Exercise: 5 Things to Stop Doing and 5 Things to Start Doing Instead

Below are the five things that I see most of us do without knowing of a better way. I get these questions very often, so allow me to explain.

5 Things to Stop Doing and 5 Things to Start Doing Instead

1. Stop crunches for losing belly fat. Instead, do full body strength workouts. Focus on functional movement. The body loses weight evenly, not just in the place, like your belly, where you do resistance, like crunches. Doing full body workouts tones your muscles; the muscles will burn more body fat, even at rest. Another benefit of a full body workout is building your strength. 

2. Stop sweating for an hour and pushing too hard each time you workout. Instead, get into the habit of moving your body daily, 20-30 minutes.

Sweating hard for an hour breaks down your muscles and drains energy so much that you risk injuring yourself and being sore, or you may even get sick so you can't workout for 2-4 days. Instead, do a 20-30 minute daily full body workout. Take a break for one or two days to restore. Your body will show its appreciation by being energized throughout the day. 

Try our classes, in which we focus on functional and corrective exercise routines. 

3. Stop doing diet alone or exercise along for weight loss. Instead, combine the benefit of diet and exercise together.

3.  

   Weight loss is as successful with diet as much as with exercise. But if you do just diet along, you may risk losing muscle and bone mass. Loss of muscle leads to lower metabolism but the higher your metabolism is, the more calories your body burns at rest. Loss of bone density may lead to injuries.

   Instead, in diet, focus on fewer calories in and more calories out. For 1 lbs weight loss a week, aim at 500 Cal less a day. Stay under the caloric budget. That's talking about quantity. And remember, what you eat, quality, is as important. In exercise, do 20-30 full body workouts (such as HIIT or circuit; try our classes), add cardio (150 min a week or moderate or 20-min sprints 2-3 times/week).

4. Stop using walking as your only for exercise. Instead, start adding strength/resistance training to your walks.  

Use walks as your cardio, approximately 150 min a week. Add 2-3 days a week of resistance and weight bearing exercises that can include using only your body weight. Watch Strength Through Movement explanation.

5. Stop using cookie cutter routines. Instead, start personalizing your workouts. 

Based on your fitness readiness, injuries, surgeries, understand what you can and cannot do. In our trainings, we always modify based on participant’s needs and goals. 

In addition, think about exercise as movement. Create and follow your movement menu of what you enjoy doing.

What to do now?

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