3 great fitness tips for a healthy weekend

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Lounge Fitness roundup. Here at Lounge, we take your fitness journey very seriously, so on every other Saturday, we bring you a roundup of some of the best fitness stories we’ve published. Just in case you missed reading them the first time around, here’s where you find them.

And it’s no different this week. We’ve got three excellent stories that are sure to improve your training. From a story on the problems with CrossFit, to the importance of a strong core, to a discussion on one of the best exercises for your hip flexors, we have a veritable feast for you this week.

Let’s face it, the booming popularity of CorssFit over the last decade puts all other fitness trends in the shade. From athletes to normal people who love the active life, everyone has opted for CrossFit at some point or another these past few years. And it’s not hard to see why. Given the intensity of CrossFit workouts, it remains the fastest way to get fit and strong.

However, as former CrossFitter Shrenik Avlani points out, it is also the fastest way to get injured. And that is why it is probably a better idea to try something else for your fitness. For the story Avlani goes over each aspect of the CrossFit routine, and pinpoints the exact problems that you should watch out for. Essential reading!

It shouldn’t come as a surprise in our social media-led make believe world that we place more importance on cosmetic ideas of what a fit person looks like, rather than actual fitness and strength. Nowhere is it truer than in the case of core strength. While most people equate it with clearly defined abs, the actual truth is elsewhere.

As Shrenik Avlani explains in this story, you will even find many world class athletes who don’t have those perfect abs, in fact they may even look a little tubby, but they have what it takes: true core strength. And, Avlani argues, that is what you should be aiming for as well.

Our bodies have have a fantastic in-built alarm system: pain. When a muscle hurts, or is feeling so tight that it’s painful, you know you need to do something about it. It’s the same story when it comes to tight hip flexors: these are muscles that you don’t often think about, but which are vital to the health of your lower body.

Now, there are many effective exercises that you can perform, in order to ease the tightness, or to ensure that the tightness doesn’t happen at all. Writer Pulasta Dhar feels he has stumbled across the best possible exercise to strengthen the hip flexors? What is it? Read the story to find out!