thing.

Geocaching

Perhaps you live to solve a mystery. Geocaching has you seeking hidden treasure around your town, forcing you to go for that walk by giving you a purpose.

You need to find a group and download the app to participate. Then, select a cache to find. Once you locate your hidden treasure, take a picture to share with the group on social media and leave it there for the next seeker.

Video Games

Did you think of video gaming as an activity for couch potatoes? Not necessarily. It all depends on what you select.

For example, Zombies, Run! casts you as the protagonist during the ZA. It provides that extra motivation you need if your response to “do you run” is, “only if something’s chasing me.” Fitness Boxing has you throwing hooks like Tyson while you punch your way to a leaner shape.

Dance Parties

Do you love to party? If so, why not get the whole family involved and have some fun while getting fit?

You don’t need equipment to throw an impromptu dance party in your living room. Merely dock your iPhone and boogie down, taking turns and seeing who can invent the most creative moves.

Unconventional Exercises to Try This Summer

Forget new year’s resolutions. Summer is the ideal time to start a new fitness routine.

Why not try one of the above unconventional exercises this summer? You’ll have a blast burning calories and getting in shape.

About The Author

Ava Roman (she/her) is the Managing Editor of Revivalist, a women’s lifestyle magazine that empowers women to live their most authentic life. When Ava is not writing you’ll find her in a yoga class, advocating for body positivity, whipping up something delicious in the kitchen, or smashing the patriarchy.

Summer Burn: Fat-Melting Workouts

The simplest way to burn fat is to start working out and rectify your nutrition. However, these types of tips are dreadfully non-specific. You see, the problem lies in the fact that working out for fat melting and working out for muscle gain are not one and the same. Also, rectifying your nutrition can mean a number of things (again, depending on whether you’re burning fat or bulking up).

So, for all those who want to shape up a bit this summer, there are a couple of fat-melting workouts and nutrition tips that are bound to give you desired results.

The CICO Principle

If you decide to oversimplify matters, it would be safe to assume that fat-melting and losing weight come down to simple mathematics. You need to see your body as a machine and calories as a fuel. Once you spend all that you’ve consumed, your body will dip into an emergency mode and start burning calories that are stored in your fat cells. Therefore, in order to burn fat, you need to get into a calorie deficit.

● It’s really that simple: Calories-in, calories-out (CICO).

Now, there are two ways to achieve a caloric deficit. The first one is to start eating less. Which raises another question – less than what, exactly? This is not as simple as it sounds, and there are a couple of things you need to know first.

For starters, you need to get a rough assessment of your metabolic rate. This is how many calories you burn during an absolute rest. Once you have the figure, you will get an exact number of calories that your body would burn even if you weren’t to lift a finger throughout the entire day.

Now, the best way to use this knowledge is to simply google your food and start doing some math. There are so many guides and calculators online, which means that all you need is a device and a fast internet connection in order to get all the information you need.

Increasing Your Metabolic Rate

This is where the exercise comes along. Seeing as how you’re determined to shed weight this summer, you might want to increase your daily calorie use, and there are two ways to do so.

● The first one is to engage in a serious cardio routine, seeing as how these are the exercises that burn a lot of calories. This means that you would, technically, either burn more fat right away or be able to get away with a less strict diet and still burn fat.

● Second, you need to build some muscle. Muscles require more calories for maintenance, which means that it will be harder for you to gain weight on default.

The key thing is that you combine your new nutrition habits and your workout regimen. This way, the results will come faster, and it will be a lot easier to achieve your fitness goals.

Outdoor Workout

When it comes to summer fat-melting routines, it’s inevitable to talk about outdoor workouts. This topic is not as simple as you would expect it to be. First of all, outdoor cardio in extreme heat is incredibly dangerous. You’ll get dehydrated a lot faster, and even if you do use an appropriate sunscreen, sweating profusely might make staying safe from the sunrays increasingly difficult. Needless to say, this can make your summer skincare routine a bit more difficult.

This is why summer might not be the best season for outdoor workout activities. Finding an air-conditioned gym, an indoor workout venue, or picking early morning/evening for your outdoor workouts are really the only ways in which you can pull this off (safely).

Of course, there are some things that are simpler (or exclusively available) in the summer. For instance, you can find yourself in an open pool and start swimming regularly. An average person can burn as many as 600 calories while swimming for an hour. Just keep in mind that open pools are usually filled with people during summer. This is why finding a suitable lane will not be as easy as you expect it to be.

Eating and Drinking Habits

Seeing as how we’ve already covered the caloric requirements, now, we’ll mostly focus on the actual eating and drinking habits you should focus on.

During summer, you’ll lose water more rapidly. This is why you need to pay more attention to your hydration. Sticking to water is always the safest idea, seeing as how salts (electrolytes) and sugars will facilitate your dehydration. Therefore, energy drinks, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages may be quite problematic.

Moreover, going for a protein shake may help make this simpler, especially when you add some ice to the shake in order to turn it into a refreshing beverage.

When it comes to your protein intake, it’s usually smart to spread it across your entire day. So, add something protein-based into every single one of your meals. This shouldn’t be difficult nor expensive, seeing as how a single egg white usually contains roughly 6 grams of pure protein. Moreover, going for a protein shake may help make this simpler, especially when you add some ice to the shake in order to turn it into a refreshing beverage.

Workout at Home

The thing about working out at home is that you can do it in a closed and air-conditioned space. Even if you prefer working out outside or going to the gym, working out at home early in the morning (even for just 15 minutes) can make a world of difference. Adding this extra micro-training can drastically improve the rate at which you’re melting fat.

In order to outfit your home gym, you really don’t need that much. For starters, you can do skip rope for cardio or, if you want to spend a bit more, get yourself a stationary bike or a treadmill. When it comes to weights, you don’t need to get a lot of expensive equipment. Instead, you can just order a kettlebell of an appropriate weight. This is a piece of equipment that will allow you to do a full-body workout.

Other than this, you can just try your hand at calisthenics. A simple pull-up bar (or a pull-up and dips set on the wall) will give you virtually everything that you need. In combination with a kettlebell, you’ll be able to reach a combination of optimal efficiency and convenience.

In Conclusion

While starting on time is always the best solution, the truth is that the idea that it’s “too late now” is nothing but an excuse. You would be surprised at just how quickly you would start seeing results if you were to fully commit to these fat-melting principles. Rectify your nutrition, make a sustainable regimen (from a weather and personal lifestyle perspective), and give it your best to stay as consistent as possible. Soon, even the most ambitious fitness goals for the summer will become feasible.

About The Author

Stacey is a freelance writer living in Minnesota with her cat, and she’s passionate about yoga, languages, home improvement, and drinking strong coffee. Find her on Twitter @StaceyShann0n

Sports Physiotherapy to Keep Your Hips Strong

Have you wondered if your hips are weak or tight? What can you do to help out tighten your hips in a way they do not look too bulky? Sports physiotherapy professionals help in keeping your hips strong and mobile. This blog covers everything you need to know that can help you have beautiful legs and strong muscles around your hips.

#1. Foam Rolling

You cannot have a magic fix to have a short–term relief for anything. You can try applying pressure in the area or do some foam rolling. Doing so can increase the blood flow on the muscles and provide them with extra oxygen. This delays the onset of muscle soreness and helps you recover soon. You can follow the videos online to get some tips from sports physiotherapy professionals on healing soreness.

#2. Take Care of your Feet

The natural position of your pelvis can be affected if you have relatively flat feet. If you compare it with people who have higher arches, flat feet can cause the pelvis to get forward. Sometimes the muscles of your hip can also end up working more than normal, making it difficult for you to walk easily. Your flexor can give out even while doing a simple exercise as advised by sports physiotherapy professionals.

You can manage it somehow by wearing an orthotic insole to provide support and stability in the running shoes. It’s effective if you are wearing it for your day-to-day footwear. A podiatrist will let you know if footwear is enough to help you out with your hip problems.

#3. Move Your Hips

Sometimes the pelvis is naturally tilted forward. However, you don’t have to worry about this. There are some exercises to do that can help you with getting your service to become more flexible. What you do usually is tilt the pelvis subtly, and it makes you feel you’re circling the lower back by folding the tailbone you have in your back. That is why it is better for you to do exercises that make you feel natural. You just have to hold for 10 seconds and repeat it 10 times.

#4. Glutes Need Your Attention

You might sometimes feel irritated in the hip flexors, as the nearby muscles are not performing well. It would be a better option to talk to a sports physiotherapy professional who can help you with strengthening your glutes. However, there are a few exercises such as single-leg bridges and forward lunges that can help you with that.

You can just aim for 15 stations of such exercises and do it in two to three sets. It would be even more effective if you repeat it three or four times a week. You can start from easier steps and go to more difficult ones with more dumbbells. It will get easier for you to repeat it the 15th time.

#5. Muscles in your Stomach

Another aspect that can help you flex your hips is focusing on your stomach muscles. If you feel tightness in your hip flexors, consider that the abs aren’t supporting your hips. Sports physiotherapy professionals provide you with a lot of exercises to help you move your core easily. Two of the most effective exercises are stability ball rollouts and bicycle crunches. The routine of these exercises is also the same: repeating two to three sides until you’re tired.

Conclusion

Following a common set of routines every day with a perfect training plan developed by sports physiotherapy professionals can help you stay healthy and keep your hips strong.

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About The Author

I am Amelia Varley. I love to write on different topics, like health, home décor, automotive, business, food, lifestyle, finance, flowers, beauty, and more.

10 Awesomely Unique Ways to Work Out

Tired of doing the same weight-lifting or cardio workout day after day? When it comes to losing weight and getting in shape, your worst enemy is boredom! Working out is already hard enough, but it becomes twice as difficult if you have ZERO motivation to get through that workout.

Instead of forcing yourself to slog through the routine you always do, it’s time to mix things up! Get out of the gym and check out these EPIC ways to get in a wicked workout:

Sprint Training — 20 minutes of exercise to burn the same number of calories as you would in 45 to 60 minutes of jogging? Yes, please! Sprint training is a High Intensity Interval Training workout involving 30 to 60 seconds of sprinting interspersed with 30 to 90 seconds of rest. The more you sprint, the more calories you burn–up to 400 calories in just 20 minutes!

Rock Climbing –– If you’ve never tackled a challenging rock face, you haven’t lived! Not only is it absolutely exhilarating once you reach the top of the cliff, but it’s a grueling workout just to make the climb. Every muscle in your body will be quivering from supporting your body weight, and you can burn up to 900 calories in a single hour!

LARPing –– Live Action Role Playing isn’t just for geeks and nerds anymore! You can dress up in a suit of homemade armor and challenge your fellow man to a duel. The running, fighting, falling, and acting will be a goofy, hella-fun way to burn calories! (See the movie Role Models for an example of LARPing…)

Dancing –– And by “dancing” I don’t mean the Zumba or hip hop workouts you see in every gym, I mean Tango, Flamenco, Salsa, Bachata, break-dancing, or anything new and fresh. Not just a great cardio workout, but a whole lot of fun as well.

Martial Arts/MMA –– Nothing beats kicking ass and getting a solid workout in at the same time! You may only burn about 500 calories per hour in training, but once you hit the sparring ring and take on an opponent, your calorie-burning increases to as much as 800 to 1000 calories per hour. Add in improved dexterity, enhanced breath control, and an understanding of self-defense, and you have one killer workout!

Hiking –– Instead of sticking with walking or jogging in circles around your park, why not take to the forests and hills around your city? Hike to the top of a nearby mountain, or visit a lake a few hours’ hike from your home. The walk will do you good, and you’ll enjoy some time with family and friends away from the city.

Parkour –– Want to be one bad-ass man or woman? Take a crack at Parkour, the French art of running, climbing, and jumping. It’s an amazing workout that pushes both your cardio and muscular endurance, and you’ll find it’s a whole lot of fun as well!

Commute by Bike –– Instead of trying so hard to fit a gym trip into your day, why not simply cycle to work and back? You can read speeds of about 15 MPH pretty easily, and you’ll find it’s a great way to get in a workout (morning and afternoon) without having to fit any extra gym time into the schedule.

Pole Fitness –– Even men can try this class, though it’s usually aimed at women. Combining sexy pole dance movements with exercise and awesome music makes for an epic workout, and you’ll find that it leaves you tired and sore like any gym training session!

Golfing –– No, not the kind where you casually stroll across the greens and hit the occasional ball. We’re talking the driving range, where you hit those golf balls with all the power you’ve got. Not only will you work on your form, but you can have a whole lot of fun driving those balls and getting in a decent cardio and core workout!