7 Surprising Health Benefits of a Daily Walk

We all know walking for fitness can be a great activity for beginners looking to start a daily exercise routine and shed pounds off your waist line. What you may not know is that a 30-minute walk can provide plenty of other benefits for your overall health that reach far beyond weight loss.

Whether you’re new to walking or an experienced runner, these seven surprising health benefits are proven to make a daily walk worth your while:

1 IMPROVE YOUR MOOD

Sometimes all you need is a little fresh air to change your attitude. In a recent study, researchers found that taking a daily walk can lift your mood even when thinking negatively about a dreaded task that must be completed afterward. This can help decrease depression, negate the need for medication and put your emotions in an overall happier place.

2 INCREASE BONE DENSITY

As you age, bone density can decrease and make an injury from a fall much more severe. To combat the effects of aging, studies have shown that walking can improve bone density and stop the loss of bone mass that is often associated with osteoporosis. Walking for up to 40 minutes a day may also help to reduce hip fractures and other injuries related to falls.

3 LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE

Whether it’s hypertension or cardiovascular health, walking has been shown to have positive effects on the overall health of your heart. A consistent walking routine can help lower your blood pressure and prevent heart disease. And while you’ll still want to consult a doctor before beginning an exercise routine, for anyone with existing heart conditions, walking can be a safer alternative to more vigorous forms of exercise.

4 BOOST YOUR METABOLISM

Losing weight and keeping it off is a little more complex than simply burning calories. In addition to a good diet, finding ways to boost your metabolism can help reduce fat around the waistline and prevent metabolic syndrome — the latter of which results from high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. Walking has been shown to reverse this condition and boost your metabolism so you can burn more calories during the day when you’re not exercising. The key is upping the pace. Try including 1–2 minutes of power walking every five minutes during your daily walk to get started.

5 EASE INTO MORE INTENSE EXERCISE

If you really want to shed the pounds and improve your overall health, upping the intensity helps. The problem is it can be tough for beginners to jump right into activities like running or hiking without risking injury. Since walking is considered safe on the joints and a low-impact activity, beginning a walking program before you start running or other forms of high-intensity exercise can help. After you become more comfortable with a fitness walking routine, try a walk-run program to ease yourself into running for longer distances.

6 AID RECOVERY

Even if you are experienced with high-intensity activities and are fit, your body still needs time to rest and recover between workouts. Because walking is a low-to-moderate intensity exercise that gets the blood flowing and raises the heart rate, it can be an ideal recovery activity in between harder workouts. It can also help ease any joint, back and muscular pain associated with more extreme forms of exercise.

7 REDUCE STRESS

Stress has a way of creeping its way into our lives. Getting outside and exercising is one way to clear your mind and distract yourself from your current problems. Whether you take a short walk around the neighborhood or head to the track for a brisker workout, try to be more aware of your body, your surroundings and all the other good parts of life that are often ignored. This meditative state can have other positive effects on your health and well-being that go far beyond letting go of that guy who cut you off on the freeway.

Source : blog.myfitnesspal.com

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by Rushfitnessgym

How Many Calories Do You Burn Weightlifting?

by Rushfitnessgym

We Know You're Wondering, So This Is How Many Calories You Burn From Weightlifting

When you're on a mission to lose weight and get healthy, it can sometimes feel like every calorie counts. Although it's not a good idea to get caught up in counting each and every calorie you consume or burn, it's nice to have a general sense of what your input and output is. We know that strength training is essential for weight loss; it helps you build lean muscle mass, which in turn allows you to shed more fat in the long run. But do you ever wonder how many calories you're burning when you hit the weights?

There definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all type of answer for this, but we can give you an pretty good idea of what you're burning. According to Harvard Medical School, if you weigh 125 pounds, a 30-minute weightlifting session will burn about 90 calories. In that same amount of time, a 155-pound person burns 112 calories, and a 185-pound person burns 133 calories.

However, quality over quantity matters when it comes to strength training. A 2014 study from Arizona State University found that some exercises burn more calories than others. For example, lunges, crunches, and pull-ups burn a hell of a lot more than something like bicep curls or donkey kicks.

The study found that lunges burned 9.33 calories per minute, pull-ups burned 9.95 calories per minute, push-ups burned 8.56 calories per minute, and crunches burned 4.09 calories per minute. Keep in mind, though, that this study only surveyed "twelve healthy men with a minimum of one year of resistance training experience," so we don't know how this would translate to a woman's body.

OK, you're probably getting a bit freaked out and wondering why you're not burning nearly as many calories when you're lifting weights as when you're running. But remember that the calorie burn from weightlifting doesn't only happen during the workout.

"Weight loss is a simple principle based on a healthy caloric deficit. Weightlifting raises your resting metabolic rate, which simply means the amount of calories your body burns in and out of the gym increases," Ridge Davis, personal trainer in West Hollywood, CA, explained to POPSUGAR. He says just one hour of strength training "will increase the amount of calories you burn the entire day, making it easier to stay in a caloric deficit."

So it's worth it to switch it up and lift weights a couple times a week, especially if you're a cardio junkie. Sure, you may not burn as many calories while you're doing your squats and lunges as you would from a run, but those exercises are still doing a lot for you and your weight-loss goals. You'll burn more calories for the rest of the day, shed more fat, and develop that gorgeous muscle tone you've been working toward.