Have you been logging hours on the track field or in the gym only to find that the tale of the tape has changed very little, if at all? It just might be that what you call a power walk is nothing more than a leisurely stroll. You need to increase the level of your Workout Routine. A study published in the journal Preventive Medicine, says that people often overestimate the intensity of their workouts. During the study, 66 men and women kept records of how long and how intense they felt they worked out for two weeks. Estimates were then checked against a heart rate monitor. Study participants didn't intentionally inflate their estimates on the length of their workouts. At least half of them said that their workouts were moderate and lasted for 10 minutes. But according to the heart monitors only 15 percent of them actually did.
It's a lot easier to determine the time and distance of your workout than to determine just how intense your workout actually is. Miscalculating the effectiveness of your workout can have repercussions. If you think your workouts are effective and intensity levels are adequate but they are not, you may tend to eat too much and consequently gain weight. This happens because underestimating your workout intensity level will result in not enough calories being burned for you to lose weight. However, even low intensity level workouts are far better than no workout at all.
So what is the best way to tell if your workout intensity is high enough to burn an optimum amount of calories? The best way is to use a heart rate monitor/calorie counter. These can cost from $60 and up. But if you don't want to spend the money it would cost to get a decent model, (like the Mio™ Heart Rate Monitor Calorie Counter), you can use a less expensive, but less accurate method. Try this. Talk out loud during your workout. During a moderate workout you should be able to detail a short grocery list. But if you're able to give a blow by blow account of the last episode of your favorite soap opera you should probably step up the pace a bit. To give your workout an extra added boost, try walking or running to an upbeat Hip-Hop or Latin tune. Use a course with hills or run up and down the stairs of your high school or college stadium. It is also good to workout with a friend who is in better shape than you are.
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