INTENSITY: THE KEY TO FITNESS SUCCESS

A gym peeve of mine is seeing people working out with too little intensity (intensity refers to how hard you work). I often see gym goers lifting far less weight than they should be working with, reading novels, and carrying out animated conversations during their workouts. As a general rule, if you can carry on a conversation whilst you are working out, then you are not working at the appropriate intensity. You should feel like your muscles have been thoroughly worked out, but you should not feel so utterly exhausted that you can't do anything else after the workout.

 

 

You can improve your workout intensity by working out for shorter periods of time whilst increasing weights and distance, cross-training, working out on an incline bench, and maximizing your body weight while working out, by using a weighted vest or ankle weights.

 

Research has shown that the higher the intensity, the more calories you burn, not only while exercising, but after you leave the gym, when your body benefits from an“after-burn” mode. Research also indicates that strenuous exercise blunts your appetite after workouts more effectively than longer sessions of easy exercise do.

 

By increasing the intensity of your workouts, you save time and improve your fitness, helping you to achieve and exceed your fitness goals much faster.