Blog

HIIT: What It Is & How It Can Revolutionize Your Workout

If you pay any attention to fitness trends, you’ve probably heard the term “HIIT workout” thrown around a bit recently. The acronym, which stands for “high-intensity interval training”, represents a shift toward all-out, full-body exercise methods within the wider fitness industry. What exactly is HIIT training, though, and how intense does it get? What are the benefits of a high-intensity workout? If you’ve recently gotten into fitness to lose some weight or improve your overall wellbeing, you may be wondering if HIIT is the route you should take. In order to help you determine whether or not HIIT exercises are right for you, we’ve outlined some details about what the term means, what its benefits are and who could be the right candidate for a high-intensity training program. What Exactly is HIIT Exercise? High-intensity interval training is a workout method in which you exert all of your energy toward one exercise for a very short period of time. Depending on your program, this might include dozens of sit-ups followed by several push-ups, squats, dips and burpees. After completing each exercise, you’ll take a quick (less than one minute) break before moving on to the next activity. HIIT training is a program based around speed and repetition. The purpose is [...]

webmaster2018-02-14T04:38:42+00:00February 21st, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

What Heart Rate Means for Your Fitness Routine

What is your target heart rate during exercise? Does your pulse rate have an effect on your fitness in general? If you’re like most people, you probably know that reaching a target heart rate during exercise is important for fitness and health. However, you may not know what that number is or how to find it. You can optimize your training sessions by identifying what the best heart rate is and striving to maintain it while you work out. Whether you’re trying to lose a few pounds or simply want to keep your body in the healthiest possible state, tracking your heart rate will help you to get the most out of every training session. The Importance of Target Heart Rate During Exercise Heart rate is a way to measure how much of an impact each workout has on your body. The benefits of exercise come from the fact that, when you’re working out, your body burns off the calories you get from food. As the food burns off, its nutrients enter your bloodstream at a rapid rate. In turn, your arteries start working harder than normal. They expand and contract to accommodate the increased amount of blood flowing through your body. This sends nutrients to the various organs [...]

webmaster2018-02-14T04:32:59+00:00February 14th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

Cardio: Which Exercises Burn the Most Fat?

Fat burning exercises are the key to a solid fitness routine. After all, nothing motivates people to work out more than the desire to shed a few pounds. If you’ve just started working out or going to the gym, you’re probably looking for the exercises that will help you burn off calories as quickly as possible. But which exercises burn the most fat in the shortest amount of time? What can you do in (and outside) the gym to start shedding calories today? We’ve compiled a handful of the best fat burning exercises to help you get started. Cardio vs Weight Training for Fat Loss Before we make any recommendations, it’s important to discuss cardio versus weight training. Which one is better for fat loss? This question has been debated by experts for years. Strength-trainers will tell you that a weight regiment is necessary to burn calories. Aerobics people will say that cardio is the best fat burning exercise. In reality, however, both are somewhat necessary to lose weight. Cardio will increase your blood flow and help you work off those extra calories. Weight-training, on the other hand, will turn those fat cells into healthy muscle. Generally, people who focus on strength-training do so in order to gain muscle, [...]

webmaster2018-02-14T04:25:49+00:00February 7th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

The 7 Ways Exercise Benefits Your Mind, Especially During Winter

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the benefits of exercise extend well beyond just improving the body’s physique. After all, we’ve all heard of a runner’s high and the slight euphoria that usually follows a particularly intense session with a personal trainer. But the full extent to which exercise refines and improves the way the mind works might be lost on many. That’s why we’ve put together this list outlining some of the biggest mental benefits of daily exercise. And given the drab and dreary days of winter that are already upon us, there’s never been a better time to start exercising for your mind as well as your body. 1. Improve Confidence One of the top reasons to pick up a dumbbell or cut down on the carbs is to improve the physical appeal of your body. It’s nothing to be ashamed about – people want to look good. And when you exercise on a daily basis, your confidence spikes a bit every time you physically notice the progress you’re making. Maybe it’s increased muscle tone in your abs after an especially intense new dietary regimen. Or it could be finally starting to see a very specific muscle group starting to show after weeks of [...]

webmaster2018-01-02T01:31:42+00:00January 14th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

6 Ways Getting Enough Sleep Can Mean the World for Your Gains

Like it or not, sleep and exercise performance are inextricably linked. Whether you’re trying to adhere to a grueling new diet during a cut or you’re hoping to add a few more plates to a lift before the year is out, if you’re not following the proper sleep cycle, you’re bound to fall short at one point or another. That’s why it’s crucial to know just how important a proper amount of sleep really is when it comes to reaching your fitness goals this year. And while caffeine may have a number of significant benefits when it comes to shelling out peak performance, you may want to reconsider your consumption when you see just how important a full 8 hours really is for your body. 1. Proper Sleep Habits Are Essential for Repairing Worn Muscles According to the science of muscle growth, the key to building up muscle is that the long proteins that make up your musculature (myofibrils) are both broken down (a.k.a. hypertrophy) and then repaired. This process of breaking down and repairing is instrumental both to building the size as well as the overall strength of the muscle. While you may be tempted to put off sleeping in favor of spending an extra hour [...]

webmaster2018-01-02T01:21:57+00:00January 8th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

8 Strategies to Help You Actually Stick to Your Fitness Resolutions This Year

Following through with your healthy resolutions for the New Year can be tough. It takes discipline, passion, and a persistent willpower to keep you going through the months, especially when motivation falters and the novelty’s finally worn off. In fact, sticking with a healthy New Year’s resolution can be so difficult that only about 9% of Americans actually feel like they’ve successfully achieved their goals each year. But when it comes to meeting your fitness goals next year, there are a few things you can do to make sure you achieve (if not surpass) your New Year’s fitness resolutions in 2018. 1. Set REALISTIC New Year Fitness Goals Whether you’re looking to pack on muscle and boost your gains in the coming year or you want to melt the pounds away with an incredibly effective meal regimen (we recommend the ketogenic diet), the foundation for successfully changing your life habits is to set goals that are actually realistic. We all tend to see the future through rose-colored glasses, often attributing to ourselves a level of persistent enthusiasm we rarely exhibit, even on our best days. And it’s true, these optimistic ideals may seem like they’ll simply push us to be ever more diligent, dedicated, and disciplined. After [...]

webmaster2018-01-02T01:10:55+00:00January 2nd, 2018|Blog|Comments Off

Choices, Choices: We Review 5 of the Best Fitness Trackers on the Market for 2018

It didn’t take long for the two worlds of technology and personal fitness to collide. Thankfully, the last few years have made one thing clear: fitness trackers are not a passing fad. They are here to stay. With dozens of activity trackers on the market, it’s hard to know what to look for. The search becomes even more complicated when fitness trackers range in price from less than $50 to the hundreds of dollars. Some trackers are watches while others are dongles. Some have heart monitors while others do not. How can you decide? We’re here to help you wade through all of these choices. With 2018 coming up fast, we review seven of the best fitness trackers on the market for next year. Fitness Tracker Watches: Just a Part of the Fitness Journey Before jumping in, we want to issue a little reminder: an activity tracker should never determine your personal fitness goals. If you can’t take our word for it, how about from a Kardashian? “My fitness journey will be a lifelong journey.” ~ Khloe Kardashian Like Khloe says, personal fitness is not a one-time event or a yearlong project to be tracked. It is a lifelong process. Fitness trackers, like the Fitbit or Fitbit competitors, are [...]

webmaster2017-11-04T03:53:56+00:00November 10th, 2017|Blog|Comments Off

6 Clear Reasons Why Everyone Should Be Strength Training

The idea of incorporating strength training into daily exercise can seem intimidating to people. There are quite a few common misconceptions about what, exactly strength training is. “Body building isn’t for me – I don’t want to get buff!” “I’m a woman, weight lifting could be bad for me if I do it too much.” “I don’t want to pay for a weight gym - I spend most my time running anyway.” “I don’t need muscle strength to keep up on my regular workouts.” “Doesn’t resistance training take special equipment?” “Cardio is the healthiest exercise anyway.” Some of these statements are outright false, but others just don’t capture what strength training is all about. All of these misconceptions can unfortunately keep people from realizing how beneficial strength training can be. And, yes, it is beneficial for everyone. Definition: Strength training uses resistance to build muscle strength, increase endurance, and maintain flexibility. We are so convinced of this fact that we want to spend some time laying out clear reasons why everyone should be strength training. And we mean everyone. To start, strength training is not just for men – it’s great for women too! #1: Weight Lifting Can Help You Lose Weight Despite what the diet pill [...]

webmaster2017-11-04T03:35:26+00:00November 4th, 2017|Strength Training|Comments Off

Branched Chain Amino Acids and Everything About Them

What Are Branched Chain Amino Acids? Branched chain amino acids are one of the biggest, most marketed supplements in today’s fitness industry, and are recommended by fitness and health professionals for good reason. Branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) are three different amino acids that have a certain molecular structure that separate them from the rest of the amino acids. The three amino acids that make up BCAAs are leucine, isoleucine, and valine and they come from different sources such as plants, whey, milk, and different meats. Again, BCAAs are said to be almost required by any avid gym goer, weightlifting athlete, and fitness and health professionals because of BCAAs role on metabolism and skeletal muscle, which we will get into in the next section. What Do BCAAs Do and Why Are They So Special? BCAAs play a major role in our body’s metabolism and building and preserving skeletal muscle. Specifically, BCAAs promote protein synthesis and turnover, different signaling pathways for energy and metabolism of glucose, and oxidation of fatty acids (Md. Monirujjaman, 2014). Leucine has a couple roles in our body, but mainly it is to help with oxidation and glucose uptake for energy, and is also what is called an “mTOR activator.” mTOR is a regulatory protein that takes care of different cellular [...]

webmaster2017-11-16T22:28:48+00:00October 18th, 2017|Blog|Comments Off

Creatine 101

What Is Creatine? Creatine is a naturally occurring compound that is found in humans and most other vertebrates. Creatine’s primary role is to recycle adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which you may realize is the compound that drives muscular contraction in our bodies, but is also responsible for a couple of other roles in the body such as pH buffer in other tissues. Creatine is mostly produced in our bodies by the liver and kidneys at about a gram per day in younger adults (Brosnan JT, 2011), and can also be consumed through a diet consisting of red meat and fish like tuna and salmon. Most of the creatine in our bodies is stored in our skeletal muscle, where the remainder is distributed throughout the body by the blood. Creatine supplements used to receive a great number of myths when it first started to be used by a number of athletes, sprinters, and weightlifting athletes. In the last couple of decades, creatine has been thoroughly researched and studied and is also one of the most studied supplements in the world. A review done in 2009 took a large sample of studies and research done on creatine and its effects on “exercise heat tolerance and hydration status” and found “no evidence supports the concept that creatine supplementation [...]

webmaster2017-11-16T22:26:41+00:00September 28th, 2017|Blog|Comments Off

THE MECCA GYM BLOG