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Strategies To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

Strategies To Burn Fat And Keep It Off

Developing your boxing skills at Revolution Training in Stamford, CT will help you burn fat and keep it off. Pushing hard in any physical sport and eating healthy are the keys to never worrying about weight gain again. You’ll do workouts like HIIT boxing that torch fat and build muscle. The more muscle you have, the easier it is to shed even more fat. That’s because muscle tissue requires more calories than fat tissue does, so you’ll be boosting your metabolism as you change your body composition.

Increasing your physical activity helps with fat loss.

That’s especially true when you alternate your workout intensity. The Focus HIIT workout does exactly that. It pushes you to the limit with high-intensity exercise and shorter recovery periods. It burns the maximum calories and fat. All our sessions, from Boxing Bootcamp to the Workout of the Day, push you hard. Whether you’re a man or woman, boxing is the ultimate HIIT workout to build muscle and burn fat. Your speed and intensity constantly change throughout each session.

Don’t diet, eat healthy.

If you want to lose fat, focus on a healthy diet and avoid a starvation diet. When you eat too few calories, your body burns both fat and muscle tissue unless you focus on strength training to rebuild that muscle. If you starve yourself too long, your metabolism slows. It’s a survival technique that saves valuable calories to keep the heart, brain, and other vital organs functioning. Eat quality protein and avoid processed foods. Steer clear of sugar that can spike your blood sugar and increase the potential for insulin resistance. Insulin resistance can increase your waistline with visceral fat, the most difficult type to lose.

Get adequate sleep.

Lack of sleep increases ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry. It diminishes leptin production, the hormone that makes you feel full. You’ll be hungrier and tempted to eat more calories than you need. You’ll also be tired, so exercising to your maximum potential is more difficult. That causes a reduction of calorie-burning intensity. When you sleep, your body heals, including your muscles. It’s a time for recovery and muscle-building.

  • Exercise increases the release of the hormone irisin. It improves blood sugar regulation, is anti-aging, and helps burn fat. It converts white fat to brown fat that burns 20% more calories.
  • Consider intermittent fasting using an 8:16 schedule. You eat in eight hours and fast the other sixteen. You don’t limit your food, just the time when you eat it. In this case, it might be between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
  • Vitamin D is necessary for weight loss. Studies show there’s a link between obesity and vitamin D deficiency. People with a deficiency have a more difficult time losing weight.
  • Skip sugary, alcoholic, and fancy coffee drinks. Soft drinks, frappuccinos, and sugary alcoholic beverages are empty calories that can pack on the pounds and increase your waistline.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Sculpting And Toning The Body

Sculpting And Toning The Body

Most people want a great-looking body. That takes sculpting and toning. There are many types of exercise. Muscle tone is not special. Every time you exercise, you help do it. Muscle tone is a continuous partial contraction of the muscle. It’s the muscle resistance to stretch when in a resting state and the muscle stiffness. Your body composition and the amount of muscle mass you have determines how it looks. When you have weak muscles with very little mass and are covered with a layer of fat, you won’t have a sculpted appearance. Sculpting your body takes it a step further to refine the appearance of each muscle group by reducing fat and increasing muscle.

Toned muscles aren’t necessarily bulky muscles.

Women often worry that they’ll build too much bulk doing strength training. That’s never a problem if you’re doing a traditional exercise program. You may see women bodybuilders with a lot of bulk, but that takes a special and rigorous exercise plan, a special diet, and often some chemical intervention. Hormones prevent women from building muscle mass. It’s why men build muscle so much faster.

Do strength training exercises but focus on more repetitions and lighter weights.

When building strength, you focus more on fewer reps and progressive overloading. You may use lighter weights and more repetitions to tone muscles. For sculpting, isolation exercises are necessary to ensure you work each muscle to get the effect you want. Doing compound exercises works muscles in a general area. Doing isolation exercises works a specific muscle. A compound exercise like chin-ups tones and builds the upper body. Tricep kickbacks concentrate the effort on one muscle to help sculpt the body.

When you tone your muscles, it also improves your health.

Besides looking great, good muscle tone improves your health. It helps you with posture, which improves breathing, reduces backaches and headaches, and improves body composition by reducing fat and increasing muscle. You’ll improve your stamina and energy. It also reduces your potential for obesity and the risk of serious conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Sculpting your body takes exercise a step further. It’s about working toward a more perfect appearance.

  • There are about 750 named skeletal muscles. They’re almost half your body weight. Each has nerves, blood vessels, and tendons. Each muscle responds better to some exercises than others. That plays a role in sculpting muscles.
  • Boxing training tones and sculpts the body. You burn fat as you build muscle tissue. The more you train, the better you’ll look. You’ll also have more energy, which also makes you look attractive.
  • Both toning and sculpting involve burning calories and building muscles. It takes strength training and building endurance. Adapting your workout to circuit training or HIIT—high intensity interval training—boosts your success.
  • Our trainers help you get fit, excel in the ring, look and feel your best, and achieve your fitness goals. We offer yoga for toning and sculpting. It gives your body a lean, sinewy, muscular appearance. Boxing training tones and strengthens.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Secrets To Effective Workouts

Secrets To Effective Workouts

Our goal at Revolution Training in Stamford, CT., is to provide the most effective workouts. Why spend hours at the gym not getting the maximum from your workout? The intensity, type of exercises you do, and the correct way to do each exercise are vital to your progress. You need a plan that includes all exercise types: endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility. Every minute should count, including the five minutes of warm-up and cool-down.

HIIT—high intensity interval training—maximizes your progress.

You can make any workout a HIIT session. It’s all about alternating the intensity from peak intensity to a recovery pace. You can’t maintain maximum intensity for long. Alternating between recovery and maximum intensity allows you to extend that time and maximize the returns. People often use it for cardio and running, but you can use that format for any exercise. It turns a strength-building exercise into one that also builds endurance. You get more for your time spent exercising.

Have a cup of coffee and a snack before and after your session.

Pre-workout and post-workout snacks are vital to your workout. The pre-workout snack provides the fuel to keep you going so you do your best. It also helps boost recovery. The post-workout snack is primarily for recovery. It supplies the raw material to improve recovery, muscle protein synthesis, muscle repair, and glycogen stores. A cup of coffee before exercising stimulates the nervous system and gives you a boost or a better performance.

Focus on your form first.

The way you do any movement makes a difference when you work out. Improper form, whether landing a punch or doing a push-up, can reduce the effectiveness. If you’re doing strength-building exercises using weights, use lighter weights initially until you’ve conquered the form. For other types of exercises, go slowly, do fewer reps, and make sure the proper for becomes instinctive. As your fitness improves and your form comes naturally, then push yourself. Track your workout. Winners keep score. Track the number of sets and reps you do for a visual representation of your progress. When you have your workout written, you can seamlessly move from one exercise to another.

  • Do more compound movements. Full-body workouts and compound exercises work more than one muscle, ligament, and joint at a time. It cuts time spent in the gym compared to isolation exercises.
  • Reduce the rest time you have between exercises, sets, and repetitions. Circuit training helps boost your effectiveness. You can make it even better by resting less between stations. You’ll get more done in less time.
  • Add weight to bodyweight exercises. If you’re doing squats, they’re harder to do and will improve your progress if you have weights in your hands. If you’re walking, ankle and wrist weights help burn more calories and improve strength.
  • Schedule your workout at the same time each day. When you do, it helps it become a habit. Habits are hard to break. It also elevates the importance of your workout since it’s an appointment.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Yoga Poses For Endurance

Yoga Poses For Endurance

If you come to Revolution Training in Stamford, CT, you wouldn’t expect to see people doing yoga poses. Boxing requires many elements of fitness and endurance is one of those. People who participate in boxing are athletes who focus on maximizing their workouts to get the best results. Yoga is best known to aid flexibility. Improving flexibility can reduce injuries and keep you in the ring, not on the sidelines. It’s a combination of balance training, both static and dynamic stretching, and mobility work. It’s a way to repair your body as you build strength.

Endurance comes from building stamina and improving breathing.

The breathing techniques in yoga can help you stay fresher through every round. Proper breathing is necessary whether you’re doing roadwork or in the ring. Practicing breathing with yoga will help you breathe better when you’re under stress in a fight. Yoga increases your stamina mentally and physically. You utilize your oxygen intake better when you add yoga to your training. More oxygen goes to the muscles and you don’t tire as quickly. Extending your peak performance time and outlasting your opponent can make you a winner.

Yoga offers other benefits, like an extended reach.

No matter how long your reach, an extended reach is not a guarantee you’ll be great, but it helps. The more you punch pads, sparring partners, and bags, the more you shorten muscle fibers. Yoga can stretch the muscles in the arm, hip extension, gait, and stride. You’ll also increase your balance that’s critical for boxing. It allows you to move fluidly and punch opponents while maintaining balance. You can move faster with quicker reaction time.

Yoga is a good recovery exercise.

After an intense exercise session, your body needs a day or two to heal. Lying in bed or on the couch all day is not an option. Your body requires recovery exercise. It needs one that increases circulation and encourages healing. Yoga is an excellent recovery workout. Yoga can relieve neck and shoulder pain and stiffness due to maintaining a tight guard. It’s beneficial for carpal tunnel, so it can help relieve hand and wrist soreness. Whether it’s back pain from quick movements to tensed muscles or head movement, yoga can help bring relief.

  • You’ll learn to calm your mind and relieve the stress from training and fights using yoga to help you sleep better. Adequate sleep improves recovery and ultimately improves overall performance.
  • Yoga increases your brain power and attention span. You’ll become a smarter boxer who can judge opponents by identifying the correct movements to use.
  • Yoga can help avoid muscular imbalances and build strength. Stretch your hip abductors, pecs, and triceps doing Gomukhasana—the cow face pose. Doing that also strengthens hip adductors, rhomboids, and the traps.
  • Varying your workout to include other forms of exercise can make you a better boxer. Our trainers will help you find the best methods to help you improve.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?

How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?

Most people start their day with a cup of coffee. That delicious fragrance and the warm goodness can bring a smile to your face. The caffeine in coffee boosts your energy. Drinking coffee or a caffeine drink before a workout can improve your performance. There’s a tipping point where the benefits diminish, and the caffeine becomes detrimental. When you’ve had too much caffeine, it can cause a racing heart, dehydration, and other problems that reduce your abilities. Whether it’s energy drinks, caffeine pills, coffee, or colas, too much caffeine can be dangerous.

There’s an amount that’s safe to consume.

Studies show that in most cases, people can consume 400 milligrams of caffeine without side effects. That doesn’t mean everyone. Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others. Drinking four cups of brewed coffee contains approximately that amount. One 16-ounce energy drink, two energy shots, or ten cans of cola also have about 400 ml of caffeine. If you consume a lot of colas, energy drinks, or energy shots, always check the label.

There’s a danger in using caffeine supplements.

Energy drinks are potent and can be dangerous, but you have to be able to drink a lot of liquid to overdose on caffeine. The same is not true of caffeine supplements. You can get them in powdered, pill, or liquid form. It’s easy to overdose on these. One teaspoon of powdered caffeine is equal to 28 cups of coffee. Keep these pills out of the reach of children. They can be lethal. Don’t give caffeinated drinks to children, either. Pregnant or lactating women should cut their caffeine intake to 200 mg or less.

The negative effects of too much caffeine.

If you’re sensitive to caffeine, even a little can give you the jitters, insomnia, dizziness, or irritability. Consuming more than 400 ml of caffeine also has the same effects on most people. A headache can be a sign of consuming too much or a sign of withdrawal if you’re giving up caffeine. People who have taken too much have trouble breathing, hallucinations, vomiting, chest pain, irregular heartbeat or palpitations, convulsions, or uncontrollable muscle movement.

  • Caffeine is a stimulant. It goes to the brain and blocks the effect of the neurotransmitter adenosine that controls the amount of dopamine and norepinephrine released. Blocking adenosine causes more neurons to fire. That improves brain functioning.
  • If you develop a headache from giving up caffeine, check the label before taking an OTC pain reliever. Many of them, like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and aspirin, may contain caffeine.
  • Consuming caffeine may provide benefits. Some studies show regular consumption can protect people from dementia, Alzheimer’s, and protection from heart disease.
  • Caffeine withdrawal symptoms include brain fog, nausea, dizziness, and headache. If you drink too much coffee or get the jitters from cola, switch to water to help flush out the caffeine and get you back to normal.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Building Muscle For Women Over 30

Building Muscle For Women Over 30

Building muscle tissue isn’t just for men. Women, especially women over 30, need it to be their healthiest. Many women come to Revolution Training in Stamford, CT, to build strength, lose weight, and develop the confidence that comes from learning self-defense. Building muscle can prevent bone loss in later years. The stronger your muscles are, the more they tug on the bones. That causes bones to uptake calcium. If your muscles are weak, the bone loses calcium, which leads to osteoporosis.

The more muscle tissue you have, the easier it is to lose weight.

You’ll burn calories with strength training and build muscles. That’s important! If you only do cardio, you don’t get the same benefits. The more muscle tissue you have, the easier it is to lose weight. That’s because muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does 24/7. The more you have, the higher your metabolism is. When your metabolism is at peak performance, it’s easier to lose weight. You won’t bulk up when you build muscle tissue. Women worry they’ll look too masculine if they build muscle. Your hormones won’t allow that to occur. You’ll build strength and tone muscles to achieve a fit svelte appearance.

You’ll lower the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis pain, and metabolic disease.

Nobody wants to spend their free time at the doctor’s or take a dozen pills to make it through the day. Many of the diseases faced today weren’t problems 100 years ago. An unhealthy diet and lack of exercise leads to poor health and obesity. Obesity is the leading cause of preventable illness. It’s easier to get in shape when you’re younger and maintain that fitness than it is to try to do it when you’re older. Muscle memory makes it faster even if you’ve been sedentary for a while. Starting before you’re older can prevent serious problems and help you stay or get back into shape when you’re older.

You’ll look years younger when you build strength.

There are several reasons exercise helps you look younger. One is at a cellular level. It’s the telomeres attached to the end of chromosomes. Telomeres act like the plastic tips of shoelaces that prevent the laces from unraveling. They’re damaged instead of the chromosome. Damaged chromosomes cause cell death that leads to illness or aging. The more you exercise, the more protected your cells are.

  • You’ll look thinner even if you don’t lose weight. One cubic inch of muscle weighs more than a cubic inch of fat. That means it needs a smaller container. If you have more muscle tissue, your body will be slimmer.
  • You’ll reduce the occurrence and intensity of menstrual cramps and help minimize menopausal symptoms. Studies show strength training for 45 minutes three times weekly can cut the occurrence of hot flashes by half.
  • Getting fit can reduce the risk of complications during childbirth and make delivery easier. It also helps improve fertility if you want to get pregnant.
  • Building muscle and working out can lift your mood and build your confidence. It improves posture, so you radiate self-assurance.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Low-Impact Ways To Stay Fit

Low-Impact Ways To Stay Fit

Many people consider running their primary exercise for weight loss, but it’s not the best. It uses calories from fat and lean muscle, making weight loss harder since muscle requires more calories for maintenance. It’s also high-impact. That means both feet are off the ground at one time. When you land, it stresses the joints. It’s worse if you’re out of shape and overweight. The muscle and tendon strength isn’t available to reduce the impact and protect joints. Use low-impact exercises to stay fit, preventing the problem and avoiding musculoskeletal injury.

Not all cardiovascular endurance exercises are high-impact.

When you think of cardio, you normally think of running first. It’s high-impact and not the only high-impact one. Jumping jacks, burpees, squat jumps, and box jumps are a few others. Other low-impact cardio gets beneficial results without the bone-jarring effect. The difference between walking and running is that one foot is always on the ground when you walk, so there’s far less impact when your foot lands. It’s a smooth shift of weight without the pounding. It boosts your heart rate, so you improve your cardiovascular health.

It’s easier to identify low-impact strength training.

When you exercise and move your joints, you increase the circulation of synovial fluid that lubricates the joints. You build strength in the tendons and muscles that relieve the joint pressure. Most strength-building workouts do that and are low-impact. Combination movements like squat jumps or burpees that build strength are exceptions. To build lower body strength, consider lunges, clamshells, and bicycling. You can adjust the tension on a stationary bike as your legs strengthen.

Flexibility exercises and stretches are for people who need to protect their joints.

Many flexibility exercises, such as yoga or tai chi, build strength and endurance, too. Yoga poses stabilize the joints and reduce pain while it does that. The Vasisthasana, also called the side plank on the forearm, helps both hip and knee pain. Warrior 1, the bridge, and the gate pose are other examples that build flexibility and strength while relieving pain. Flexibility exercises are more than just low-impact. They reduce muscle tightness, which causes imbalances and creates joint pain.

  • Don’t forget aquatic exercises when considering low-impact. Your body is buoyant in water, reducing the impact. Water provides more resistance than air, so it has 12 times the strength-building. Even jumping jacks become low-impact.
  • Bodyweight exercises like planks and push-ups are low-impact calisthenics. You can do high or low planks, but low planks are the best for the core and lower body strength.
  • You can modify many low-impact exercises for different muscle groups. You can do traditional lunges, forward lunges, side lunges, walking lunges, and reverse lunges. Modify squats by adjusting the width of your feet.
  • Always check with a healthcare professional before starting any fitness program, particularly if you’re overweight, sedentary, or have health issues.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Transform Your Body Anywhere

Transform Your Body Anywhere

If you’re unhappy with how you look and feel, simply complaining won’t change it. You have to create a plan to transform your body. It may be tougher than sitting and moping, but the effort is worth it. You can jump in with both feet or dip your toe in the water by making small changes. The key is to take action and start doing something to improve your situation. Before you do anything, especially if you want more energy, get a check-up from your healthcare professional to ensure you don’t have a physical problem and are healthy enough to exercise.

Start with a healthy, achievable goal.

If you want to lose weight, do you change your diet or start a fitness program? You can do both. Create a plan that you can stick with and not a severe one. Don’t skip eating or go on a strict diet. Instead, choose to eat healthier, giving up processed food and food with added sugar and increasing whole food consumption. You won’t see the weight loss results you want if you continue to eat high-calorie junk food. Make smart decisions when you’re planning.

Decide how you’re going to achieve your goal.

If you want to lose weight, do you change your diet or start a fitness program? You can do both. Create a plan that you can stick with and not one too severe. Don’t skip eating or go on a strict diet. Instead, choose to eat healthier, giving up processed food and food with added sugar and increasing whole food consumption. You won’t see the weight loss results you want if you continue to eat high-calorie junk food. Make smart decisions when you’re planning.

Move more.

Regular exercise is a top priority, but you must also increase your daily activity in other ways. Find activities you enjoy that keep you moving. Boxing is one activity that does that. It has transformed bodies and minds. It takes dedication, conviction, and consistency to get into shape for it. It makes it fun, which is more motivation to get fit.

  • If a long-term commitment looks too much, give yourself a shorter-term goal. Commit to your program for six weeks, leaving your options open later. You’ll probably continue once you see how much transformation has taken place.
  • Don’t forget to take before and after pictures. Take a selfie in the mirror wearing revealing clothing that shows your entire body. Changes occur slowly, and you often forget how you looked before you started. You can see it clearly when you take a picture.
  • What you eat is a priority, but so is what you drink. If you’re drinking soft drinks, they add calories and cause harm to your body. Switch to water or green tea. Both provide benefits for your body.
  • If you want to feel and see a transformation, it takes effort. Don’t sit on the sidelines of life complaining. Do something today to transform yourself.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training


Prepared Healthy Snacks Can Be A Lifesaver

Prepared Healthy Snacks Can Be A Lifesaver

At Revolution Training in Stamford, CT, many clients eat a healthy snack before and after exercise. The snacks help keep their energy high during workouts and start recovery. Snacking is often demonized, but it shouldn’t be. If you have a healthy snack mid-morning or mid-afternoon, it can boost your energy and help keep your hunger under control so you don’t eat more than you should at the next meal. You can make your snacks or opt for ones prepared. Some of the commercial ones are healthy.

If you left your snack at home or didn’t have time to make one, consider this easy option.

Many businesses carry trail mix. Almost all groceries do. You might even find it at your local gas station’s convenience store. Not all of them are healthy. Check for ones without candy unless it’s tiny bits of dark chocolate. Besides nuts, a healthy trail mix can contain dried fruit or seeds, such as pumpkin seeds. It can have popcorn, peanut butter chips, and spices. You can make your own and put it into individual bags for a quick grab-and-go option.

Look for prepared fruit and vegetables.

Buy fruit and vegetables ahead and do any prepping necessary, like washing and cutting fresh vegetables and putting them in plastic bags. Make a bowl of yogurt or hummus dip and divide it into carryout sauce containers with lids. In the morning, before you leave, put a handful of veggies in a bag and take a dip container. You can snack on an apple or banana or purchase prepared snacks like individual-sized fruit packed in its own juice.

Create the fruit yogurt you take.

Take a small container of berries and nuts along with a container of plain Greek yogurt. When you’re ready to snack, mix the two. If you haven’t prepared anything and want a snack at the last minute, choose one commercially prepared. Look for fruit yogurt with only yogurt and fruit as the main ingredients and no sugar. To get the same mix of protein and carbs, consider cottage cheese and unsweetened applesauce.

  • Another healthy snack option is air-popped popcorn or homemade microwave popcorn. For microwave popcorn, add popcorn kernels to a microwaveable bowl, cover lightly, and microwave it. Make popcorn ahead and store it in bags.
  • Keep healthy cold treats in the freezer. Fill ice pop molds with yogurt and chopped fruit. You can mix the fruit with the yogurt ahead for a smoother treat. You can also blend fruit and add water for a frozen fruit treat.
  • A quick snack that takes little effort is sliced apples with peanut butter. Use peanut butter containing only nuts and maybe a little salt, but no sugar.
  • Hard-boil eggs ahead and store them in the refrigerator. When you’re ready for a snack, chop it and mix it with yogurt, mustard, and a little mayo. Spread it onto crackers or toast, or make deviled eggs ahead and ready to eat.

For more information, contact us today at Revolution Training