Wednesday Workout: Guest Post- 5 Things Your Trainer Want You to Know

Today's guest post comes from my favorite thing out of Europe (never been a Nutella or Beatles fan) and good great friend, Petar. When he's not in class at Catholic University Law School you can find him teaching group class/personal training at Washington Sports Club or djaying around DC- and ladies, he's siiiiinglllleee! Check out his hype mixes (great for working out!) on Soundcloud and his webiste here. Annnd check out one of my favorite pix of us (plus Harrison) at Zinzi Ball last year:

Anyway, I asked him to write up a post on 5 Things Your Trainer Wants You to Know, and here are his tips with awesome illustrations:

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1. Don't Be a Cardio Queen: There is a common misconception among novice gym-goers that the best way to get in shape/lose weight is to chain yourself to the cardio equipment.  It is easy to get trapped into that way of thinking, when an led display on the equipment indicates that amount of calories "burned."  However, spending hours on the treadmill/elliptical/bike is not the most effective way of getting lean.  Any exercise is better than no exercise, but if you are dedicating yourself to a workout routine, you at least want to make sure that it is an effective one.  The problem with aerobic (cardio) training is that your body becomes more efficient the more you do it.  Therefore, the more you do cardio, the better your body is at it, and the less fat you burn.  This article does a great job of explaining this.

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2. Embrace the Iron: Ok, so Cardio is not the most efficient way of getting shape.  Then what is?  Strength training.  Resistance-based exercised breaks the muscles down.  As the body rebuilds, the muscles become stronger, and the metabolism increases.  This means that the body burns more fat and continues to burn fat throughout the duration of the day (not just during the exercise itself as is the case with cardio).  Think about it.  Gymnasts look like this, and marathon runners look like this.
(Sidenote from Lindsay: if you're working out at home EatHardWorkHard has a great post on free online dumbell routines)

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3. Listen to Your Body: It's easy to get carried away.  Maybe you have gone to the gym for several days straight and want to see how long you can maintain that without skipping a day.  Maybe your workout buddy lifted a very heavy weight and you don't want to fall behind.  Maybe you are tired, but have not been in the gym in two days and your guilt is preventing you from skipping your workout.  All three scenarios are dangerous- they have the potential of preventing you from listening to your body.  The longterm consequences of injury far outweigh the risk of momentary satisfaction of pushing your body past its limit.

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4. Drink Plenty of Water:Our body is mostly made up of water.  It only makes sense that the best thing to consume is water.  The body is funny: when it receives little of something, it tends to hoard it.  Whereas, if something else is in abundance, it does not hold on to it.  In the case of water, if you consume little water, you will retain a lot of water weight.  On the other hand, if you are drinking enough water, you will not carry as much water weight.  Water weight = bloated.  Less water weight = more cut and defined.

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5. Try New Things: At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is exercise.  Any type of exercise beats sitting on the sofa.  Trying new things will keep things interesting and it will make it less likely that you get bored.  Further, your body gets used to doing the same thing over and over.  New exercises/activities will keep challenging the body and produce continued results.



Linking up today at WOW , Whimsy Wednesday, Weigh-In Wednesday