Can’t seem to motivate yourself to workout today? Don’t sweat it, just add more time to your workout tomorrow. When it comes to increasing your overall health and lowering your risk of diseases, it may not matter how you often you exercise, as long as you put in at least 150 minutes total of physical activity every week, according to a brand new study recently published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
Researchers and experts found that working out for a total of 150 minutes each week at a moderately intense to vigorous activity level had huge benefits in lowering serious health conditions like metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension, high blood fats and cholesterol after collecting the data of over 2,000 active Canadians who participated in the study.
Some participants in the study broke up their workout routines into 5 to 7 weekly sessions, while other participants exercised only 1 to 4 times a week. And after looking at the data, experts found that the people who accumulated more exercise minutes during the week were healthier over all, regardless of frequency.
The reason for this is because the total amount, type, and intensity of physical activity all have a greater affect on your body than frequency. While this is good kind of good news, it doesn’t mean that you can just work out for two and a half hours and call it quits for the week because it’s not effective at helping you reach your fitness goals.
Shorter, More Intense Workouts Are Best
Multiple recent studies, like the one published in the March edition of the Journal of Physiology, suggest that the best, most effective way to accomplish fat loss and tone up is to exercise more frequently, but for a shorter period of time, and make those workouts count by engaging in short, but moderate to intense routines.
The Jersey City boot camp says that if you aren’t sure what counts as a moderate to intense workout, then check out a fitness boot camp because they typically offer a full body workout in just 30 minutes by incorporating high intensity interval training, resistance training, and cardio to ensure that you burn as many calories as possible.
Short, frequent bursts of exercising have been shown to effectively burn more fat and help people to lose more weight than spending a few hours at a gym on a treadmill or pumping iron a few times a week.
The Science Behind It
High intensity interval training, or HIIT for short, is a favorite type of training among fitness boot camps because it’s effective at activating all of your muscle fiber groups. Red, slow twitch muscles are typically activated during cardio, but your fast and super fast twitch muscles are only activated by engaging in HIIT. If your regular fitness routine doesn’t engage your white, fast twitch muscles, then you’re missing out on all of the benefits that exercise offers.
The reason for this is due to the fact that there are two different metabolic processes that your heart has. The aerobic metabolic process is one that requires oxygen for food and the anaerobic process, which doesn’t require any oxygen. HIIT works both of these processes, whereas traditional strength training just works your aerobic process. It’s important for you to remember that HIIT provides a much more complete workout than just aerobic and cardio exercises.
This is why you don’t see the results you want, even after spending several hours per week running on a treadmill or working out to home videos. What’s awesome about HIIT is that less is definitely more because you can get all the benefits of exercising for hours on end and reach your fitness goals faster just by completing a 30 minute session, from start to finish, a couple of times per week.
The Bottom Line
The boot camp in Jersey City wants you to keep in mind that short, intense workouts are so much more effective at keeping you fit and healthy than spending hours upon hours at the gym, so check out some local boot camps in your area and make sure that you are meeting your 150 minutes each week.
