Fitness

For those of us trying to get healthier, a sedentary lifestyle can be a major obstacle! Many people struggle with finding ways to stay active. Between work schedules, commuting, family obligations, and the popularity of working from home, it can be hard to find opportunities to exercise.

Luckily, healthy movement doesn’t have to look like going to the gym or attending fitness classes. If you want to get fitter, but have no idea of where to start, here are some proven techniques for making sure that you move more every day!

10 Ways to Get More Physical Activity Every Day

1. Use a wearable fitness tracker to quantify your steps per day 

One of the best ways to be proactive about increasing your physical activity is to monitor it, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to invest in a wearable fitness tracker, such as a smartwatch.

These devices can give you a more realistic idea of how much you’re moving, and thus make it easy to know when you should be moving more.

In addition to making it easier to actually quantify the amount that you’re walking, there’s also evidence that using a wearable fitness tracker can actually lead to a natural increase in movement.

For example, a systematic review found that fitness tracker use led to users getting in an extra 1,800 steps a day and 40 more minutes of walking on average (not to mention about 1 kg of weight loss).

2. Take regular walks during your lunch break or before work

If you find that a busy work schedule is one of the main obstacles getting in the way of your ability to get more physical activity, you may need to take advantage of the downtime that you do have throughout the day, even if it seems too short to be effective.

For example, a study was conducted to compare the benefits of walking in short 10-minute bouts versus longer 30-minute sessions.

The researchers ultimately found that, while the participants who did longer 30-minute walks ultimately saw bigger improvements in various health metrics, the group that broke their walks into three short 10-minute bouts still saw significantly increased physical activity as well as improved diastolic blood pressure when compared to a control group that was not prescribed a walking regimen at all.

So, on the days that you just can’t take thirty minutes or more out of your schedule for a long walk, you can still benefit from breaking up your physical activity into shorter bouts when you get the chance.

You could take a stroll during your ten-minute work breaks or while you’re on your lunch hour.

3. Start the day with a quick workout

If you find yourself starting off the day with every intention to fit in a workout after work but end up feeling too tired and unmotivated after a long day of taking care of your responsibilities to make that happen, you may benefit from starting off your morning with a quick exercise session instead!

Rather than saving it for later in the day, when you may lose motivation or run out of time due to your schedule, starting the day off with a quick morning workout can help you check your physical activity goal off of your to-do list right away.

Morning workouts may also help with habit formation, appetite/eating behaviors later in the day, and metabolic regulations caused by working out in a fasted state, all of which can add up to impactful results over time!

It may take some time to adjust to an earlier schedule, but it can lead to big payoffs over in the long run.

4. Invest in a standing desk

For a way to increase physical activity that barely feels like moving at all, simply switch your regular office desk for a standing desk instead.

Sitting too often is a major contributor to sedentary lifestyles. Using a sit-stand desk or a raised laptop stand can cut down on sedentary behaviors during your workday and has even been linked to significant improvements in fasting triglycerides and insulin resistance, both of which are important factors for your metabolic health.

Start by standing for twenty minutes, then sitting for ten. Then repeat the sequence.

Once you get more comfortable with your standing desk work set-up, you can start standing for longer periods of time, such as 45 minutes out of the hour.

To up the ante even more, you could add a walking pad underneath your desk. That could really increase your movement when you’re on the clock!

5. Change your regular commute

In addition to sitting for excessively long periods at work, you might also struggle with sitting for long periods during your commute.

So, if it’s at all feasible, consider other ways to get to work, such as walking or biking, so that you can naturally increase your physical activity during the day. Bonus point: it’ll probably be a great mood-booster, since being stuck in traffic for hours is never fun.

You can still apply this tip if walking or biking to work isn’t feasible for you, due to distance, safety, or weather. For example, you could simply start parking further away from the building where you work so that you have to go on a longer walk to get to your desk.

Or you could take the stairs instead of the elevator to get your heart rate up a little before you sit down to your day’s responsibilities.

6. Follow along with a YouTube workout or at-home fitness class

Even though hitting the gym or joining an in-person fitness class can often feel like the “gold standard” for getting a good workout, it certainly isn’t the only option. What’s more, many people find that they have too many obstacles in their schedules to attend a gym or class regularly.

So if, for whatever reason, a classic gym membership doesn’t fit in with your current lifestyle, you can still get a great workout from the comfort of your own home, by following along with video workouts!

Video workouts allow you to follow a structured workout routine without having to leave the house, making them a great option for anyone who doesn’t have the time or resources to go to a gym or class during the day.

Video workouts can also be extremely effective for helping boost your physical fitness.

A recent 2022 study found that the introduction of weekly muscle-strengthening and aerobic video workouts into fitness routines was linked to significant improvements in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, sleep efficiency, and physical activity frequency among participants.

The study also showed that afterwards, participants who did video workouts reported higher self-confidence and fewer perceived barriers to exercise!

7. Try a new sport

In a similar vein to video workouts, gym activities like lifting and running are probably the first exercises you think about when you consider increasing your physical activity. But don’t forget to consider doing sports as well!

Participating in sports and recreational activities like cycling and tennis was associated with lower odds of obesity in adults aged 40 and above.

Adding sports-based workouts to your life can be easy. For instance, you could invest in some baseball gloves and a softball and play catch with your partner or family instead of watching TV.

You could also look into your local city or town’s recreational opportunities or call your local gym to see whether they offer adult leagues for the sport of your choice. 

8. Dedicate an hour a day to household chores that get you moving 

They need to get done anyway, so why not try carving out some time each day for chores that you know will keep you busy and moving?

Some chores that are guaranteed to get you off your feet include weeding or pruning your garden, vacuuming, or walking the dog just one more time.

All of these chores naturally help you get moving and keep you productive in the process. Your household and your health will thank you!

9. Take frequent stretch breaks during the workday

It can be easy to lose track of time during the workday. Suddenly, you realize that you’ve spent hours in your seat, focused on the task at hand. That’s great for your job performance, of course, but excessive sitting isn’t always great for your physical health.

So, break up your work grind! To give your mind and body a much-needed break, try incorporating frequent stretches into your day.

This practice keeps you moving more, and it can even be highly beneficial for preventing pain and stiffness down the line.

For example, one study found that people who were instructed to participate in frequent stretch interventions saw significant pain reduction when compared to a control group that was not instructed to stretch regularly.

Give yourself a five-minute break every hour or so to stand up, move around, and stretch it out. If you need help reminding yourself to do this, try setting an hourly timer and recruiting your officemates.

You’ll all benefit from a much-needed mental wellness break, and you’ll be getting in some beneficial movement in the process!

10. Make your screen time double as an opportunity for exercise

There is another contributor to a sedentary lifestyle besides work and daily responsibilities: screen time. Our constant exposure to screens may eventually lead to too many hours of sedentariness.

But you don’t need to get rid of your screen time completely, especially if it’s one of your preferred ways to unwind at the end of a long day.

Instead, figure out ways to get some movement in even when you’re enjoying some well-deserved relaxation with your favorite shows or social media sites!

For example, you could try challenging yourself to do as many sit-ups as you can before the commercial break is over, or perform some Pilates or yoga while watching a movie.

Simply standing as you use social media, rather than sitting on the couch, can help you get the most out of it.

Conclusion 

One of the best ways to make progress on your health and wellness goals is to find ways to get more movement every day. We recommend experimenting with a few different methods to find out what works best for your lifestyle.

Those little changes add up and can make a huge difference over time!

You want to build muscle and get fit, so you know that you need to hit the gym and do some strength training. But as you plan out how you’ll meet your goals, you may be troubled by the eternal question: “How much strength training should I actually be doing?”

In truth, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this dilemma. It depends on many factors, including your aspirations and your current fitness level.

When it comes to strength training, it might be better to ask how you should be training, rather than how much. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what the research has to say about the amount of strength training you should do per week to hit your fitness targets. You’ll also learn how to optimize those strength training sessions, to ensure you’re spending your time wisely!

Why you need strength training

If your goal is to grow bigger, stronger muscles, you should add strength training (also known as resistance training) to your workout routine.

Resistance training, which includes such activities as lifting weights or doing bodyweight workouts, is a challenging exercise that puts stress on your muscle fibers. These strenuous movements cause microscopic damage to your muscle tissues (sometimes called “microtears”).

When combined with the right diet and plenty of protein, your immune system responds to microscopic muscle damage by repairing those muscle fibers. As a result, they grow back thicker and stronger, ultimately leading to bigger and more capable muscles. This process is also referred to as “muscle hypertrophy.”

It’s not all about aesthetics or sheer strength, either: resistance training’s effects on your body composition are beneficial for many other facets of your health. For example, resistance training can help you improve your balance and posture.

Additionally, increasing or maintaining your lean muscle mass can also be good for your overall cardiometabolic health. The lean muscle mass that you gain from strength training can enhance your metabolism in many ways, which means that it may help reduce some of the most common risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

So, how much weight lifting is necessary to reap these rewards? At the end of the day, the amount of strength training you need depends on the kind of results you’re looking for.

How much strength training do you need to gain muscle?

The desire to increase your muscle mass is one of the most popular motivations for beginning strength training. But, to achieve the ideal outcome, how should you train?

A systematic review and meta-analysis focused on several studies that addressed this very topic. Through their analysis, they concluded that people should train their major muscle groups at least twice a week in order to maximize their muscle growth.

You may be wondering what these training sessions should look like. The guidelines can vary, based on who you’re talking to. For example, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends doing higher-volume multiple-set programs to maximize hypertrophy. In other words, they recommend that you should do multiple sets of a lifting exercise, with each set having multiple reps.

However, other researchers have found that low-load training can also result in similar gains if you reach failure (in other words, if you work out until the point when you physically cannot do another set).

In both cases, it seems that you can achieve promising results as long as the intensity of your workout is high, and you’re pushing your muscles to the point of stress.

Also, it’s important to note that your muscle gains may differ depending on the muscle groups you’re training. A 2022 systematic review evaluated the effects of moderate (12-20 weekly sets) and high (more than 20 weekly sets) training volume on young men with resistance training experience.

They found that there was no significant difference between the two approaches when it came to building the quadricep and bicep muscles — but there did seem to be a significant advantage to doing high-volume training for the triceps.

Finally, the number of training sessions you need can change depending on your current fitness level. Evidence suggests that untrained individuals (ie: people with no/limited weight-lifting experience) saw greater muscle hypertrophy when training than individuals with weight-training experience.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that people with weight-training experience can’t rapidly build muscle. The same study also found that trained participants were able to attain similar rates of muscle gain as untrained individuals simply by adding more training sessions to their routines.

How much strength training do you need to lose weight?

Resistance training definitely has a place in your weight loss plan. However, it’s important to note that you may want to focus on body recomposition rather than weight loss if you’re incorporating strength training into the mix.

Resistance training primarily leads to muscle gain (or the prevention of lean muscle mass loss). Because muscle is denser and heavier than fat tissue, this means that you may see a higher number on the scale even though your body composition is actually improving.

Additionally, losing fat depends primarily on your calorie intake. In order to lose fat, you should be in a caloric deficit — in other words, you should be eating fewer calories than your body burns in a day.

While strength training can certainly increase your caloric needs, it might not be enough on its own for weight loss. However, pairing your resistance training with the right diet can help you to decrease fat mass while preserving your lean muscle mass.

Case in point: The American College of Sports Medicine’s Position Stand recommends at least 200-300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week for long-term weight loss, but also states that resistance training doesn’t enhance weight loss; rather, it can increase fat-free mass. This is better for body recomposition rather than strict weight loss.

How much strength training do you need to maintain your general health?

Finally, strength training can go a long way in keeping you healthy as a whole. It’s especially effective if you pair it with cardiovascular workouts that keep your body moving and your heart working hard.

The American Heart Association recommends doing moderate- to high-intensity resistance or weight-training workouts at least two days per week, in addition to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity per week.

Other considerations for effective strength training

Make sure to factor in rest time

While heavy strength training can help you reach your fitness goals, it’s also important to schedule in days for resting. This allows your body the time it needs to properly recover from all of that hard work, which it needs for muscle growth. Scheduling a couple of days a week for rest can also help you avoid overtraining, which can increase your chances of burnout and even injury.

Don’t forget the importance of eating the right diet to make muscle gains

Exercise alone isn’t enough to make your body composition and health targets a reality. For best results, make sure that you’re eating the healthy and balanced meals that complement the work you’re doing in the gym.

The optimal diet for you depends on your goals. For example:

• If you want to gain muscle, you should prioritize eating plenty of lean protein and take in more calories than you burn.
• On the other hand, if you’re trying to lose weight, you should aim for a caloric deficit.

Conclusion

When combined with a proper diet, strength training can help you build muscle, gain strength, and improve your overall health. To optimize your success, perform strength training at least twice a week, making sure that your workouts are challenging and push your muscles to the max!

Highlights

• Aerobic Exercise- the ultimate exercise for increasing heart health, vascular health, and metabolic rate.
• Resistance Training- the best training for gaining muscle strength and function. 
• Concurrent Training- get the best of both aerobic and resistance training. 

When you think of exercise, what immediately comes to mind?

Going out for a jog? Loading up weights at the squat rack? Or maybe both?

All of those classify as exercise, but they serve different purposes. If you want to increase your squat 1-repetition maximum by 50 pounds, a daily cycling class won’t get you there.

It’s clear that your body adapts differently to different types of exercise, but how does that happen and what does it mean for your health?

This article will break down the benefits of different fitness regimens: aerobic, resistance, and concurrent training. In the process of reading this article, you will soon discover that your fitness goals can be achieved with some basic exercise physiology background!

What is Aerobic Training?

Aerobic exercise stimulates the heart and breathing rate to provide your muscles with oxygenated blood. The energy that powers such exercise is produced in muscle cells primarily via an oxidative pathway, meaning oxygen is required.

That explains all the heavy breathing when you go out for a run, doesn’t it?

That oxygen is delivered via blood being pumped from your heart, through your arteries, and returning to the heart through your veins.

So, it’s apparent that aerobic exercise primarily works two systems: energy production in your muscle cells and blood delivery in your cardiovascular system.

So how does this help you?

Does Aerobic Training Strengthen The Heart?

Aerobic exercise trains the heart to be stronger and more efficient at circulating blood. With aerobic exercise, the chamber of the heart (left ventricle) that pumps blood to the rest of the body literally gets larger and squeezes out more blood per pump, which means its stroke volume is increased. This results in an improved capacity for cardiac output, which is the quantity of blood pumped by the heart per minute.

If you’ve heard of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart), it may seem counterintuitive that a large left ventricle muscle is a beneficial adaptation to aerobic exercise. But, important characteristics differentiate an enlarged left ventricle due to healthy aerobic exercise training and one resulting from disease.

A strong, efficient heart is exactly what you want in order to live a long and healthy life.

If your heart is bigger and stronger, pumping more blood per beat, it doesn’t have to beat as rapidly. That’s why you often hear of elite endurance athletes with resting heart rates in the 30’s and 40’s. This is more important than it may seem: lower resting heart rate is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

All these cardiac adaptations are aided by an increase in blood volume that occurs with aerobic exercise training. Without getting too technical, the expanded blood volume improves the heart’s contractility and filling capacity, allowing it to pump more blood per beat.

Although the heart is a different type of muscle than what’s in your arms or legs, it’s still subject to a related function. It contracts in order to move blood throughout the body. In addition to making it stronger and more efficient, you can also lighten the heart’s load by decreasing the resistance it faces.

How does aerobic training reduce arterial stiffness?

Each time the heart beats, arteries in the body provide resistance to the blood flowing.

The resistance provided by arteries is variable, though. Aerobic exercise training reduces the heart’s workload by reducing arterial stiffness.

When you perform aerobic exercise, your heart rate increases, pushing more blood through your arteries than at rest. The inner wall of your arteries feel the increased blood flow, and through a series of mechanisms, causes your arteries to widen.

As you train and your arteries experience this regularly, they become more effective at expanding. If you don’t regularly do aerobic exercise, your arteries never experience this stretch and they literally stiffen up (it is harder for your heart to pump blood through a stiff tube). Additionally, arterial stiffness is associated with coronary artery plaque development, the stuff that causes heart attacks.

Aerobic exercise also impacts your vascular system by promoting capillary growth. Capillaries are the microscopic vessels where oxygen diffuses from red blood cells to muscle (and other) cells.

Aerobic exercise requires increased oxygen delivery to the muscle to produce energy, so your body grows more capillaries to be able to better handle the energy demand.

How does aerobic exercise affect your metabolism?

Along with cardiovascular adaptation, aerobic exercise substantially impacts your muscles’ energy production system. Once blood delivers oxygen to the muscle cells, they still have to use it to produce energy that powers all the exercise you’re doing.

Aerobic exercise also relies to a great extent on breaking down fat molecules for energy, which can only happen within mitochondria.

Consequently, aerobic exercise training drastically improves your muscle cells’ ability to burn fat by generating more mitochondria and improving their functionality.

High-intensity aerobic exercise also increases your excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), resulting in increased calorie burn after training sessions in addition to what you burned while exercising.  However, to maintain EPOC as you gain fitness, make sure to gradually progress your training intensity.

How Does Aerobic Training Impact Body Composition?

People who struggle with being overweight or obese have likely been told that aerobic exercise is a cornerstone of any weight loss routine.

The key to aerobic exercise is that it keeps the heart rate elevated for a continuous amount of time. While this will help to burn calories, it has specific impacts on body composition that people should keep in mind.

A study published by the American Physiological Society took a look at the effects of regular exercise in adults. This study lasted eight months and placed adults on either aerobic training programs, resistance training programs, or a combined program. The researchers found that those in the aerobic training program lost more weight overall, including more fat mass than those in the resistance training program. On the other hand, those in the resistance training program gained more fat-free mass, including lean muscle.

To recap, aerobic training causes the cardiorespiratory system to adapt. It maintains heart function and health and keeps your energy metabolism system running.

Aerobic exercise is a jackpot for fitness and a key element of maintaining your health. But it may not get you big muscles or make your body much stronger…what will?

What Is Resistance Training?

Resistance exercise is training that progressively overloads your muscles. Some examples of resistance training would be traditional weightlifting, bodyweight exercises like pushups and pullups, and resistance band exercises. These types of exercises are meant to make your muscles bigger, stronger, more powerful, and more functional.

Specific adaptations to resistance training begin within the muscle cells. However, you’ll still get systemic benefits ranging from muscle growth to cardiovascular benefit.

To gain a deeper understanding of the whole-body performance and health effects of resistance training, read into how resistance exercise affects muscle at the microscopic level.

How does muscle adaptation work?

The point of resistance training is to make muscles function more effectively. This all starts with the contractile proteins that act to control muscle shortening and lengthening.

When you do resistance exercise, some of those proteins get yanked apart. That, along with the stress your muscle experienced, is the stimulus for your muscle to rebuild – this time bigger, stronger, or more powerful than before.

After resistance exercise, your muscle synthesizes proteins (this is aided by nutritional stimuli i.e. protein consumption). Special cells known as satellite cells also spring into action to help build up the broken down muscle. They normally lie quietly adjacent to muscle cells, but resistance exercise tells them to get to work.

Satellite cells combine with the muscle cells that were strained and damaged during your resistance training session. In doing so, they lend their molecular machinery to support protein synthesis that leads to muscle hypertrophy.

Resistance training with loads over 60% of your 1-repetition maximum results in hypertrophy of primarily type II fibers (‘fast-twitch’). These fibers are capable of rapid contraction with high force but tire more easily.

These micro-level adaptations matter to athletes and the general population alike. When you make measurable gains in muscle mass, strength, or power, you can thank the protein synthesis and fiber-specific adaptations that occurred within your muscle cells.

How does muscle hypertrophy occur? 

All those microscopic adaptations add up to cause changes that are easier to grasp. Resistance training at the proper intensity leads to measurable muscle hypertrophy. Strength improves in part due to changes to the neuromuscular system. Control over your muscles is typically a balance between competing neural signals. Some of those signals tell the muscle to contract, while others prevent contraction.

Regular resistance training can reduce neural inhibition that normally limits the strength and/or endurance of the muscle.

Muscle accounts for roughly 20% of resting energy expenditure, so it impacts on calorie burn and body composition is meaningful. Not only that, but you can’t increase the mass of most of the other organs that account for resting energy expenditure, like the liver, heart, brain, and kidney. Muscle is different because it hypertrophies, growing larger, and expending more calories.

By packing on muscle, not only do you increase strength, power, and function, but you also raise your basal metabolic rate. And by doing so, you’ll see an increase in your metabolism and an improvement in your health.

Does Weight Lifting Count as Cardio? 

If you’ve ever lifted weights or done resistance exercise, you’ve probably felt your heart pounding with the exertion.

Does that mean you’re getting cardiovascular and metabolic adaptations like you would with aerobic training?

Maybe not.

Resistance exercise does raise your energy expenditure. But it does so differently, and to a lesser extent, than aerobic exercise.

Resistance exercise trains your energy production systems but has less impact on the aerobic energy systems.

Is Resistance Training For Everyone?

Even if you’re not an athlete. Resistance training is important for functional fitness.

Functional strength training is defined as: “Training that attempts to mimic the specific physiological demands of real-life activities.” Unlike more traditional strength training (which focuses on specific muscle groups during each exercise), functional training focuses on whole muscle groups to train the body for daily demands.

A common misconception is that you may be too old for resistance training. But clinical data from a multitude of sources clearly shows the benefits of improving one’s functional fitness level, particularly for older adults.

Functional training such as resistance exercises and bodyweight movements can help you become stronger, more flexible, agiler and better equipped to handle day-to-day feats of strength and athleticism that are often overlooked. Plus, it can help you become less injury-prone.

A study recruited seniors who were struggling with their physical abilities and placed them in a resistance-training exercise program. At the end, the researchers observed an increase in their fat-free mass, their muscle mass, their gait speed, and their overall physical capacity. This shows that resistance training not only improved body composition in the elderly but also helped to increase mobility to improve their ability to complete day to day activities.

How Does Resistance Training Impact Body Composition?

A study found that regardless of the frequency of the resistance training program, participants increased overall muscle strength. The participants increased lean body composition.

Resistance training is a great way to increase lean muscle mass, and it improves the physical capacity of the elderly, leading to significant improvements in their quality of life. This evidence supports the positive capabilities resistance training has in both building lean body mass as well as maintaining lean mass in aging populations who are at risk of muscle loss.

These adaptations to resistance exercise impact your health and physical performance. Your muscles carry you through the day and increase performance if you’re an athlete.

Breaking down and building up muscle through resistance training is essential to maintaining function as you age. Loss of muscle mass even threatens some people’s capacity to live independently.

In terms of body composition, muscle mass is not only an important component to maintain, but it also contributes to your resting metabolism, helping you maintain a healthy energy balance.

Resistance training benefits the cardiovascular system, but its role is mainly for muscle gain and function.

But, how can you reap the benefits of both aerobic and resistance training? Do you just combine the two however you want?

What is Concurrent Training?

Concurrent training is the combination of both aerobic and resistance exercises within the same training session. Aerobic and resistance exercise impacts your body differently, so it follows that they each cause adaptations via different mechanisms.

How should I order my aerobic and resistance workouts?

In practice, aerobic/interval and resistance training don’t seem to interfere with each others’ adaptations all that much. But, understanding a few specifics about concurrent training will allow you to make good decisions about your exercise program.

The type of aerobic training determines how it interacts with resistance exercise adaptations. While strength and hypertrophy gains could be diminished by adding run training to a resistance program, cycling does not have the same effect.

Why? Researchers aren’t exactly sure. But it may have to do with two factors:

• Cycling ergonomics are more similar to traditional lower-body resistance exercises
• Eccentric muscle contractions in running result in muscle damage, while the concentric contractions in cycling do not (to the same extent).

The modality of aerobic exercise (running versus cycling) is important to understanding the effect of concurrent training, but so are frequency and duration. In some cases the more aerobic training you add to your program, the more you may impact muscular adaptation. So pair your training programs correctly; a running program in conjunction with an upper-body lifting exercise may benefit overall, but a running/leg press workout every day could interfere with one another.

And if you’re doing both aerobic and resistance exercise in the same session at the gym, or even on the same day, you’ll want to consider the order in which you do the exercises. It’s basically a matter of prioritization.

If your priority is on building aerobic fitness and performing well in a running race, do your aerobic exercise first in a session, followed by resistance exercise.

On the other hand, if your priority is building strength and muscle, you’ll want to do resistance exercise followed by aerobic.

However, the order probably doesn’t matter if you’re untrained.

The takeaway: if you’re untrained and haven’t set distinct fitness goals yet, don’t worry yet about the order of aerobic or resistance training. Do both and start exercising your way to health!

How do you develop a Concurrent Training program that’s right for you? 

If you’re just going to the gym to stay healthy, the benefit of gaining both aerobic and muscular fitness is well worth it.

To get the most benefit from your hard work at the gym, make sure to use these tips:

• If your priority is muscle strength and growth, choose aerobic exercise like cycling rather than running to complement your lifting routine.
• Consume enough protein and carbohydrates to stimulate muscle growth and recovery after workouts
• If you alternate aerobic and resistance sessions, maximize recovery time between sessions (separate them by at least 6 hours)

Chances are that concurrent training is right for you, so go get started!

A Well-Rounded Exercise Program

As people continue to struggle with obesity and functional fitness as they age, exercise is more important than ever. It is vital to combine diet and exercise to not only lose weight but have a favorable impact on body composition and your lifespan.

Furthermore, it is important to have a well-rounded exercise routine that touches on all types of fitness. Aerobic exercise is effective at maintaining an elevated heart rate and losing fat-free mass. On the other hand, resistance training helps to build lean muscle mass. You can combine the two, with concurrent training, or jump into an explosive HIIT workout when you don’t have much time or need a motivation boost.

With this insight, you will be better equipped to understand why exercise is important for your health (a great motivator), how different types of exercise interact, and which ones are best suited for your needs.