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Fitness
Fitness: Is mindfulness the key to a more enjoyable workout?
If exercise pushes you so far outside your comfort zone that physical activity is associated with pain more than pleasure, there’s little motivation to get off the couch.
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There’s no shortage of rumination about why more than half of Canadians don’t meet the recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week. Lack of time is a common excuse, but there are plenty of busy people who exercise regularly. Access is another often-stated barrier, though most Canadians can safely exercise outdoors or in the privacy of their own home should other fitness facilities not be within an easy commute.
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What’s often ignored is the role enjoyment plays in exercise adherence. For those who revel in a tough workout, the idea some people hate to sweat may seem strange. But if exercise pushes you so far outside your comfort zone that physical activity is associated with pain more than pleasure, there’s little motivation to get off the couch.
Once exercise becomes coupled with discomfort, getting reluctant exercisers to find pleasure and enjoyment in physical activity is an uphill battle. To help improve its appeal, researchers have been looking at the effectiveness of something called “extrinsic strategies” to promote better exercise adherence. Defined as “environmental manipulations of the exercise experience that fall outside of the FITT principles,” extrinsic strategies are more about the mental, rather than physical aspects of exercise. In short, the focus is less about the frequency, intensity, time and type of exercise, and more about the role feelings play in the adoption of a regular workout routine.
To be clear, we’re not talking about taking the effort out of exercise. Extrinsic strategies work on altering the perception of effort. Even more granular, it’s important to alter how effort is perceived during, not after, a workout. There’s a marked difference in how people feel once they wipe the sweat off their brow compared to when they’re grinding it out just hoping to finish. And while some people use the feeling of accomplishment that comes after a tough workout to motivate their return to the gym, others can’t get past the memory of how uncomfortable it felt in the moment.
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One of the extrinsic strategies to improving the exercise experience is focusing on external stimuli instead of how the body feels. Music is a popular distraction, which is why so many exercisers listen to their favourite playlists. Another option is exercising outdoors where nature works its magic at diverting exercisers from the internal sensations of effort. Exercising with a friend or within a group also helps. But contrary to using external distractions to dampen the effort of exercise, is the novel idea of leaning into how your body feels during a tough workout.
Mindfulness is defined as paying attention to what’s happening in the moment while also being open to how the body responds physically and mentally to the current experience. In other words, instead of trying to disassociate from the feelings of effort, mindfulness aims to accept and acknowledge the exertion it takes to complete a workout.
The idea that mindfulness is effective at improving exercise adherence is gaining traction, with initial studies suggesting it has merit, but mostly when exercising at lower intensities. Learning to accept and become comfortable with the feelings associated with physical exertion could be a crucial first step in finding pleasure in exercise.
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A recent study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences recently tested the effectiveness of mindfulness in enhancing the exercise experience. The goal of the research team was to see if mindfulness “could prove a useful pleasure enhancing strategy during exercise.”
A test sample of 34 recreationally active men and women were divided into two groups. One group was equipped with a recording taken from Headspace, a popular meditation and mindfulness app, that focused exercisers on tuning into their body and its movement. The control group was without any mindfulness tools.
Both sets of exercisers were asked to follow a 1.5-mile loop through a local park at a self-selected intensity they could sustain for 20-25 minutes. Heart rate was continually monitored, and study subjects were asked to check in with how they felt at two points during the walk (at 0.5 and one mile).
Results indicated listening to a mindfulness recording led to a more pleasurable exercise experience than walking the loop without. That positive response to exercise continued after the workout finished, another sign the mindfulness guided walk produced the kind of enjoyment that could encourage exercisers to walk more often.
Learning to appreciate the feelings associated with effort is an interesting strategy to introduce, especially to new exercisers who often negatively perceive the physical sensations that occur during a workout. With more practice accepting, instead of tuning out, those feelings, a greater number of novice exercisers could become more tolerant of the effort required to improve overall fitness. It’s also an interesting approach for seasoned exercisers who generally rely on disassociating from the intense feelings of a hard workout.
Acknowledging, accepting and appreciating the effort of being physically active are tools every exerciser can lean into when the going gets tough. More importantly, it could be part an improved strategy to get more Canadians enjoying the 150 minutes a week they spend working up a sweat.
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Fitness
‘WH’ Editors Put These Fitness Gifts On Their Wishlist
Jasmine Gomez is the Commerce Editor at Women’s Health, where she cover the best product recommendations across beauty, health, lifestyle, fitness, and more. When she’s not shopping for a living, she enjoys karaoke and dining out more than she cares to admit. Follow her @JazzeGomez.
Mark Stock is a food, drink, and outdoors writer from Portland, Oregon. He spent years making, selling, and sipping Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills before a full return to his journalistic roots in 2016. In addition to Men’s Health, he writes for SevenFifty Daily, Sip Northwest, The Somm Journal, The Drake, Willamette Week, Travel Oregon, and more.
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Fitness
This type of exercise suppresses hunger in women more than men, study proves
Find yourself with a bigger appetite on rest days than after logging your hardest workout of the week? Same. It usually takes me an hour or two to feel hunger after an intense session, and while there are plenty of existing studies that have attributed this to a decrease in the hunger hormone grehlin and an increase in the hormone peptide YY, which helps you feel fuller for longer, new research suggests women are more susceptible to this response than men.
Granted, the study was conducted on only a small sample of participants (eight males and six females), but this is the first review to have included women at all, and the findings were notable.
The method was pretty straightforward: participants were asked to fast overnight, before completing bouts of cycling at varying levels of intensity the next morning. These were then followed up with blood tests (to measure amounts of lactate) and self-reports to analyse appetite levels.
Results showed that the females had higher levels of total ghrelin (the hormone that makes you feel hunger) at baseline compared to the males, while they also had ‘significantly reduced levels’ of acylated (AG) ghrelin after intense exercise compared to males. Ghrelin levels were, in fact, much lower in both males and females after intense exercise compared to moderate exercise, meaning that all participants felt ‘less hungry’ after high-intensity exercise compared to after moderate exercise, but this was even more significant for women.
‘We found that moderate intensity exercise either did not change ghrelin levels or led to a net increase,’ the study noted. The authors added that exercise above your lactate threshold may be necessary to elicit a suppression in grehlin. Lactate threshold is the point at which lactate builds up in your bloodstream faster than your body can remove it – it occurs during high-intensity exercise.
Why is this useful to know? The author of the study, Kara Anderson, PhD, says: ‘Our research suggests that high-intensity exercise may be important for appetite suppression, which can be particularly useful as part of a weight loss programme. Exercise should be thought of as a “drug”, where the “dose” should be customised based on an individual’s personal goals.’
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Bridie is Fitness Director at Women’s Health UK. She spends her days sweating over new workouts, fitness launches and the best home gym kit so you have all that you need to get fit done. Her work has been published in Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and more. She’s also a part-time yoga teacher with a habit of nodding off mid savasana (not when she’s teaching, promise).
Fitness
Working out but not seeing results? A PT confirms whether 30-minute workouts are top-tier for boosting fitness
While some of you have your healthy lifestyle down to a tee – balanced nutrition, adequate sleep and a finely tuned workout regime incorporating strength, cardio and flexibility training – others struggle to know where to start when it comes to fitness. And with Google searches for “Is 30 minutes of exercise a day enough?” spiking, it seems that many of you aren’t sure about the length of time or number of workouts to aim for weekly.
And to make matters even more confusing, knowing how often you should workout isn’t always as simple as it should be. You see, your progress will depend on a combination of factors which might seem unconnected to exercise but still have an impact. Sleep, for example, has been shown in various studies (like this one, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology) to affect physical performance, while research also shows a bi-directional relationship between exercise and stress.
Added to this, it’s important to take individual personal goals into consideration. Someone who’s training for a marathon will want to see very different results from someone training to lift a certain barbell at the gym. Both will be wildly different to someone just starting out on a fitness journey – you catch our drift.
It’s also important to factor suitable rest days into your training to yield maximum benefits from your training. Most of us are aware that there’s a delicate balance to be struck between working out enough to challenge ourselves and see results yet not risk overtraining, injury, stresses and strains – but more on that later.
With this in mind, we’ve asked personal trainers whether 30 minutes of exercise a day is enough to see results with our workouts – and you might be surprised by the answer. Keep scrolling for the tea, but in the meantime, you might want to check out our explainers on how much to workout to see results, how to motivate yourself to work out, and how long it really takes us to get fit, here. Plus, don’t miss the latest on whether you’re better off working out during the week or at the weekend, while you’re at it.
Is 30 minutes of exercise a day enough to see results? Your guide
Should I aim for 30 minutes of exercise every day?
Let’s take a look at the NHS recommendations before we get into it. As per their Live Well website, they recommend all adults from the ages of 19 to 64 move every day. That said, they’re not necessarily implying you should workout every day – a distinct difference.
As a general rule of thumb, they recommend aiming for at least two strength sessions a week (weighted sessions, resistance band routines and bodyweight workouts all count) and at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week (think walking, swimming, cycling or doing chores around the house). If you’d rather, you can aim for 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week instead of moderate. This includes higher-intensity workouts, like running, sprinting, and HIIT.
Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re constantly bombarded with messages about moving our bodies more. Whether it’s your Instagram feed flooded with people running half marathons or friends in your group chat bending our ear about joining a charity fundraising walk, the noise around exercise has seemingly never been louder. And let’s not even mention our penchant for 10,000 steps a day…
So, how does this answer the much-searched 30-minute-every-day question? For the most part, it’s no secret that all movement is good. We all know that moving our bodies is vital for both mental and physical wellbeing, but is it possible to actually work out too much? Could we be hampering our results by overtraining?
Well, as per the NHS website, while moving every day – aka hitting your daily step count – is recommended, there’s really no need to workout every single day. As they stress: “You can spread your exercise out over four to five days a week.”
And one thing the experts are clear on: how often you should work out is entirely individual, and will always depend on your end goals. “Most people find their sweet spot is to work out three to five days a week,” advises personal trainer and founder of Dare to be Fit, Grace Reuben. “However, this depends on their fitness level and goals. Balance is important because too little effort may obstruct progress and too much effort may lead to burnout or injury. Consistency builds success over time. Whether strength, endurance, or general fitness is being targeted for, the prioritisation of movement that is enjoyed will keep you coming back.”
In a nutshell: you have to enjoy what you’re doing to keep coming back for more. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the different fitness goals you may have, from building endurance to improving overall fitness, and discover what (in an ideal world) really yields results.
1. How often to work for fitness maintenance
If you’re already fit and active with no specific goals in mind (don’t tell the WhatsApp group), your workouts should be designed to maintain your fitness. While this will look different for everyone, as a general rule of thumb you can follow the NHS guidance of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 minutes of intense activity (choose your poison) per week.
“If you’re happy with your current fitness level and just want to maintain it, aim for three to four days a week of moderate-intensity exercise,” says Reuben. “This could include a mix of cardio, strength training, and some flexibility or mobility work. Even two higher-intensity sessions, combined with lighter movement (like walking or yoga), can be enough to stay on track.”
@spen_fitness
♬ Beat Goes On – The All Seeing I
2. How often to work out to build muscle
Looking to build muscle? You’re not alone – strength training has been enjoying an uptick in popularity, lately, and for good reason. Weight training is vital as we age, particularly for women, who lose both muscle mass and bone density in a double-whammy of ageing downsides. But a few strength training sessions each week can help protect against this – and don’t worry, we’re not talking heavy weights (unless you want to!)
“If you are looking to build muscle, you’ll need to engage in strength training exercises that target all major muscle groups ideally two to three times per week,” advises personal trainer and founder of GO Fitness, Emily Saxby-Collins. “However, I’d recommend that you allow for at least one day of rest between sessions to allow your muscles to recover and grow.”
Think bodyweight strength training such as lunges, squats, push ups etc, or use a resistance band, kettlebell or dumbbells to add extra spice.
@mollyk_fitness
♬ original sound – Mollykfitness
3. How often to work out to boost fitness
Keen to boost your fitness? Join the club – it’s probably safe to assume that the majority of regular exercises wouldn’t mind improving their fitness. After all, who doesn’t want to find everyday movements and activities that bit easier, not to mention having the kudos of being able to run for a while without stopping?
So, in order to make fitness gains, you’re going to have to do a little work. “For a general fitness upgrade, aim to workout four to five days a week,” says Reuben. “This can include a mix of cardio, strength, and flexibility training to hit all the bases. For example, you could do two cardio sessions, two strength sessions, and one yoga or Pilates session to round things out. The variety will help improve endurance, strength, and mobility while keeping things interesting.”
@growwithjo
♬ Just Wanna Rock – Lil Uzi Vert
4. How often to work out for endurance
When we talk about endurance, we’re essentially talking about your stamina, or your ability to withstand the more unpleasant side effects of physical exertion and carry on regardless – think aching muscles, sweating, laboured breathing. These are all signs that your body is being tested – and they’re generally a good sign, provided you know when to stop!
While we can’t stop the voices in your head willing you to stop running (just us?), we can advise you on how to push through the physical barriers and achieve longer runs, stronger lifts and so on.
“In order to improve endurance, ideally you should be training for around four to six sessions each week,” advises personal trainer Edwina Jenner. “This should comprise a mixture of long and slow sessions and shorter, more intense ones (think a longer, steady run mixed with a HIIT session) and include a progressive increase in duration and distance, to challenge yourself.
Do note here: none of the experts we spoke to recommend intense activity six days a week unless you’re super fit (not to mention, blessed with the time to do so). If that’s you, mixing your training up (also known as cross-training) can help to prevent injury and burnout and ensure you’re not taxing the same muscles groups day after day. And remember: for best results, you must include (at least) one or two rest or very light activity days, too.
The upshot is, whatever your workout goals are, they’re going to take time, consistency and effort. There are no quick fixes, when it comes to fitness – and anyone who says otherwise isn’t telling the truth. That said, your goals are unique to you, so it’s important to work out what they are and (if you’re really committed to change) make a plan.
“If you are training for a specific goal, having a clear training plan is essential to reaching that goal. However, these guidelines can also provide a framework for varying your training, whatever you’re looking to achieve,” says Jenner. “The likelihood is you’ll have periods when you want to build strength, while at other times, you’ll just want to maintain your fitness. There are always ways to make workouts work for you.”
@jshresruns
♬ original sound – Josh
Shop MC UK’s go-to workout essentials here:
Free People Movement crop top
Feel more inclined to work out when you look the part? Yep, us too – and this crop top from FP Movement hits all the right notes. Breathable fabric and super cute ruched detailing strikes the style and substance balance perfectly.
We’re adding these to our Christmas list (again) this year – leggings don’t get much better than the cult-favourite Align range from lululemon. Soft, supple and supportive? It’s a trifecta we’re all over.
Alo Yoga unisex throwback socks
Speaking of Christmas lists, no stocking is complete without at least one pair of socks, so make yours these Alo Yoga beauties. They’ll look great whether you’re planning a Boxing Day walk or to simply curl up on the sofa – the choice is yours.
How can I make sure I’m progressing in my workouts?
Whether we’re talking about building strength, fitness or endurance, the aim is progressive overload. Essentially, this means consistently moving those goalposts to stay outside your comfort zone – that’s where the magic happens. However, it’s important to make sure you’re looking after yourself, at the same time. Saxby-Collins’ top tips include taking rest days when you need them and focusing on consistency. Not to mention, be sure to incorporate a variety of exercises into your routine and gradually increase the intensity, duration, or frequency of your workouts over time, rather than overwhelming yourself.
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