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June 6, 2022 By Saba Mirza Leave a Comment

Health Benefits of Weight Lifting You Might Not Know

weight lifting

Whenever I advise my players to include weight lifting in their workout regimes, their reactions range from, “It’s too complicated or difficult for me,” to “No! I don’t want to bulk up”. These are the misconceptions engraved in our minds from the glossy images of sculpted and chiseled bodies of men and women appearing in fitness websites and magazines!

Apart from the fact that many of these photographs are Photoshopped or Edited, they unanimously promote the sole purpose of weight lifting as ‘body building’, which defers many people who want to actually stay fit and active, from it. Weight lifting, in essence, is not just about getting toned and sculpted! The benefits of weight lifting are numerous, ranging from improving your body composition, burning fat, strengthening your bones and joints and increasing your happiness quotient as well!

Health Benefits of Weight Lifting

  1. Get Stronger and More Active: Weight lifting stimulates the growth and development of the slow twitching muscle fibers (type2 muscle fibers) which improves agility, endurance, and builds up your stamina and strength, thus, boosting your performance in doing activities of daily livings (ADLs).
  2. Boosts Resting Metabolism: When the muscles are stimulated after strength training, they need to work harder to rebuild. Hence, they utilize more calories for redevelopment and growth! Muscles are metabolically active tissues which keep burning calories even during the resting phase known as the Afterburn Effect!
  3. Strengthens Your Bones and Joints: Weight training not only strengthens your muscles and ligaments but also improves bone density. The way muscles start developing under stress, the bones also adapt by increasing deposition after consistent weight lifting. This becomes more important as one reaches the age of early 40s when we are prone to natural decline. Also, stronger ligaments and bones prevent the occurrence of injuries while performing cardio and other activities!
  4. Lower Risk of Diabetes & Blood Sugar Levels: A study funded by the National Institute of Health has found that men who added weight lifting to their cardiovascular exercise routine had a 34% lower risk of diabetes. It’s advisable for individuals with type 2 diabetes to include weight training in their workout regime as toned muscles improve insulin sensitivity and better utilization of glucose!
  5. Improves Heart Health: As weight lifting improves the lean muscle mass in the body, it improves blood flow to different body areas which put less pressure on arteries, thus improving cardiac muscles pumping capacity!
  6. Improves Posture & Balance: Weight lifting strengthens your core, tones up your muscles and improves your posture. It reduces undue stress on different bones and joints, especially the shoulders, spine and hips which are more prone to injuries because of bad posture! Weight training also promotes the development of smaller muscle sets known as stabilizers. These take care of keeping you upright and helping you balance on a slippery surface or on one foot when you are reaching out to a higher shelf!
  7. Makes You Happier: Weight training stimulates the release of endorphins in the body which are also known as the ‘feel good hormones’. They trigger the happy centers in the brain. A well-toned, lean and fit body elevates your mood and self-esteem. Weight training brings you out of your comfort zone. High intensity weight training proves the worth in persisting through uncomfortable situations – a lesson which can be applied to be successful in other aspects of life too.

How to Start Your Weight Training Journey?

The simple mantra is just ‘go ahead’. Simply enter a gym or put on a video to see how you can take your journey forward. Start with minimum weights and gradually increase. Make sure to start under the guidance of an expert to avoid injuries or wrong postures or techniques. Keep setting challenges and targets which will keep you motivated to push harder.

You can even subscribe to GOQii’s Personalized Health Coaching to seek guidance from your GOQii Coach, tackle myths and get the right information about weight training.

Push past your limits to the extent that your toughest workout now, becomes your warm up later! If you hit a wall, simply climb over it. What stops you from hitting the gym? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

#BeTheForce

April 18, 2022 By Mrinali Dwivedi 4 Comments

Pre & Post Workout Shots You Can Try At Home

pre & post workout shotsWhether you’re working out indoors or outdoors, hydration is imperative throughout a workout and especially before and after! Since you’ve been working out at home all this while, here’s how you can improve your hydration game to the optimum benefits on your performance and outcomes of exercising with these pre & post workout shots! 

Pre & Post Workout Shots For Home! 

1. Shot of Beetroot Juice for Pre Workout
Beetroot Juice is a supplement with a high nitrate content, that is said to improve physical performance secondary to nitric oxide, which is a component of human blood that helps dilate your blood vessels and aid faster blood circulation, as to provide greater oxygen supply. Supplementation or dietary ingestion of nitrates is known to reduce oxygen requirements during exercise and reduce VO2 max (which indicates better stamina). In measures of time taken to reach exhaustion, beetroot juice showed an association with a fatigue delay effect and exercise performance enhancement.

A short term supplementation with beetroot juice may reduce VO2, giving an ergogenic effect, at less than or equal to VO2 max intensity that makes it possible to enable increased time-to-exhaustion. In addition to improving efficiency and performance, chronic supplementation with beetroot juice may improve cardiorespiratory performance as well. Consumption of Beetroot juice should be initiated in a period of 90 minutes before athletic effort, since the peak value of nitrates occurs within 2-3 hour after ingestion. At least 6-8 mmol of nitrate i.e. juice of 5 medium sized beetroots intake is required to observe an improvement in athletic performance.

2. Shot of Amla Juice for Post Workout
Amla Juice is a reservoir of Vitamin C and essential electrolytes that are of utmost importance for post workout recovery. Post workout is an immunocompromised state where the body is concentrating more on muscle recovery and storage. This makes it imperative to supplement with immune boosting nutrients and electrolytes that may be lost due to sweating, right after a workout session.

Supplementing with amla juice has shown to reduce infection rate in athletes and heavy working out individuals. It also lowers down duration of muscle soreness significantly, which aids early mitigation of muscle cramps. Vitamin C being an antioxidant, reduces inflammation in the body, which is a common after effect of exercising. Chronic supplementation with amla juice is shown to build stronger immunity and improve gut health as well as strengthening the respiratory system.

Intake of amla juice should be initiated within 20 minutes of finishing physical activity as that is when the recovery and restorative activities of the body begin. Juice of 4 medium sized amlas ensures the supply of adequate amounts of Vitamin C and electrolytes.

We hope these pre & post workout shots help you get the most out of your exercises! Do let us know your experience in the comments below. For more on workout out and fitness, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play. 

To get these tips directly from your GOQii Coach, subscribe for personalized health coaching now: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

#BeTheForce 

March 28, 2022 By Priyanka Mangla 5 Comments

6 Tricks To Help You Make Exercise A Habit

exercise a habitMore often than not, when you’ve begun a new exercise routine to get in shape, your intentions don’t often match your actions. You begin to realize there’s a big gap between having an intention of achieving something and actually doing the work to fulfil that intention. There’s no need to beat yourself about it. There’s always a way to bridge that gap. Let’s look at a few tricks that can help you make exercise a habit!  

How to Make Exercise a Habit 

  1. Set a Goal and Send a Reminder to Yourself: I wanted to exercise because I always wanted to stay fit like a soldier – this was my goal. I set a reminder on my phone for 5 AM as “Stay fit like a soldier “. This served as my morning alarm as well. Setting a goal where you remind yourself everyday will never let you sleep without ensuring that you exercised that day. 
  2. Challenge a Friend: The day you plan to start exercising, challenge your friend. I texted my friend, “hey, in the next 30 days, I am going to increase my stamina from 6/10 to 10/10 “. Believe me, your friend will never let you forget that you need to exercise daily.
  3. Use the 21/90 Rule: This rule says that It takes 21 days to create a habit. It takes 90 days to create a lifestyle. You just don’t skip a day for 21 straight days. In these 3 weeks, exercise will become your habit. And once you are able to do it, you will continue doing it for another 90 days.
  4. Reward Yourself With 1 Rest Day: Keep 1 day as your ”rest day “. This is important for your muscle recovery too.
  5. Make It Pleasurable: During the lockdown, some music of your choice will do the magic. You will love your exercise without getting bored. This is actually something I do and enjoy a lot. When the circumstances will become favorable to go out, enjoy the beauty of nature, fresh morning air, the beautiful sky as the sun shines and the chirping of birds. 
  6. Take Baby Steps: Last but the most useful trick! When I started exercising, I had full “josh”, I forgot to count the sets and reps and just exercised with lots of energy. I had in mind, the more I will do, the sooner I will get the results. But the reverse happened. I had no energy for Day 2. So, this served as a lesson – doing too much, in the beginning, leads to burnout; which may lead to quitting the habit. So, the key is, start with light intensity exercises for 15-30 minutes in the beginning. Our only aim is to be regular. “One workout at a time. One day at a time. One meal at a time“ – Chalene Johnson.

Now that you’re aware of these simple tricks, let’s aim at making exercise a habit! Enjoy your exercise to enjoy the glow of good health. For proper guidance on exercise, form and posture, schedule GOQii Pro classes with experts on the GOQii App. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, get active and #BeTheForce! 

January 17, 2022 By Parwage Alam 4 Comments

How You Can Use A Skipping Rope To Get Healthier!

skippingDo you remember skipping during childhood and competing with friends to find out who could skip the fastest? Those memories of my childhood always bring a smile to my face. I used to enjoy skipping a lot! There were several games we used to play with the skipping rope and it was one of the cheapest games that one could purchase. The best part about a skipping rope, even today, is that people of all ages can use it.

Benefits Of Using A Skipping Rope 

I did not realize the benefits of using a skipping rope till I became a coach. It is not just used for playing as we did during childhood but it’s a fantastic workout tool. If you don’t find the time to go to a gym or workout, you can try skipping for 15 minutes and that’ll be enough to burn off a decent amount of calories.

Apart from burning calories, it can help you improve your footwork, speed, coordination, stamina, agility and it also strengthens your leg, abdominal, back, chest, arm and shoulder muscles.

How To Jump Rope?

  • Beginners should jump twice between each rotation of the rope. The basic aim here is to get your abdominal and calf muscles into shape. While skipping, you have to be careful that your arms do not move. You should rotate the rope with the circular movements of your wrists.
  • You should not jump very high. Jump 1 to 2 inches off the floor, giving rope just enough space to slip under your feet – only the balls of feet should touch the floor.
  • Keep your elbows close to your sides as you rotate the rope. The movement comes from the wrists and forearms and not the shoulders.
  • If you tire out before you finish the workout, drop the rope, but keep arms and legs going.
  • To find a rope that fits, place one foot in the center of the rope and lift the handles – they shouldn’t go past your armpits.

How To Select A Skipping Rope?

Popular ropes include the speed rope, the digital rope and weighted rope. (Whatever you get, make sure the length is correct. The way to measure it is to stand in the middle of the rope, & the handles should come up to your waist, lower ribs – if it reaches your shoulders it’s too long.)

  • Speed Rope: It is lightweight and great for speed. Mostly used by elite athletes to develop footwork, coordination and conditioning. For example, boxers use a speed rope during their general strength and conditioning workouts.
  • The digital rope: A digital jump rope will count the number of jumps you have made. It will also keep track of the number of calories you burn during each jump rope training session. Some will also keep track of the length of the workout. For more features, you can check out the GOQii Smart Skip.
  • Weighted jump rope: It has weighted handles. The idea behind this rope is that the extra weight on the handles provides an extra workout for the upper body like wrist, forearm and triceps strength.
  • Leather Jump Rope: A good-quality leather jump rope is a great choice for serious workouts. These ropes either have plastic or wooden handles, and a strip of leather for the rope. Compared to the cloth jump rope, a leather jump rope turns much faster, providing a serious cardio workout. Professional boxers have used leather jump ropes for years when training.
  • Beaded Jump Rope: It consists of plastic beads strung on a thin piece of nylon cord. Like cloth ropes, beaded jump ropes are very economical. These ropes are fun for a while, but are not recommended for intense jump rope exercising.

To know the appropriate rope length as per your height, please check the following chart:

Your Height Jump Rope Length
Up to 4’6″ 6 foot
4’7″ to 5’6″ 7 foot
5’6″ to 6’ 8 foot
Over 6’ 10 foot

Kids Jump Rope: The jump ropes for children need to be shorter than adult ropes. It is the best to start with a beaded rope, because they don’t tangle as easily. Make sure that the rope is not too short, or it will lead to too many errors and the child may get discouraged.

Skipping Routine To Help You Knock Off Belly Fat 

  1. Warm up for 5 minutes by skipping at slow to medium speed
  2. Take rest for one minute
  3. Skip for 1 minute as fast as you can
  4. Take rest for 20 seconds
  5. Again skip for one minute as fast as you can
  6. Then again take a rest for 20 seconds, and repeat again for 10 minutes.

Reason behind of this type of skipping is that it enables you to improve your cardiovascular as well as muscular endurance and it will help you to burn more calories.

If you want to track your skipping rope workout, get the GOQii Smart Skip that comes with a high performance intelligent skip counter as well as 3 skipping modes:

  1. Free Mode: Skip freely for normal cardio workouts as per your level
  2. Time Trial Mode: Challenge yourself against the clock by setting a time based skip target.
  3. No. of Skips Mode: Set a minimum number of skips as a target for you to beat.

Apart from this, it can also help you track the calories burned, skipping speed, monitor heart rate, fat burn and more. You can get the GOQii Smart Skip, here: https://store.goqii.com/smartskip

We hope this article helps you. For more on fitness and workouts, check out Healthy Reads or consult a GOQii Coach by subscribing for personalized health coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

Get Active and #BeTheForce

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