13
Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Workout
According
to research, no one hits the gym hoping for so-so results. You go in wanting to
get 100% out of every rep, run and hard-earned bead of sweat. Fortunately
for you, scientists and researchers want the same thing. Here, 13
incredibly efficient strategies, courtesy of the latest research, to
get the biggest benefit out of every one of your workouts.
1. Lift Weights
“If you just do cardio, you’re
sabotaging yourself,” says Jacob Wilson, PhD., certified strength and
conditioning specialist and associate editor of the Journal of Strength and
Conditioning Research. “Your metabolism will actually go down, making weight
loss more difficult. Resistance training, however, builds muscle to increase
your metabolic rate.” That explains why, in one Harvard School of Public Health
study of 10,500 adults, those who spent 20 minutes a day weight training gained
less abdominal fat over the course of 12 years (compared to those who spent the
same amount of time performing cardio).
2. Listen to Music
Everyone knows that your
favorite tunes can fire you up for a workout, but in one Indian Journal of
Physiology and Pharmacology of 30 men and women, people who listened to music
(especially slow music) after their workout recovered faster than did those who
went sans tunes. “Music boosts the body’s levels of serotonin and dopamine,
hormones that are known to foster recovery,” says Perkins . Try listening to a
few of your favorite, most relaxing tracks as soon as you finish your workout.
It will help your blood pressure and heart rate get back to normal and recovery
happen ASAP.
3. Swap Stretching for a
Dynamic Warm-Up
Don’t stretch in vain. In one
Austin State University study, people who warmed up with light leg extensions
and squats were able to squat with 8.36% more weight during their workout than
if they had performed typical “bend and hold” stretches. Their lower bodies
were also 22.7% more stable. “Think of a rubber band,” says Wilson. “If you
stretch it around a lot and then pull it back to shoot it, it’s not going to go
as far. The same thing happens with your muscles and tendons.” However, dynamic
body-weight moves—ones that mimic the workout you’re about to perform—increase
blood flow and improve your range of motion without compromising your muscles’
and tendons’ elastic properties. So for instance, if you’re about to go for a
run, it’s a good idea to move through about five to 10 minutes of lunges, knee
raises and leg swings before hitting the treadmill.
4. Preface Your Workout With
Carbs
You might think of carb-loading
as something you do to run a better marathon. But eating carbs before your
workout can also help you during those intervals, according to 2013 research
published in Sports Medicine. “Carbs are your body’s primary fuel for any
high-intensity workout, and when your body is fueled, your body is going to put
forth a better effort and get a better value, both in terms of caloric
expenditure and muscle growth, than it would if you were in fasted state,” says
Wilson. So even if you like your morning workouts, make sure to eat some toast
or oatmeal before you head out of the door.
5. Do Intervals
Minute per minute,
high-intensity intervals—periods of all-out effort interspersed with short,
low-intensity “breaks”—come with more cardiovascular and fat-loss benefits than
any other workout, says Wall. For instance, in one study from Human Performance
Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, people who performed a
20-minute interval workout with exercises including push-ups, burpees, squats
and lunges burned an average of 15 calories per minute—nearly twice as many as
during long runs. To burn similar calories, follow the workout’s protocol:
Perform as many reps as possible for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds and repeat
for a total of four minutes. Rest one minute, then repeat for a total of four
rounds.
6. Drink Water
Losing just 2% of your body
weight in fluids—some gym-goers sweat out 6 to 10%—can make your workout feel
harder, reduce your exercise performance and reduce your body’s ability to
recover after you leave the gym, according to a review from the University of
North Carolina. Unfortunately, “we find that many people are dehydrated when
they show up to the gym,” says Amanda Carlson-Phillips, M.S., R.D., vice
president of nutrition and research at EXOS. She recommends everyone drink ½ to
1 ounce of water per pound of body-weight per day. To make sure you’re drinking
enough water during your workout to replace any fluids you lose, weigh yourself
both before and after a sweat session, says Carlson-Phillips. You shouldn’t be
losing more than 2% of your body-weight.
7. Use Free Weights
Weight machines are great for
helping gym newbies learn correct form, but once you’ve got it down, it’s time
to move to free weights. Exercises using free weights like dumbbells,
kettle-bells and barbells lead to greater hormonal responses compared to
similar exercises performed on exercise machines, according to a 2014 Journal
of Strength & Conditioning Research study. That’s largely because
free-weight exercises tap a wider range of muscles. “Whenever you have to move
a free weight and you don’t have anything guiding or supporting you like a
machine, all of your synergistic muscles have to fire to help you,” says Holly
Perkins, certified strength and conditioning specialist, author of
8. Get a Better Night’s Sleep
Quality shut-eye is vital to
getting the most out of your time spent in the gym. And that goes for every
night of the week. According to one 2015 Sports Medicine review, poor sleep
hinders not only your exercise performance (and the number of calories you burn),
but also your body’s ability to come back stronger after every workout. “Sleep
drives the hormonal shifts that promote the body’s recovery to exercise,” says
Carlson-Phillips. Without appropriate sleep, symptoms of over-training,
including fitness plateaus, set in. Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep every
single night.
9. Indulge in a Massage
That post-workout massage does
more than just feel good. According to research from McMaster University in
Canada, it influences genes in your muscle cells to decrease inflammation and
increase their number of mitochondria, which help power exercise and recovery.
It’s important to remember that your muscles don’t get fitter during your
workout; they do so between your workouts as they recover and adapt to exercise,
says exercise physiologist Anthony Wall, M.S., director of professional
education for the American Council on Exercise. “Massage helps this process
along.”
10. Drink Chocolate Milk
A recent Journal of Exercise
Physiology study found that cyclists who drank low-fat chocolate milk after
their workouts recovered just as well as those who drank commercial recovery
beverages. That’s largely due to its 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein. The protein
stimulates muscle repair, while carbohydrates replete your energy stores and
even help protein get into your muscles, says Carlson-Phillips . After
high-intensity or long duration workouts, try drinking a glass as soon after
your workout as you can.
11. Switch Things Up
It won’t just keep you from
getting bored. In a 2015 East Tennessee State University study, exercisers who
performed both deep and full squats reaped greater fitness gains than those who
performed only deep squats. The same holds true for any exercise variation.
Performing multiple variations of an exercise changes the muscles recruited and
the amount of weight you can lift, leading to greater gains than if you did the
same exact movement month after month, says Wilson. While you can include
multiple variations of the same exercise in a single workout (like planks and
planks with one leg raised), changing those variations every month will also
keep your body guessing.
12. Get a Cardio Buddy
In one Annals of Behavioral
Medicine study, cyclists who exercised with a partner pedaled almost twice as
long as those who rode solo. Having someone else around pushes you to perform
at your best and even makes workouts feel less difficult, says Perkins . The
results: You can exercise longer and harder and get more out of every trip to
the gym.
13. Eat Protein Before Bed
Protein helps your muscles
build back up after a workout, and for optimal fitness results, that shouldn’t
stop when you’re snoozing. Luckily, research from Maastricht University in the
Netherlands shows that a nighttime snack rich in casein, a slow-digesting
protein, keeps amino acid and muscle protein synthesis rates elevated all
throughout the night. To get the casein protein you need, Carlson-Phillips
recommends eating Greek yogurt or cottage cheese after your workouts and before
you turn in for the night.
