Fitness & Wellness

Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or dad or just at home with kids occasionally, you don’t have to skip exercising. There are home workouts that address all types of fitness and for all parts of the body that don’t require special equipment. You can even break up the workout into several sessions and do them when you have a short break, including while the kids are napping. Do some with the kids to help them learn a healthier lifestyle.

Use circuit training or HIIT—high intensity interval training—workout.

Both circuit training and HIIT have something in common. They can cut your workout time dramatically. During circuit training, you go from one exercise to another with only a short rest between them. HIIT alternates intensity from peak intensity to a recovery pace. With both HIIT and circuit training, you can use any exercise. It’s all about the way you do the workout. One short circuit training workout rotates one minute of each, butt kicks, jumping rope, mountain climbers, and burpees. Then rest for a minute and start again. Do this circuit of exercises four times for an excellent workout.

Do bodyweight exercises anywhere.

Push-ups, pull-ups, lunges, and squats are a few examples of bodyweight exercises you can do anywhere. If you’re watching TV with the kids, get on the floor and do a few planks. You can do these exercises almost anywhere. Lunge walk throughout the house for a few minutes a day to add to your workout. Practice squats while you do household tasks like picking clothes off the floor or taking laundry out of the dryer. Merge exercises with your daily tasks to add to your workout at home.

Strength building doesn’t require special equipment.

You don’t have to have a set of weights to build strength. Building strength is all about lifting something heavy. You can use anything, including your child, which makes it fun for the kids, too. If you want to invest in inexpensive exercise equipment, consider resistance bands. They’re inexpensive and easy to store. They provide a workout that can build muscles on all planes. Using water bottles filled with water or sand can also double as dumbbells.

• Get everyone involved. Buy jump ropes or hula hoops for the whole family. Everyone will get the benefit of exercise that way. You can do these workouts even when the kids aren’t awake.
• If you’re normally home with the kids, schedule your workout as you would any appointment. You can make it when the kids nap or schedule it another time and exercise with the kids.
• Don’t forget to spend a few minutes warming up before you workout. It helps get your body and mind ready for exercise. At the end of each session, spend a minute or two with cool-down exercises.
• Take advantage of the things you have in your home. Use your stairs as a substitute for a step-master. Run up and down the stairs. You can even pick up laundry or put away toys while you’re doing it. Just keep moving.

For more information, contact us today at Next Level Fitness

If you live in Irvine, CA, and want to get leaner and stronger, there’s nothing like a strength-building workout to do it. As you build muscle, you burn fat. Even if you don’t shed a pound, you’ll look thinner. Muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch than fat tissue does, so a pound of fat requires a larger container. It’s like comparing a pound of feathers with a pound of steel. The container holding the feathers will be larger. As you gain muscle mass, even if you don’t lose weight, your body will look thinner, and you’ll wear a smaller size.

Building muscle mass is different from building strength.

When you do strength-building, it creates lean muscle mass. You have to workout differently to get the bodybuilder type of muscles. The difference between training for bulk and training for strength. Building strength is all about lifting heavier loads with lower repetitions, while bodybuilding is all about lifting lighter weights and training to failure. It doesn’t matter what type of training you do, whether it’s for strength or bulk, always rest the muscles for 48 to 72 hours between sessions for the same muscle group.

What you eat makes a difference.

Eating healthy is vital to getting a lean, muscular appearance. If you’re overweight, you have to either maintain the same caloric intake or cut it back slightly. Eating whole foods, including plenty of vegetables, and increasing protein can also help build muscle tissue faster. The protein required varies by age, weight, sex, and activity level.

Add HIIT workouts to your routine to burn extra calories.

You need cardio training no matter what your goal. Cardio torches calories but gets the extra energy from burning both fat and muscle tissue. The loss of muscle tissue can interfere with strength building and weight loss. It lowers your metabolism. Including HIIT—high intensity interval training—-to your workout can burn tons of calories while building muscle tissue if used during a strength-building workout.

• Cut calories to get the lean look, but not by that much. Reduce your calorie count by 500 calories daily and increase strength training to burn fat while maintaining enough calories to build muscle tissue.
• Use a combination of isotonic and isometric exercises. Isotonic exercises include squats, pushups, and crunches. Isometric exercises include planks and yoga poses such as the Warrior or boat pose.
• Don’t worry about weight. Focus on inches instead. Since muscle tissue weighs more per cubic inch, you may not lose weight but will lose inches. You’ll get the lean svelte appearance and build strength.
• Get help from a personal trainer. A trainer can design a program to help you accomplish your specific goals. He’ll include methods to help you reach those goals faster, like using compound exercises or HIIT workouts.

For more information, contact us today at Next Level Fitness

Do you want lean muscle mass? All muscle is lean, but fat can get into the deteriorated muscle fibers if you don’t exercise. When muscle fibers do that, fat deposits replace it. That means building lean muscles is the same as building any muscle tissue as you lose fat tissue. It is easier to do everything when you’re stronger. It takes less effort to do simple things, including carrying your weight when you walk. That means you’ll build your endurance and stamina.

Muscles support the joints and act as shock absorbers.

If you run or jump, strong muscles can help protect your joints and prevent damage from the impact. It helps you workout longer in the gym, which also transfers to other areas of your life. If you’re strong, you’ll be able to walk further without getting tired. Simple tasks will remain simple and not overwhelm you with exhaustion. Strong muscles help you maintain your stamina whether you’re playing with the kids or scrubbing the floor.

Use heavy loads to build stronger muscles.

Focus on your form by lifting lighter weights initially. Once you know you perfected your form, increase the load. Training with heavy loads requires more control and also builds more strength. While exercising correctly is vital, so is recovery time. Your body builds muscle when you rest. As you work out, it makes micro tears in the muscles. When those heal, they make the muscles stronger. You need at least one rest day a week and 48-72 hours between workouts for the same muscle group.

Eat healthy to build lean muscle tissue and boost your energy.

If your diet is nothing but food with added sugar or highly processed carbohydrates, not only will you not build muscle tissue, but you’ll be also cutting your stamina. Sugar boosts your energy, which drops as rapidly as it increases. Instead, focus on whole foods and include more protein in your diet. Protein is the building block that forms muscles. No matter how hard you work, if you don’t have the necessary materials for building muscle tissue, it won’t happen.

Prioritize sleep. It’s vital to get at least six hours a night. Some people need as much as nine hours. Each person is different, so find the amount of sleep that’s right for you.

Eat a pre-workout and post-workout snack that’s carbs and protein. It can help with recovery and boost your energy during the workout to ensure you won’t hit the wall mid-session.

Focus on exercises that involve several muscles and joints. These compound exercises work more muscles at once. That makes them more effective. Include HIIT workouts for strength-building. They also boost your stamina as you build muscle tissue.

Use a trainer. Trainers can create a program that’s perfect for your goals. They help you accomplish more in less time. A trainer will also show you the proper way to do each exercise, reducing the potential for injury and improving results.

People come to Next Level Fitness in Irvine, CA, for many reasons. One of the most frequently seen is the desire to eliminate fat and build muscle. There are proven exercises and dietary changes that will help you melt fat fast. That doesn’t mean it won’t take effort, because it will, but you’ll love the results. You’ll build muscle tissue as you burn fat and boost your metabolism in the process. Here are some fat-burning ideas to get you started.

Include HIIT workouts.

A HIIT workout is not a specific exercise but a way of doing any exercise. It’s all about alternating the intensity from high intensity to a recovery pace. HIIT workouts build cardio strength as they burn tons of fat. You can use this technique with strength-building exercises, too. It burns extra calories that come from breaking down fat, not muscle, and burns extra calories after you stop due to afterburn. You’ll burn as much as 15% more calories.

Your diet plays a vital role in fat burning.

To lose fat, you have to lose weight or change the fat into muscle. HIIT workouts build muscle and eliminate fat but adding a healthy diet is also vital. If you consume 3500 calories more than you burn, you’ll gain a pound. In many cases, that pound is fat. Including fruits and vegetables in your diet is vital, but so is including adequate protein and healthy fat. Healthy fat helps burn body fat and protein builds muscle tissue. Both keep you feeling full longer. Doing strength training while cutting calories can help maintain muscle tissue while burning fat.

It’s not just diet and exercise that counts.

If you don’t get enough sleep or stay hydrated, you’ll be less active and less prone to workout. That is just one problem caused by both. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body increases the amount of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, it makes and diminishes the amount of leptin, the satiety hormone. That keeps you hungrier, so you cave to temptation. Thirst is often mistaken for hunger, so dehydration can cause you to eat more.

• Do some heavy lifting to build muscles as you burn fat. The more muscles you have, the more calories you need to maintain them. Burning those extra calories can cause you to lose more fat.
• Increase your exercise to boost the creation of irisin. The body has white and brown fat. Brown fat burns more calories. Irisin turns white fat to brown fat, increasing calorie burning by 20%.
• Compound exercises burn more calories than isolation exercises. Compound exercises like lunges and squats work more muscles and joints. It also boosts the creation of nitric oxide, which can lower blood pressure.
• Ditch the soft drinks, including diet drinks. Traditional soft drinks are high in sugar. Recent studies show diet drinks increase waist circumference size. In other words, it increases belly fat.

For more information, contact us today at Next Level Fitness

One of the biggest problems people face with intense focus on their fitness goals is not including rest days. Rest days may sound like you lay on the couch on those days, but it isn’t what you do. Instead, you engage in recovery activities like walking or moderate biking. You’re doing your muscles and fitness program a service when you take a day or two from intense exercise.

Recover on rest days.

Intense workouts take their toll on your body. It’s why they’re called intense workouts. You push your muscles to the limit, causing micro tears in the muscles. When you rest, it gives the body time to make repairs, healing the muscle with scar tissue that makes the muscles larger and stronger. Those microtears never heal if you never rest. The accumulation of microtears makes your muscles weaker. Light exercise during rest days boosts circulation to speed recovery.

Exercise stresses your body.

Exercise burns off stress hormones, but intense exercise causes new stress. If you give your body a chance to rest, the rest solves the problem. If you don’t, it causes all the conditions that stress does, which include psychological problems like moodiness. It can cause a high resting heart rate, make you tire quickly, disturb your sleep, and lower your immunity.

Rest days improve your focus.

If you find your mind wandering or you’re not getting the desired results from your efforts, you need a rest day. Focusing only on exercise not only narrows your world. It can cause brain fog. Your mind isn’t in the game. You’ll often end up just going through the motions. That can cause you to become less focused on form and cause injury. Taking a rest day can solve it.

• You can reduce the number of rest days by alternating your work on different muscle groups. Muscle tissue heals in 48-72 hours, so working on the upper body one day, the lower body the next, and a rest day on the third is a good option.
• Do activities you enjoy on your rest days. They can be physical, like dancing, biking, or playing basketball, but they don’t involve going to the gym or doing specific exercises. It helps keep your mind more refreshed.
• If you don’t exercise intensely, you won’t need rest days. People who walk regularly don’t require it, but people who do intense strength training do. Strength-building workouts require replenishing glycogen and healing time.
• You’ll improve your performance by taking a day of rest. Lack of rest days causes a higher heart rate, fatigue, reduced agility, reduced endurance, and increased reaction time.

For more information, contact us today at Next Level Fitness