With summer now just round the corner you’re probably beginning to envisage those long summer evenings, barbeques and festivals. Another thought may also be related to developing that summer rig you’d be proud to display. Should that be the case I have noted 5 easy fitness tips for you to add into your day-to-day routine that will help facilitate such a goal. Remember these doesn’t need to be a permanent fix, it’s merely a means to achieve your goal.
Train with purpose and intensity
The difference between going to the gym and pushing your body to its physical limits, is that the aforementioned relieves your conscious and the later yields results. In order to achieve high intensity during your sessions and increase your fitness, you must factor in 3 key variables:recovery between sets; the amount of weight being lifted and the tempo (strictly speaking about resistance training). With this in mind, aim to lift using a weight that is around 60% of your 1 rep max, at a tempo of 3:1 (3 seconds for the downward or eccentric phase), whilst limiting yourself to 45seconds recovery. Make sure you get it right, if you’re unsure, use “Myfitnesshub” fitness guide to learn how to properly train and reach your body goals.
Vary your training sessions
The body is very good at adapting to stimulus and over time, this essentially leads to plateaus in results. Therefore instead of doing that same old weights or cardio session day-in-day-out – mix it up – factor in compound lifting, isolation training, cardio sessions, circuit training and core training. This will continue to challenge your body and give it reason to continue to develop.
Be strategic with your carb intake
Carbohydrates are often unnecessarily demonised when it comes to shredding, but this doesn’t need to be the case. The reason carbs get bad press is because they trigger a hormone called insulin (a storage hormone), essentially signalling the body to drive nutrients into the cell and consequently preventing the breakdown of fat. There’s a key time where you want this effect and that’s immediately after your training session; a time in which your body has been depleted and needs replenishment. Asides from this time of day – if the goal is to shred – I would recommend consuming no more than 100g per day.
Cut down on the booze
This is probably the point you guys didn’t want to see, but I’m afraid if you’re serious about the goal, then this is a must.
A famous nutritionist was once quoted saying ‘a quick way to pack on fat is by drinking your calories’.
There are many reasons for this. Firstly it’s often the case that who’ll continue to eat your daily calorie quota, on top of this additional bolus of calories. Secondly, when you drink, the dynamics surrounding the digestion process change and everything happens a lot faster, leading to an even sharper insulin spike and – you guessed it – a fat maintaining/increasing state. Finally, alcohol puts the body into a catabolic state – a state in which the body naturally breaks down muscle tissue and stores fat.
Boost your protein intake
Boost your protein intake and aim to get more of your caloric intake from foods rich in protein, such as meat, nuts, fish and pulses. This will give your body the potential to recover from training, repair muscle and develop. Try to get 2g per kg of bodyweight, daily.
This article was provided to TheBeardMag courtesy of Steve Watson – Sport & Exercise Science Bsc and Fitness Model. Be sure to check out his site for more fitness articles, give him a follow on Instagram also – @steve_watson_fitness