Exercising is a wonderful way to keep our bodies in shape. Strength training builds our muscles, cardio benefits our heart health, and flexibility training helps us maintain mobility. We’ve explained four ways to improve your workout performance to maximize your exercise routine.
Fuel Your Body
Adequate nutrition supplies our body with the nutrients it needs to function. Healthy carbohydrates such as fruit, whole wheat toast, or oatmeal provide your body with easily metabolized fuel. By pairing this with natural fats, like avocado or nut butter, you keep your body feeling full for longer. Consuming protein, such as chicken breast, repairs and builds muscles after you exercise.
In addition to eating enough, your body also needs to be hydrated before, during, and after workouts. Drinking water will help you avoid dehydration and keep your energy levels up during your workout. If your workout is particularly intense or long, you may also need to drink electrolyte-rich beverages.
Pro Tip
If you feel lethargic during workouts, this may be a natural sign that your body needs more fuel or water. Take a break from exercising to rehydrate and have a small snack before resuming your workout.
Stretch Before and After Exercise
At the beginning of your workout, take a few minutes to warm up by doing some dynamic stretches, such as arm circles or high knees. After your workout, cool down with static stretches, like hamstring or shoulder rolls.
Flexibility helps prevent injury in athletes by improving your range of motion and warming up muscles to prepare them for upcoming workouts. By becoming more flexible, muscles can handle more stress without getting overworked or injured.
Vary Your Workouts
One of the best ways to improve your workout performance is by keeping your routine varied. Doing the same exercises every day with no change in intensity will cause your body to get used to it, which can lead to a plateau in progress. Changing the intensity or duration of your workouts can challenge your body and help you achieve greater improvements in your performance.
Create a workout schedule with various types of exercise on designated days, such as yoga, cross-fit, weightlifting, and running. By varying your workouts between cardio and strength training, you can target more areas of the body.
Pro Tip
There are numerous benefits to participating in yoga, including increased flexibility and decreased stress.
Allow for Recovery Time
When you want to enhance your workout performance, pushing yourself to the limit every day can be tempting. However, your muscles need time to repair themselves; we become stronger through recovery. Many athletes have rest days and recovery days. This means you won’t exercise on a rest day, but on a recovery day, you could enjoy light activities such as yoga.
Becoming a better athlete and getting stronger takes time and patience. There may be some weeks when you need more rest than others, and that’s OK. By listening to your body and taking the necessary time for recovery, you can prevent overtraining and injury.