Fitness & Wellness

Strength Training For Weight Loss - Why It Works

Strength Training For Weight Loss – Why It Works

Published by on April 25, 2025 | Leave a response

Excess weight negatively affects your entire body. It can interfere with breathing, put an extra strain on your joints and heart, and contribute to conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. Exercise can help you lose weight. One of the best types of exercise for weight loss is strength training. It helps in multiple ways. Running burns many calories, but it isn’t as beneficial for weight loss as weightlifting. Strength-building provides benefits immediately and in the future.

Cardio is vital for fitness, but it can’t beat strength training to shed pounds.

You’ll burn hundreds of calories when you run or do other forms of cardio. That should be great, but there’s a catch. Those calories come from burning both fat and muscle tissue. When you do strength-building exercises, it builds muscle tissue, not tear it down. Muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does. The more muscle tissue you have, the easier it is to lose weight because it boosts your metabolism.

You’ll burn more calories after you finish strength training.

Afterburn is a term used to describe the extra calories necessary to get the body back to normal after cardio or strength training. The more intense the exercise, the more calories you burn and the longer you burn them. The amount is small, but every calorie counts. Cardio increases the calories burned by a smaller amount for a shorter time unless it’s a HIIT—high-intensity interval training session. Strength training increases the calories you burn by more, and the effect lasts longer. It can last for days, even though the calories burned slowly diminish as your body returns to normal. The extra calories burned from cardio might be 100, while the excess calories from strength training could total 400.

If your goal is to lose weight to slim down, weight training provides even more benefits.

What’s your reason for losing weight? Is it to look thinner? Strength-building does that in two ways. Besides helping you to burn calories, it also changes your body composition. It burns fat tissue and builds muscle tissue. Muscle tissue is more compact and weighs more per cubic inch than fat tissue. A container holding exactly one pound of fat tissue is bigger than one containing a pound of muscle tissue. You’ll look thinner even if you never lost a pound because you replaced fat with muscle.

  • You need all types of exercise to be your fittest: strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance. Flexibility and balance training may not burn as many calories but protect you from injury by preventing falls and pulled or torn muscles.
  • Weight loss starts in the kitchen. No matter how hard you exercise, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. Eating one donut and drinking a soft drink adds 500 calories to your body. If you do that every day, you’ll gain a pound.
  • HIIT workouts burn the most calories, whether it’s a strength training HIIT session or a cardio. HIIT isn’t a specific exercise. It alternates the intensity between peak intensity and a recovery pace.
  • Before you start any exercise program, especially one that involves HIIT workouts, always check with your healthcare professional first.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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The Power Of Sleep How Rest Impacts Your Health

The Power Of Sleep How Rest Impacts Your Health

Published by on April 10, 2025 | Leave a response

If you live in Alexandria, VA, you understand how much there is to do. It’s the same for people throughout the country. It feels like there’s no time to rest, whether trying to balance parenthood and a career while still making time for yourself or just attempting to fit other demands into your day. You need adequate sleep to maintain your health. It’s vital for maintaining mental and physical health. Most adults require seven to nine hours of sleep, but a small minority may need far less or require ten or more hours.

Those extra pounds may be from lack of sleep.

When you get adequate sleep, everything tends to run better–your hormone levels balance. You have the energy to complete your daily tasks. The opposite occurs if you lack sleep. It affects hormone levels. Your body produces more hunger hormones and limits the satiety hormones. You’ll feel hungry all the time. Because your body needs extra energy, hunger is often for sugary treats. You move slower and burn fewer calories, adding to the potential for weight gain.

Lack of sleep may diminish your workout results.

If you’re trying to build muscles or tone, lack of sleep can limit your efforts. Besides being tired, which diminished your energy, it affected your recovery. Your body recovers and rebuilds during sleep. Intense exercise causes microscopic tears in the muscles. When you sleep, scar tissue forms that strengthens and builds muscles. Sleep increases HGH—human growth hormone. HGH increases the body’s ability to build muscles. It boosts bone density and aids in maintaining muscle mass. Sleep increases testosterone levels. Testosterone improves muscle formation.

Protect your heart with adequate sleep.

Your entire body rests when you sleep. That includes your heart. The sleep stages control your heart rate throughout the night. It improves cardiovascular health while you rest. Sleep also affects your immune system by creating cytokines. Cytokines are proteins secreted by cells that help regulate the body’s response to inflammation, immunity, and other functions. There’s a link between lack of sleep and RA—rheumatoid arthritis—pain.

  • The quality of sleep you get is as important as the quantity. Your body needs to go through four to six sleep cycles. Each cycle has four stages: three NREM—non-rapid eye movement stages and one REM–rapid eye movement stage.
  • The body heals during the deep sleep—NREM stage. Your breathing slows, your blood pressure drops. The body sends blood to the muscles. It’s when the muscles repair and grow. The body produces HGH.
  • During the REM phase, you dream. A high amount of brain activity occurs. It’s when your brain reorganizes. The REM stage is when dreaming takes place and your memory improves.
  • You can improve the quality of your sleep by creating a sleep schedule, keeping the room cooler, and shutting off all electronic devices. The room should be dark and quiet for the soundest sleep.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Pre-Workout Foods For Optimal Performance

Pre-Workout Foods For Optimal Performance

Published by on March 25, 2025 | Leave a response

Snacking can be beneficial. Many people in Alexandria, VA, use a healthy snack as a pre-workout food. Whether you consume an entire meal two to three hours before exercising or a snack about 30 to 60 minutes before, it will improve your performance and jump-start recovery. Snacks should be between 100 to 200 calories and combine protein and carbs. The carbs provide instant energy, and the protein boosts it later in the workout. It is also a macronutrient that is necessary for building muscle tissue.

If you choose a meal instead of a snack, keep it healthy and simple.

Avoid greasy foods or meals high in simple sugar. High-fiber meals can also be a problem. Both fat and fiber take a long time to digest. Eating large amounts of either can create digestive issues, bloating, and discomfort during exercise. If your meal or snack is primarily simple carbs, you may have a lot of energy when you start, but you’ll crash before the workout ends. It should be high in complex carbs that take longer to break down and a good source of protein. Chicken salad on whole wheat toast or an omelet with fruit are examples.

The closer you get to your workout time, the smaller your meal should be.

If you’re choosing a snack an hour to two hours before working out, you can make the snack more substantial and closer to the 200-calorie amount. Oatmeal topped with fruit and some peanut butter is one option. A protein shake that includes berries or a banana is another option. A simple snack is fruit and yogurt or celery sticks and nut butter.

If you have a blender, make your snack at home.

You don’t need a snack you have to chew. Smoothies are excellent choices. Just keep it around 200 calories. You can use whole milk, almond milk, or other milk substitute. If you use milk substitutes, include another protein source, like nuts, nut butter, or protein powder. Almond milk has approximately one gram of protein, oat milk has four grams, and traditional dairy has eight. Add berries, a banana, or other fruit, and it’s ready to drink. Use frozen berries and make enough to drink half immediately, putting the rest in a thermos for a post-workout snack.

  • A simple pre-workout snack is a glass of chocolate milk, although it’s even better as a post-workout one. It has a beneficial balance of magnesium, calcium, and potassium to refuel muscles.
  • Cubed watermelon is an excellent pre-workout snack. It’s easy to digest, hydrates, and contains all essential amino acids, including L-citrulline, which enhances performance and reduces soreness. Sprinkle on some feta, mozzarella, Parmesan, or goat cheese for extra protein.
  • Apple slices with peanut or other nut butter give you immediate energy while maintaining it throughout the session. Veggies and hummus dip or Greek yogurt dip are also good choices.
  • Do you exercise the first thing in the morning? Overnight oats combined with sweet berries are the perfect pre-workout option. You can even add a little honey since the fiber in oats slows glucose absorption.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Workouts That Burn Fat Fast

Workouts That Burn Fat Fast

Published by on March 10, 2025 | Leave a response

If you’re searching for a workout that maximizes your time in the gym and burns fat fast, you’re like most people who exercise. You want to change your body composition to more lean muscle mass and maybe shed extra weight. Not all exercises are equal when it comes to fat burning. Intense exercise tends to fare better than other types. The problem with an intense workout is that you can’t maintain the intensity for long. You need a break to let your heart rate recover.

HIIT—high-intensity interval training—overcomes the problem and shortens your exercise time.

HIIT is not a specific exercise but a way of doing any exercise. You push toward peak intensity for a minute or two and follow it with a recovery pace of equal time or longer to lower your heart rate. Then you switch back to peak intensity and volley between the two the entire workout. It shortens your time in the gym and burns fat. It continues to burn calories hours after you quit. It’s called afterburn and occurs because your body works hard to return to normal.

Build muscle and burn fat with strength training.

Women often shy away from strength training. They fear they’ll get bulging muscles and start to look like the Incredible Hulk without the green skin. Whether or not you’re trying to lose fat, everyone should include strength training in their workout, along with cardio, flexibility, and balance. Unlike cardio, which burns calories from fat and muscle, strength training builds muscles and burns fat. You can use weights or do bodyweight exercises. Weighted squats, push-ups, pull-ups, and burpees help both muscle building and fat burning.

Do circuit training.

Combine exercises to create a set. You could do ten repetitions of squats, ten repetitions of burpees, 60 seconds of jumping rope, and ten repetitions of walking lunges. Take a short rest and repeat the set. Do as many as you can. Each time you do the circuit training, try to shorten your rest time or increase the number of repetitions.

  • You need more than exercise to get the best results. You need a healthy diet, too. If you’re eating high-calorie junk food, you can’t exercise enough to burn fat or all the calories you consumed.
  • You won’t burn fat by diet alone, even though you might lose weight. If you diet and don’t exercise, your body uses muscle and fat to offset the deficit energy. The less muscle tissue you have, the harder it is to lose weight. Muscle tissue requires more calories for maintenance than fat.
  • Kettlebell workouts are exceptional for burning fat. You get an intense workout that’s full-body. It works your abs and core muscles. It builds flexibility and strength. Like HIIT workouts, you burn more calories in less time.
  • Always check with your healthcare professional before starting any exercise program. Get adequate sleep to maximize results. When you sleep, your body recovers. Recovery is when the real magic takes place.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Different Workouts For Different Body Types

Different Workouts For Different Body Types

Published by on February 25, 2025 | Leave a response

You’ve probably heard about various body types before and may even know what type you are. These body types include ectomorphs, endomorphs, and mesomorphs. All bodies require basic exercises to remain limber and strong. They all need exercise to build endurance. It’s all about the focus of those specific workouts. Some focus more on building muscle tissue and reducing fat. Others focus on gaining weight while building muscle. It’s about identifying the body types and what makes each look different and doing exercises that meet those needs.

What are the different body types?

If you’re naturally thin and have a willowy appearance, you’re an ectomorph body type. Bulking up might be your goal. It’s more difficult for this type of body. If your body type is endomorphic, you’re constantly fighting body fat. Your body is wide. You tend to gain weight easier. That doesn’t mean you have to be overweight to be an endomorphic body type. It just means weight gain is easier for you. Burning more calories during your workout might be your goal. Mesomorphs are between the two. Their focus is on traditional workouts that fit their goal.

HIIT workouts help endomorphic bodies.

A HIIT workout burns tons of calories and continues to burn them even after you’re finished exercising. It’s called afterburn. They aren’t a specific exercise or group of exercises but a way of doing any exercise. You push your body to peak intensity for a few minutes, then exercise at a recovery pace for the same time or slightly longer, rotating between the two throughout the session. Doing cardio, like running, is a good way to shed extra pounds.

It’s harder for ectomorphs to build muscle, so focusing on doing that is their modification.

Strength training is vital for ectomorphic bodies. It’s much harder for this body type to build bulk, even though building strength is the same as other body types. Lifting heavier with fewer repetitions builds bulk faster. You need to ensure the weight you lift is enough to exhaust you after doing between five to twelve repetitions. Full-body workouts, like kettlebells, work all the muscles.

  • Mesomorphs are the luckiest of all. They may gain weight, but not as easily as endomorphic body types. They build muscle more easily than ectomorph types. A traditional workout is perfect for them unless they have specific goals.
  • Just because you’re an ectomorphic body type, it doesn’t mean you can eat everything you want. You can still have too much body fat or carry the fat in unhealthy ways, like around your midsection.
  • No matter your body type, you still need all forms of exercise: flexibility, strength, endurance, and balance. Even if your focus is building muscles, don’t work the same muscle groups two days in a row. They need 48 to 72 hours to heal micro-tears.
  • No matter what your goal or body type, we can help you at TeamWorx. Always check with your healthcare professional first before starting any diet or exercise program.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Improve Your Health Before You Get Sick

Improve Your Health Before You Get Sick

Published by on February 10, 2025 | Leave a response

Life is busy in Alexandria, VA. Efficiency is vital. It’s just one reason people choose to take the time to improve their health to avoid getting sick. Improving your health does more than prevent illness. No matter how hard you try, at some point, you’ll be ill. It might be as simple as catching the flu or as dramatic as a disease with genetic links. Even in those cases, improving your health is vital. The effects will be less dramatic. If recovery is possible, you’ll do it more quickly. If not, you’ll have fewer lingering effects.

Eat healthier.

Eating healthy is more than just getting the nutrients you need. It’s also about avoiding toxins that can harm your body. Consume more whole foods and avoid highly processed food and food with added sugar. That doesn’t mean you never can eat these things. You can occasionally have a piece of birthday cake or an order of fries. Just don’t do it consistently. You can avoid the temptation of fast food by meal-planning and preparing the week’s meals in one day. During the week, it’s quicker to heat and eat those meals than get them from a drive-through.

Stay active and get exercise.

Exercise increases the circulation of all bodily fluids, including blood and synovial fluid. Synovial fluid is in the joints and prevents the friction of the cartilage in the joints that wear it away. Exercise also increases stem cells that replace dying cells and telomere length, which helps prevent damage to the chromosomes. Exercising and an active lifestyle improve the gut microbiome. It’s considered the body’s second immune system. Exercise improves balance, strength, and flexibility to prevent accidents and falls.

Get adequate sleep, hydration, and sunshine.

You need sleep for your brain, heart, and health. Your brain cleans itself while you sleep and organizes everything that occurred that day. Sleep is necessary to regulate blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and maintain a healthy metabolism that affects the heart. Lack of sleep increases ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and reduces the hormone leptin, which makes you feel full. That can lead to overeating and obesity, a leading cause of preventable deaths. Stay hydrated, especially if you’re older. Dehydration in seniors may resemble dementia. Get adequate sunshine. Safe sunning helps provide the vitamin D your body requires.

  • If you’re overweight, lose weight. Obesity leads to insulin resistance, which is a precursor of diabetes. Diabetes affects the entire body. Type 2 diabetes is preventable with a healthy diet and adequate exercise.
  • If you think that only thin people are malnourished, think again. Many obese individuals are also suffering from malnutrition. One study showed that a higher percentage of obese individuals also had a deficit of vitamin D.
  • If you smoke or abuse alcohol or drugs, stop. It isn’t easy and may require the help of healthcare professionals. The stress of quitting any of them is hard on the body but not as damaging as continuing.
  • Learn ways to deal with stress. It’s one of the leading causes of lethal health issues. It could be anything from walking or exercising to meditation or deep breathing exercises.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Health Benefits Of Regular Exercise

Health Benefits Of Regular Exercise

Published by on January 25, 2025 | Leave a response

People exercise regularly for many reasons. Some appreciate how it clears their head and relieves stress. Others like the energy boost they get. Regular exercise has many benefits. It can help keep you fit in your senior years so you can live independently. Regular exercise can help you lose weight, which improves your health and prevents conditions caused by obesity. Doing 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 to 150 minutes of intense exercise throughout the week provides the most benefit. Walking at a moderate pace for half an hour daily or working out three days a week should be your minimum goal.

You’ll lower your blood pressure.

If you don’t have high blood pressure, exercise can help prevent it. You still have to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight. Exercise can help you shed extra pounds or keep a healthy weight. When you work larger muscles, it increases nitric oxide in the blood. That causes the blood vessels to widen. That allows the blood to flow easier and reduces blood pressure. Even mild exercise like tai chi can improve your blood pressure, but you must do it consistently. Losing as little as 2.2 pounds, you can lower your blood pressure by one millimeter of mercury.

You’ll look and feel younger longer.

You can’t completely stop aging. You can make changes to slow it down and avoid premature aging. Exercise does two things to help you maintain your youthful appearance and fitness. It boosts the production of stem cells that replace damaged or dead cells. It also lengthens telomeres. Telomeres protect the DNA. They act like aglets at the end of shoestrings that prevent them from unraveling. Every time the cell replicates, the telomeres get shorter, so the longer they are, the more protected the cells are.

Reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes with regular exercise.

Diabetes affects every part of your body. There are two types of diabetes: type 1 or childhood diabetes, and adult-onset diabetes, type 2 diabetes. Exercise can help improve the cell’s ability to uptake insulin and diminish insulin resistance. A healthy diet and regular exercise may reverse diabetes and put it into remission. Exercise helps you lose weight, shed visceral fat, and gain muscle tissue that also reduces inflammation. Inflammation affects all body parts and makes the obese individual more susceptible to illnesses, viruses, and infections. It releases toxins, crowds the organs, and changes the body’s hormone levels.

  • You’ll improve digestion when you exercise regularly. Exercise increases circulation and improves blood flow to the digestive organs. It increases beneficial bacteria in the gut and gut motility.
  • Regular exercise improves your posture. That affects your mood, self-esteem, and internal organs. It aids functions like breathing by allowing you to breathe deeply.
  • Exercise can reduce stress and make you feel good. It burns off stress hormones and makes the body more able to control the release of those hormones, so you don’t get stressed as easily.
  • Regular exercise can help clear the cobwebs from your brain and improve your mental performance. It helps reduce the effects of anxiety and depression and improves your overall mental performance.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Overcome The Post-Holiday Slump

Overcome The Post-Holiday Slump

Published by on January 10, 2025 | Leave a response

The recent holiday season in Alexandria, VA, was wonderful, but now it’s over. You return to your normal life, just a little more exhausted. There are few parties. You’re faced with paying off the cost of presents and need to lose the extra five pounds you gained. Even though you should be excited about the new year, you feel discouraged and depressed. How do you get back to your routine and overcome the post-holiday slump when lying in bed or watching TV is all you want to do?

Set goals for the year.

You decide the type of year that you’ll have by making goals and finding ways to achieve them. Everyone, no matter what their age, needs a goal. It should excite you, but that is also achievable. It’s a reason to get up in the morning. Break your goal into smaller, easier-to-achieve goals you’ll accomplish each week. That holds you accountable and provides opportunities for success. If your goal is weight loss, break it down to a weekly goal of one or two pounds a week.

Get moving.

Exercising helps improve your circulation and lifts your spirits by burning off stress hormones and replacing them with ones that make you feel good. If you overindulged during the holidays, it can help you lose weight. You’ll improve your posture, which makes you feel better and improves your self-esteem. You’ll also boost your energy and change your body composition. Stick with a program that provides 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of high-intensity exercise.

Try meal planning.

Your life may still be busy, but you’re in a slump because of the weight you gained. The perfect solution is meal planning. It saves time and money. It also guarantees you’ll eat healthier. You plan your meals on one day, shop on another, and prepare all the meals for a week on your day off work. You can use the ingredients in several dishes and cook everything at once, whether in the oven, crockpot, stovetop, or air fryer. Pack the meals in individual serving containers. At the end of a long day, heat it, and it’s ready to eat. It’s faster than sitting in a drive-through line.

  • Create a sleep schedule. You may have gotten your days and nights blurred with all the holiday celebrations. Create a sleep schedule and stick with it to get the rest you need.
  • You’ll improve your brain connections and create new neural pathways when you exercise. Exercise increases brain cell production, cognitive functioning, and focus.
  • If you’ve never exercised, take it slow. Focus on form for the first few sessions. If you’re not ready to go to the gym, start by walking and slowly increase your pace and distance.
  • Stay hydrated. Mild dehydration can cause you to feel tired. Most people find drinking water in the winter more difficult, but it’s just as important. The air is drier in the winter due to indoor heating.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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Foods That Reduce Inflammation

Foods That Reduce Inflammation

Published by on December 25, 2024 | Leave a response

Inflammation is a necessary bodily function. It helps prevent injury from outside invaders and speeds healing. Chronic inflammation is the other side of the coin. It can cause serious conditions like heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma. People who suffer from chronic inflammation frequently live a life of pain. That’s why I suggest that clients in Alexandria, VA, help reduce the problem by eating food that minimizes chronic inflammation and helps their bodies function better.

Eat cherries to get relief.

Eating a healthy diet is a good way to start the fight against inflammation. Many foods are inflammation-fighters. Both sweet cherries and tart cherries are best known for their anti-inflammatory properties. People normally think the Montmorency tart cherry is best and drink its juice to reduce inflammation. Recent studies show that sweet cherries, like Bing cherries, were best. That variety of cherry has more anthocyanins and inhibits COX-2, an enzyme responsible for pain and inflammation without affecting COX-1 that protects the stomach walls from acid. Ibuprofen diminishes COX-1 and puts long-term users at risk of dying from ulceration.

Reducing pain and inflammation can get spicy.

There are spices you may already have in your kitchen that can bring pain relief. Turmeric is one of those. It’s the anti-inflammatory often used to season Indian dishes for centuries. It’s been found to be one of the best to relieve pain due to the curcumin it contains. It’s been part of traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for centuries for its antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory properties. Studies indicate it helps reduce pain, lowers the risk of heart disease, improves brain functioning, and prevents some types of cancer. Using it with black pepper enhances the properties.

Food high in omega-3 fatty acids may help.

Replacing red meat with fatty fish like salmon or tuna for one or two meals weekly can reduce inflammation significantly. Increasing omega-3 in your diet and reducing omega-6 may provide a healthier, less inflammatory balance. Omega-3 reduces the production of substances necessary for inflammation. These include cytokines and inflammatory eicosanoids. Flaxseeds and flaxseed oil are also sources of omega-3. Increasing omega-3 in your diet may reduce the risk of depression, ADHD, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, asthma, and menstrual pain and improve bone and joint health.

  • Make ginger tea or add cinnamon, rosemary, cloves, sage, or cayenne pepper to your food. These all have anti-inflammatory properties. Green tea and peppermint tea fight inflammation, including that from IBS.
  • Avoid food that causes inflammation, such as food with added sugar, trans fats, refined carbs, and artificial sweeteners. Steer clear of processed meat such as luncheon meat, hot dogs, and bacon.
  • Leafy greens, tomatoes, berries, and walnuts can help reduce inflammation. Start your meal with a large salad containing all greens, including spinach and oakleaf lettuce.
  • Including pineapple in your diet can aid digestion and help reduce inflammation. It’s the bromelain in the pineapple that provides the benefits. Always check with your healthcare professional first to find the source of your pain.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

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