GOQii

Blog

By Leave a Comment

Gender Specific Workouts- A myth

Gender-Specific-Workouts

How often have we asked this question of which work out is the best for me? How many of us have this myth that gyms workouts are specific to genders? Many of us do. Many a myth abounds regarding workouts and what is good for me and what is not?

It was a while before my friend and her husband decided to join the gym. I helped the couple with their Gym shopping such as shoes, water bottle, gym apparels, gym bag etc. And therefore all the more curious to know how was their first day at the Gym?

But, unfortunately, my friend’s first-day experience at the gym was very disappointing as was felt from her facial expressions. She was totally dissatisfied with her workout. Her first question to me was: “Hey I want to get in shape and lose this damn belly. I don’t want to look muscular”.

When did I ask her what had happened and what was the reason for her disappointment? She told me the reason and I burst into a laugh. But, on second thoughts I was not surprised hearing her reason. Most women gym goers are of the impression that they have special needs and that if they trained in a similar way as a man did, then they would start looking muscular like a guy

I calmed her down and explained how this was not true and that there is nothing called gender specific workouts. This whole concept of gender-specific workouts is an inbuilt inhibition of our own self. Physiologically speaking, women don’t need different workout plans. The reason being women do not have testosterone hormone which is responsible for building up massive muscles. Hence lifting heavier weights will not lead to building huge muscles unless you are supplementing it with additional testosterone.

Secondly, women tend to develop muscles at about half the rate at which men do. Therefore women who either altogether avoid lifting weights or only lift very light dumbbells for a high number of repetitions should stop having thoughts about developing huge muscles overnight.

The determination to work out or exercise on a regular basis is not about man vs. woman. It varies from individual to individual and what each person needs to be based on their body type and fitness levels.

One should make sure that you do not let anyone tell you what to do and what not to do. If you ever have a doubt you should speak to your personal trainer or coach. Your determining factor should be whether or not it is for you based on many over factors way beyond that.

The only time when a possible change in workouts may come about is during pre and post pregnancy or due to other medical conditions and advised by the doctor

Thus, safely we can conclude, both men and women need to apply the same general principles of weight training for improved fat burning and body toning, cardio for keeping the heart healthy, proper diet and enough rest to ensure overtraining doesn’t set in.

By 2 Comments

Running is not bad for Knees

Running is not bad for Knees

I am an avid runner and run every morning. A lot of people are now taking up running as an activity but are also scared of running due to the various myths floating around. For the longest time, I have been hearing that running is bad for the knees. More often than not this statement always comes from people who are not runners or even attempted to run. They are the sedentary doctors.

According to me ‘Running is not bad for the knees’, however, what’s important is to have the right posture and form while running. There are a number of running techniques which can really help you to increase your endurance and boost stamina.

Today, there are two distinct running styles – Gliders and Gazelles style exhibited by Ironman’s best runners. Ironman is a series of long-distance triathlon race that includes swimming, biking and running. One can choose these running techniques according to your body.

High knee drive is the main characteristic of the gazelle style due to which it gives longer air time with more distance covered between strides and a faster possible velocity. Glider-style is a more upright posture with a low knee and throws the foot out in front of the body. Landing comes almost instantly after toe off. But glider maintains the same speed for long.

While it’s not running but, the poor running form that can cause knee, ankles, hip and back injury. For instance, most of us have tightened, shortened hamstring and iliopsoas muscles as a result of sitting around in chairs all the time. When these muscles, which are prime movers when you run, cannot perform their task with efficiency, the knee joint is put under unnecessary pressure and stress. These imbalances are what lead to poor running form, which in turn leads to injuries.

Here are a few tips for running

1.         If your back hurts due to running, then probably you are bending too much while running. Try to focus straight or something in front of you instead of looking at the ground while running.

2.         Check the landing of your feet while running. If your feet hurt then you might be running or jogging on the tips of your toes or hitting your heels on the ground. Running on the balls of your feet is the best.

3. Never try to run on the tip of your toes or heels, it can result in injury.

If you are not experiencing severe pain in your knees, you can still jog using the Chi Running technique. Chi Running technique uses your core strength for running. Chi is the energy that syncs body, mind, and spirit together,  Energy passes from your core (In anatomy, the core refers, in its most general of definitions, to the body minus the legs and arms. ) into the limbs to create movement.

This process engages your core and relaxes your limbs to allow your legs to simply support your body weight instead of pushing or pulling it forward. When your structure is aligned and your muscles and joints are relaxed, chi can flow freely through the body, making running feel effortless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2La1wFOYvE

By 7 Comments

Best fat loss exercise for Indian women.

382361-woman-in-gym

In India, most women have only one fitness goal – WEIGHT LOSS

From my experience as a fitness coach, most young girls/women have similar goals – flat stomach or that thigh gap or those toned arms.

The biggest mistake women make in their fitness pursuit is that they are chasing “weight loss” when they really should be chasing “fat loss”.

Young girls and women have a very clear picture of their fitness targets. But, too many women are misinformed about the CORRECT way of achieving those targets.

KEY: CARDIO will not get you to your goals fast.

Losing WEIGHT by purely staving yourself and doing exhaustive cardio works, but neither is good for your overall well being, nor is it the most effective means of burning fat.

Let’s break it down. When you do any form of CARDIO exercise. Running, jogging, even some hipster cardio exercise like some form of dance or martial arts, you’re burning calories. You’re burning off the fat that is stored in your body and using it for energy.

So it is burning fat but, keep in mind that the fat burns only WHILE you’re doing that particular exercise. Once you go home, your body enters a period of rest and things are normal.

Now let’s consider what happens to your body during and after WEIGHT TRAINING.  So weight training is like any other EXERCISE. In order to go through with it you need to exert your body. You need to spend calories.

While you’ve undergone resistance training, while you’ve done squats or push ups or a bicep curl, your muscles are made to fight against that resistance. In doing so, your muscles undergo a number of minute tears.

After your exercise, when you go home, and you’re resting, these tears in your muscles are repaired by your body. In order to repair them, your body spends calories, and continues to burn fat even when you’re on your couch, watching TV and even when you’re asleep.

SIMPLE CARDIO – Burn calories only while you exercise.

RESISTANCE TRAINING – You’re burning calories while you exercise AND you’re burning calories even after the exercise, while you’re chilling out at home.

The added advantage of resistance training is the lean muscle you put on in the long term. The more muscle you put on, as a woman, the more fat you’ll burn.

The other big issue I’ve seen in Inida, is that many women are afraid to take up weight training because they think they’ll end up looking like a “bulked up bodybuilder”. They don’t wanna get “Bulky”. You need to know that these overly bulky women have taken a LOT of steroid injections to make their bodies turn into THAT.

Many of them have used testosterone, the male hormone. The testosterone is what makes those women bulky and it’s also what makes mens’ muscles bigger.

Rest assured you won’t become like that UNLESS you take testosterone injections. As a woman, your natural biological make up will make you look beautiful always, it will make you look “girly”, unless YOU mess around with it.

Priyanka chopra, Bipasha Basu, Alia Bhatt. All these women lift weights and have been lifting weights for a long time. They aren’t bulky by any means.

If you still aren’t convinced about this, I urge you to at least try it out for a couple of months. Go to a good gym, get a good trainer, see the results for yourself. As a woman, especially if you’re someone who has never tried resisitance training, you owe it to your body to give it a shot. You have only one body, its time to maximize its potential.

THIS IS THE FASTEST WAY TO BURN FAT.

By 2 Comments

Women and Weight Training

women-fitness

Most Indians associate the word ‘Gym’ with big muscles and this is the unfortunate truth about gyms in India. Gymming and weight training automatically gets you to picture a bulky man with veins popping out of his arm. I personally blame the media for this. But, it isn’t the 1980s anymore. The world has moved beyond this idea that gyms and weights are meant only for men.

As a fitness coach, and online influencer, the one thing I honestly believe is that woman all over the world should experiment with weight training or resistance training at some point. I am of the opinion that women benefit MUCH more from lifting weights than men ever will? Unfortunately, most women believe that weight training WILL make them bulky. But, it’s not as simple as that. Yes, I get that most women don’t want to look like female bodybuilders but, here’s what you need to know. Female bodybuilders (Insert picture) look the way they look because of injecting testosterone and steroids in their bloodstream.

The one scientific truth that women must be aware of is that weight training has different effect on male bodies and a different effect on female bodies.

Testosterone is the hormone that makes men manly. A part of being “manly” is having the ability to pack on muscle. And packing on muscle is enhanced with higher testosterone levels. That is also why the bulky bodybuilders you see on stage ‘look unnatural’ to some. They’ve injected themselves with heavy amounts of testosterone. But, if you’re a normal, everyday woman, you need to know this one thing – You DO NOT have as much testosterone as men do. This factor alone will prevent you from becoming bulky through weight training.

Most women have one common fitness goal – to lose weight. What most women don’t know is that there are slow ways to lose weight, and fast ways to lose weight. Conventional weight loss techniques like swimming, running or even something like zumba are just cardio exercises. They are primarily working your heart. So, while you’re doing the activity, you’re burning calories. This can be called an active burn of calories.

The biggest difference between weight training and these conventional methods of losing weight is that weight training is the most intense activity you can put your body through. It damages your muscles like no other activity. When you lift weights, you burn calories. But, the real charm of weight training for women, lies in the “after-burn effect”. Because of all the damage you’ve inflicted on to yourself through weights, your body continues burning calories 2-3 days after you’ve done the weight training. So you’re getting both the benefit of an active burn as well as a passive burn. And this form of damage and repair, if combined with a bit of cardio (running, swimming, zumba) will benefit you the most in terms of weight loss.

But, weight loss is a very short term goal. As a woman, you need to take a step back and understand what you’re becoming in the long term. The bitter truth is that women’s bodies disintegrate faster than male bodies. After the age of 25, women’s bones tend to become slightly more porous. They lose a bit of their density and strength. In this process, women also get more injury prone as they grow old. And strength training with dumbbells and weights can be the savior in this case as well. A good training programme, executed in your 20s, will pay off for the rest of your life. Long term strength training has been proven to benefit everything from women’s bone density to aging processes to strength and of course rapid weight loss.

This is what Indian women need to learn. Science is pointing in one direction. And as a 21st century woman, it’s time to open up to new concepts. Forget what you’ve grown up seeing in the media and forget what you’ve been told by the society you live in. The only person you should be listening to is science. And science urges you to step into the weight room. You grow as an individual ONLY outside your comfort zone.

From Terminal Illness To Complete Wellness! Ananda Mukherjee Health Story

As we observe World Cancer Day under the powerful theme ‘United by Unique’ (2025-2027)**, we are reminded that every individual’s journey with cancer is distinct, yet united by shared resilience, hope, and the collective fight against this disease. This theme places people at the centre of care and their stories at the heart of the […]