If you wish to stay healthy and be in good shape, it is important to incorporate workouts into your everyday activities. However, if you want even better results from your training and to make sure all the hard work will result in a banging hot body, here’s what you have to do.
You must get familiar with the different training techniques and learn the right ways to combine them in effective, fat-burning and muscle-strengthening workouts.
Basic training techniques include flexibility exercises, strength-training, aerobic (cardio) and circuit training.
To improve your health and get maximum results from your workout, you have to combine these techniques in a number of intense trainings – either alone or with the help of an experienced fitness trainer.
Every complex workout should start and finish with flexibility training, because the stretching it involves provides foundation to all of the other training types.
Namely, this type of exercise warms-up your muscles for the vigorous training ahead of you, lowers the chances of you being hurt during the rest of your training and improves your flexibility as well as range of motion.
On top of that, if you practice yoga or tai-chi, you will feel more relaxed, the levels of your stress will diminish and you will improve your balance and strengthen your muscles.
Moreover, you will learn how to breathe to provide enough oxygen for your muscles during workouts. In addition, your posture will significantly improve, as you will strengthen the core that supports your spine.
Strength training is an anaerobic and isotonic training technique, which means it helps you maintain and improve your muscle strength, contracting the muscles without joint movement.
Moreover, when it comes to strength training, you are able to choose between dynamic and static sets of exercises. In addition, you have the option to limit yourself to submaximal, or opt for the maximal strength training.
Dynamic exercises offer full range of motion and use resistance to strengthen your muscles, by performing a bench press, leg press or sit-ups.
On the other hand, static exercises help maintain the tone of your muscles by holding a dumbbell steady with your arms fully extended outwards, or pushing against immovable objects, for example. You may also get on top of a plank, or a deep squat position and hold.
Then, you may choose to contract your muscles with less than your maximum strength, or train to failure, which is when your body simply cannot take it anymore.
Aerobic training increases your heart rate and keeps it between 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate.
Aerobic exercises, such as fast walking, running and swimming, activate large muscle groups and are performed for longer periods of time – more than 15 minutes in one take – to provide the desired effects.
However, for the workout to be efficient, it is very important to give your muscles a chance to rest. For example, if you are in the middle of strength training, do as many reps as you are able, or sustain static hold for the maximum amount of time possible.
Then, rest for 10-15 seconds and then repeat all over again. Moreover, in the next set, focus on another muscle group and when you reach the end of endurance, rest once again and repeat everything from the beginning for as many times possible.
After a while, with this technique, your body is sure to surprise you with its tenacity. On the other hand, some gyms offer “circuit training,” which combines aerobic and strength-training exercises and involves jogging between them.
Moreover, there is an option of combining different exercise equipment, working at each station for 30 to 45 seconds, with short periods of rest walking between the stations.
In addition to that, you are even able to make your own circuit training regimen, moving through the different parts of your home, combining strength and cardio training.
Another interesting technique that utilizes the benefits of short rest are Tabata Intervals, which combine 20 seconds of workout and 10 seconds of rest in order to improve overall cardiovascular fitness.
Furthermore, you are able to apply this technique to the number of different aerobic and anaerobic exercises, such as running, swimming, weight lifting, or static holds.
For a total body workout, try mixed martial arts training (MMA) as well, which was designed to incorporate every group of muscle, in contrast to some other sports that require one set of muscles to be used more than another.
Namely, this training combines various sets of movements, which include punching, kicking, grappling, sprawling and more in order to activate your whole body. Moreover, MMA improves your flexibility and develops your fighting and self-defense skills.
In addition to that, it combines cardio, strength and metabolic conditioning, to improve your endurance, power and agility. The workout type is high intensity training (HIIT), developed to maximize the amount of calories you burn.
However, you don’t have to think about how different exercises should be combined and done properly. Meaning to say, there is always an experienced instructor at your disposal to help you prepare for the training, stretch and do the rest of the workout correctly.
It is true that with MMA training, you will see the results only after a couple of months. However, when this much time has passed, you will not only be stronger than before, but also more alert and your skills and technique will significantly improve.
In order for you to have a versatile body workout that covers all of the major muscle groups, you need to combine different training techniques, which involve both aerobic and anaerobic exercises.
Moreover, you must not underestimate the power of short rest in between the reps, as it can do wonders for your muscle strength and endurance after a while. However, if you wish to get in shape and also develop fighting and self-defense techniques, sign up for MMA classes instead.