We all know the benefits of exercise: it can help us burn fat, increase metabolism, build muscle, build a healthy body, and lead a healthy lifestyle.
But if you do these few things wrong, all your hard work may be in vain:
- Bad posture
If you’re hunched over in the gym, you’ll build less muscle and burn fewer calories, says Geralyn Coopersmith, Nike’s global fitness instructor.
Good posture also allows you to take in more oxygen, which helps you feel more relaxed even if you burn more calories while training. A Mayo Medical Center study also mentioned that when you stand and lift weights, you will burn 50 more calories per half hour.
- Insufficient hydration
It is important to stay hydrated during exercise. Intense exercise will cause a lot of water loss from sweat. If you lose 1% of your body weight, your body temperature will increase, and you will be more prone to fatigue; if you lose 3% of your body weight, it will affect exercise performance.
A California State University study found that when athletes are dehydrated, they do 3 to 5 fewer sets of movements during weight training. This is because, when the body is dehydrated, the body’s hormone levels are also reduced and muscle performance is also poor.
Do you need a sports drink? Nutritionist Yang Chenghua mentioned that it mainly depends on the degree of sweating. Sports drinks contain sodium, potassium and glucose. If you sweat a lot during exercise, sodium will be excreted at the same time, so you need to supplement sports drinks during exercise; if you only exercise for a short time and do not sweat a lot, it is not necessary to exercise. Must need.
Sports drinks are not necessarily better for post-exercise recovery. Drinking water and matching carbohydrates and protein foods is more effective.
- Look at your phone while walking on the treadmill
Coopersmith mentioned that reading books, mobile phones, and TV are too distracting for exercise effect, and may reduce the intensity of exercise and not burn enough calories.
If you want to add some motivation, listen to music. Runners who listened to music, especially rock or hip-hop, had 15 percent longer exercise lengths and a better mood while running, according to research from London’s Burnell University.
- Less weight training
A Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) survey found that nearly 80 percent of women don’t do weight training. This may be one of the reasons why your weight loss plan is hitting a plateau.
A study in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine found that people who did a combination of resistance exercise ate less, 517 fewer calories a day, than those who only did aerobic exercise. The study’s author Brandon. Brandon S. Shaw, PhD, explained that this combination of exercise may increase the secretion of leptin in the body, enhance the body’s ability to break down fat, and stabilize blood sugar, so you feel fuller longer.
- The treadmill is set to “fat burning” mode
There are many modes to choose from on cardio training machines such as treadmills and bicycles. Many people choose the “fat burning mode”, which they think is the most suitable for their needs.
But in fact, the so-called fat-burning mode means that in a low-intensity exercise state, a higher proportion of the body’s energy source comes from stored fat. So, in theory, you won’t have to work too hard when you’re on fat burning mode, but you’ll still be able to burn off excess fat from your belly, butt, thighs, etc.
The problem is, although the proportion of burning fat is higher than that of sugar, the overall calorie consumption is less. Taking a 68kg woman as an example, using the fat-burning film type of the treadmill, walking at a speed of 3mph for 30 minutes, burns a total of 112 calories, of which 50% comes from fat burning, about 56 calories. But also walking for 30 minutes, using the normal mode, walking at a speed of 4mph, can consume a total of 170 calories. Although only 40% of it came from fat burning, it burned 68 calories, which is still more than the fat burning mode.
Therefore, the next time you go to the gym, try switching to the “normal mode”, or add some interval training, and mix high and low-intensity exercise. Maybe the exercise effect will be better.
- Too much faith in the explicit “calorie” number on the treadmill
Every time you step on the treadmill, do you start staring at the calories displayed on the screen to see how many calories you have burned?
Then you might be sad. Those numbers are not accurate. A report presented at the National Strength and Conditioning Conference found that the skateboard overestimates the actual calories burned by an average of 30 percent.
However, you can still use this number as a training indicator to see how much you exercise and whether you need to strengthen your training.
Think of “improving the numbers” as a weekly exercise plan goal so that each week you will feel like you’ve improved a little bit.
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