Daily exercise is a huge part of a healthy lifestyle, but it’s not always easy to fit into your routine. Consistent exercise requires a consistent time commitment, which gets harder the more you have on your plate. That’s why busy professionals working on a healthy work/life balance need exercise to be effective. Increased results are about more than just burning calories or building strength, after all. They also show you that your body is getting more responsive to the work it does, becoming more adaptive and resilient as your health improves. Here are a few ways you can get more out of your daily exercise, instead of tiring yourself out with a longer workout session.
1. Optimize Your Workout Nutrition
The food you eat on a day to day basis has a huge impact on your energy level and stamina, in addition to your digestive health and overall comfort. The same is true for the food you eat during the preparation and recovery periods of your workout. Using a nutritionally optimized solution like these ProPlant complete shake ingredients to craft a beverage with the right balance of proteins, nutrients, minerals means being able to provide your body with the fuel it needs to perform better while you’re active and the resources it uses to recover quickly afterward. That, in turn, allows you to do more while you’re active, while feeling less drained by the experience.
2. Add Props To Your Calisthenics
It doesn’t take much to increase the effectiveness of simple workout steps like your warm-up jumping jacks, cardio time, or free calisthenics. Just add a little extra weight, whether it’s an ankle attachment or a dumbbell you carry. Even a little addition like two pounds per leg increases the amount of work your muscles need to do to keep the same rhythm, so it can help you burn calories and build strength more quickly, without overdoing things. The key is a slow increase. Start with two or three pounds per arm or leg, and then increase things as you start feeling like your added weight is no longer challenging. The best part is, this can help you build strength even while you do your cardio.
3. Get Competitive With a Workout Partner
Another great way to increase your engagement and put more into a workout is to raise the stakes. Adding a game to your routine is a good way to push yourself by giving yourself someone to beat. For more people, that means picking up something like racquetball, soccer, or another competitive intramural event. That’s not the only way to do it, though. Crossfit gyms provide a competitive environment without an organized sport as well as validation for those who meet key goals and milestones on their journey. Another great option is to turn any exercise competitive with a partner, whether that means turning your jog into a race or challenging each other to see who can do the most push-ups.
4. Try a Dynamic Warm-up
Stretching is a time tested and popular way to make sure your body is ready to take on the challenge before you engage with the your main workout activity. It gives you a chance to feel out any aches or injuries, too. It’s not the most rewarding if you are looking for workout results, though. A dynamic warm-up that incorporates stretches, squats, leg extensions, and other short calisthenic exercises can improve core stability and overall strength while giving you the same results. That means you’re getting gains from your warm-up, and then carrying the increased strength into your workout, allowing you to do more.
5. Use Interval Training in Your Cardio Routine
This last recommendation is one of the most well-documented by those who study weight loss science. When you use high intensity interval training, you tax your muscles a little harder than normal, but you also incorporate planned rest periods that give you a chance to recover before going hard at the exercise again. This allows for a longer engagement at a higher level of effort over the workout, because you’re not burning everything at once. It can also help you push to new peaks in your performance faster, because you’re doing more high activity time in each session.