It’s time to move your body!

It is well known that some kind of movement is needed if you want to lose weight. Being on a diet is not enough. Yes, do cardio to burn fat. Yes, you need strength training as well to build muscles. However, there are certain tricks and tips, which help you make your fitness plan more efficient. Here are a few.

Find an appropriate fitness buddy

A workout friend is extremely helpful for keeping you on the move. Should you want to miss that training, he or she will drag you to the gym. However, it is important to go with someone who keeps you motivated and will not discourage you. Free time, dedication, loving sports, support, keeping up with your pace, pushing your limits – these are the key characteristics the perfect fitness buddy should have.

Change uninterrupted low-intensity fitness for interval training

Many people think that a cardio training at a comfortable pace, e.g. a long, slow march equals to a shorter intense training. Well, no. The success hides in a combination of high-intensity cardio and slower, recovery efforts. 15-20 minutes high-intensity training should be followed by a 5-10 minutes low-intensity part and afterwards this pattern should be repeated at least 2-3 times. This can burn as many calories as an hour of traditional, steady-state cardio. Intervals can also keep your fat burning mechanism active long after the workout ends.

Pick your favourite music

Training with music you like is a great way to get in a groove, should it be aerobics, running, strength training, traditional fitness or cardio. The only condition of picking the proper tunes is that the music should pump you up. No matter if you pick rock music, pop music, dance music or even classical music, the point is that it should get you going. You will be more motivated if you hear music you like. If you are on the street (e.g. running), make sure you hear the sound of the traffic as well.

Building muscles comes first, then cardio

There was a test in Japan, when the efficiency of strength training was studied. The study concluded that if you perform your strength training first, you’ll burn twice as much fat while you do your cardio excercises afterwards. It is probably due to the fact that muscles are valuable tissues which help burn fat themselves. It is worth keeping this order, isn’t it?

Boost up your exercise, work harder

OK, so you keep going to those training sessions. You do the excercises each time. Always the same. But sooner or later you feel that it is not enough, you would be capable of doing more. How do you know when to increase your exercise? The general rule is to up the amount of miles run till half-marathon length by 5 to 10 percent each week.