Micro-HIIT
If you’re someone who likes to spend long hours at the gym, lucky you! Many of us, however, would rather kick the workout quickly and get on with the day. The solution is to train smarter instead of longer. Here’s where micro-HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training, comes in to save time in your schedule.
The idea behind HIIT is to perform high intensity exercise in short bursts, followed by a quick break. While sessions normally last for about 30 minutes, it’s rapidly becoming apparent that even fitting in five or so minutes throughout the day - while the kettle boils - gets results. So, drop and give it 20, whenever you can.
Keep an eye out for yoga pants with built-in haptic vibrations.
Wearable technology
Chances are you’ve gone through the Fitbit stage to monitor your steps and heart rate. Now, wearable technology is stepping up into the realm of clothes, so you don’t even have to strap a gadget on your wrist. Keep an eye out for yoga pants with built-in haptic vibrations to help with poses, SMART shirts that measure your heart rate and compression sleeves that monitor your sleep patterns.
Save money and time with a virtual personal trainer.
Virtual personal trainers
If you don’t want to blow the budget on a personal trainer, or you’d rather stay comfy and exercise at home, hire yourself a virtual trainer. An online coach offers the accountability and guidance you need, with the flexibility of simply whipping out the laptop and staying in your PJs, if you want to. It works in the same way as it does with a personal trainer, in that they’ll help you devise a training program to suit your needs and they’ll motivate you to keep going from the screen.
Yoga hybrids
Yoga continues to morph into a range of different modalities to suit your fitness needs with a large dose of mindfulness. HIIT-Yoga and Athletic Flow blend calming stretches with more strenuous HIIT intervals. Gin Yoga has swept across the UK and it’s here to offer a whole new incentive to go to class. The concept behind it is to have a small glass of Gin Tonic before the workout, to benefit from its muscle-relaxing properties.
Stay present with mindful running.
Mindful running
Here’s a concept to help you jog just that little bit further. Rather than going over all your tasks for the day, tap into the present moment. This means focusing on your posture, your breathing, your footsteps and those lovely trees as you run on by. This way, it’s likely you’ll have a smile on your face instead of that intently-focused frown, and you'll get much more from the workout from pure focus alone.