You don’t hit the gym without the intention of gaining something. You lift different sizes of weight; do as many reps as you can, to get maximum results out of it. Luckily, researchers also want that as well, and we have been able to compile efficient strategies you should implement to get the biggest benefit out of every workout session.
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Listen To Music
We all know that listening to your favorite tunes can give you the boost you need to fuel up your workouts. Research showed that people who listened to their favorite music post-workout were able to recover faster than those who did not.
Listening to tunes helps to trigger the release of serotonin and dopamine, and both are responsible for quicker recovery. After an intense workout, you should try listening to a few songs you love, preferably slow and relaxing tunes. This would help balance your heart rate and speed up the recovery process.
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Preface Your Workout With Carbs
You might be thinking that loading up yourself before a workout session is a waste of time because you aren’t going for a marathon. But that is far from the truth; eating a lot of carbs before a workout would assist you during workout intervals.
Studies have shown that carbs are the fuel your body needs for any high-intensity workout. That’s because it strengthens your body to put in more effort, and this would lead to better results and value, in terms of muscle growth and calorie burning. So, even if you engage in morning workout sessions, load up your body before heading out, preferably with oatmeal or toast.
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Drink Water
When you lose about 2% of fluid out of your body weight, it can make you experience fatigue faster than you should during
a workout. Some gym enthusiasts go as far as losing 10% of their fluid in just one set. This would significantly reduce your body’s energy, thereby affecting your performance, and it can even make post-workout recovery a hard task. While working out, it’s expected to drink about 1 ounce of water per pound of your body weight daily. To ensure that you are always properly hydrated, weigh yourself before and after any workout/sweat session. In the end, your body weight shouldn’t drop below 2%.
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Make Use Of Free Weights
You can make use of weight machines if you are starting and want to master correct forms. But once you get a hang of that, you should switch to free weights. When you exercise with free weights like a dumbbell, you get to force your body into releasing more hormones responsible for muscle building, compared to when you engage in the same exercise on exercise machines.
The logic behind this is that free weight works on more muscles than weight machines and because you don’t have anything aiding your balance like weight machines. Therefore, you force all the synergistic muscles in your body to assist you.
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Indulge In A Massage
Post-workout massage goes beyond making you feel good. It helps reduce inflammation and causes muscle cells in the body to up the number of mitochondria to trigger faster recovery.
You should know that while exercising, your body doesn’t fitter, but between workouts. This is the point where they recover and adjust to the exercise, and getting a good body massage would aid this process.
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Switch Things Up
Switching things up would keep you from being bored while working out. Not only would it spice things up, but it would also help you maximize the benefits of different workouts.
Research showed that those who incorporated full squats into their deep squats routine had more results than those w
ho did just deep squats. This is the same logic behind exercise variation as well. When you do multiple variations, it changes how your muscles recruit and the size of weights you can lift, and this would lead to bigger gains than doing the same movement day after day. It’s okay to add multiple variations of a particular exercise in one workout, but switching those variations every few weeks would leave your body guessing.
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Eat Protein Before You Go To Bed
Protein is essential if you want your muscles to build back after a workout session. Taking protein is important for optimal results, and it shouldn’t end even while you are sleeping.
A nighttime snack that is rich in protein and casein is important to keep protein synthesis ongoing all through the night. To be sure you are getting the casein your body needs, you should take Greek Yogurt before going to bed, or once you are done with your daily workout routine.
