Pump It Up
Every year a new fitness craze (you can check out the fitness darlinks of 2014 here) or diet fad comes along that promises to make you healthier and, you know, general mistress of the gym.
For example. Zumba swept the globe but has seen a bit of a decline of late, the shake weight (that was fairly dodgy looking) and all sorts of strange fads have dominated the exercise world. Whenever there seems to be a quick buck to be made, a new fad will fill the void. And 2015 looks set to have a new exercise craze that…well, it's not that new.
The folks at the American College of Sports Medicine predicted most of those, and they poll fitness professionals every year to see what the next big thing coming down the track is going to be. And this year they are saying bodyweight workouts are where it's going to be at (I bet you said that in an All Saints sing song voice. Or at least you are now).
Now bodyweight workouts is really just a fancy term for the old school workouts that you probably remember from your first classes in PE back in the day, and/or the first time you ever walked in to a gym.
Push ups, pull ups and their ilk narrowly beat out high intensity interval training (HIIT) and look set to be the craze this year because of the fact that they're inexpensive and hugely effective; there's a reason that they're still around after all these years. You can do them almost anywhere as they use only your own body weight (hence the name), and for overall strength and fitness, there are few moves that will do more for you than a pull up.
If you want to get a head start on the competition, then start working on your push ups, burpees, squats and pull ups before New Year's Day. And remember to concentrate on your form as opposed to the speed at which you are completing your reps. And one other thing to keep in mind is to move from exercise to exercise with as little break as possible….in the words of Inner Circle, I'm gonna make you sweat….
So tell us, are you convinced by The Next Big Thing in the world of fitness? Or is it a case of the emperor's new clothes? And what is your current work out of choice? To the comments!
(Main pic via The Marines/Flickr)