Best Exercises and Efficient Use of Time
What are the best exercises? And, what's the most effective use of your time for a quick workout when you are in a time crunch?
We found this article in The New York Times, April 15, 2011, and we think it is a great read. Some of the exercises touched on includes the squat, burpees, brisk walking, resistance training and HIT (High Intensity Training). Click on the link, read the below and give us your feedback.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17exercise-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
At Red Dot Fitness we talk about the squat with our clients as being a foundational and functional exercise -- when you think about it we squat multiple times throughout the day. Whether you are sitting down on to a chair, getting in to your car, or even having to use the toilet, those tasks all require us to squat. Squatting requires us to engage our trunk (anterior & posterior musculature) to keep ourselves upright while we are also recruiting our largest and strongest muscles in our lower extremity to complete this movement.
Burpee, a personal favorite of ours whether it includes a push up and jump or a modified version which includes no push up and no jump. Burpees are a fantastic whole body exercise which can help increase strength and endurance, and it is also a great exercise to intermix with your workout to help with your metabolic conditioning.
Brisk walking, all you need is a pair of shoes and you can do it just about anywhere! It is a low impact exercise and a great way to work on your cardiovascular endurance. You can walk on a level surface or if you want more of a challenge, find a place that offers rolling hills. If you only have one hill then do hill repeats -- that's where you walk up and down the hill multiple times, each time trying to maintain a steady pace or beat your previous time up the hill.
Lastly, HIT (High Intensity Training or High Intensity Interval Training) – talk about a workout! Whether you’re in a time crunch or are looking for a kick ass workout, HIT is an efficient use of time and it has been cited to increase one’s resting metabolic rate 24 hours post workout (i.e. EPOC excess post oxygen consumption), increase maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 max) and effectively burn fat. For more information on HIIT, you can resource: