Strength Training!
Strength training can help you build lean muscle mass and rev up your metabolism, which starts to slow down once you hit your 30s. The more muscle you have, the less fat you have since your metabolism runs higher, a higher metabolism leads to more calories burned and more fat lost.”
Resistance training also helps prevent osteoporosis, bone grows in response to the forces that are placed upon it, so if you lift heavier, your bones grow stronger as a response. It also works on force production to maintain shoulder, hip, and spine strength, which enables your whole body to lead to a healthier life long into your later years, deadlifts, anyone?
Pick up one dumbbell and complete 10 squats, 10 dumbbell rows per arm, and 10 of any push-up variation of your choice, move right into the next exercise as you finish the reps. Do three rounds, rest for 1-2 minutes in between each round, to make it more challenging, increase the weight of the dumbbell or use two.
Jump Rope.
If the last time you held a jump rope was in grade school, it’s time to get back into the swing of things. This calorie-busting workout can burn up to 318 calories, for a 140-pound woman, every 30 minutes, and your heart isn’t the only muscle that’s working hard.
Jumping rope is a full-body workout. Fire up your quads and glutes to help you explode from the ground, and engage your core to keep you upright and stable as you land back down. Jumping rope also involves a little arm and shoulder action, as they remain tight while the rope movement comes from the wrists.
Jumping rope is a great way to burn calories while improving cardiovascular health, all-over-toning, and coordination, and it will help build power while lowering your risk of injury.
Try the Crossrope routine, start with 60 seconds of freestyle jump roping, you can jump with two feet, one foot, alternate, skip, or twist your hips, you can have some fun with this one. Next, put down your rope and do 30 seconds of mountain climbers. Return for 60 seconds of freestyle jump roping. End with 30 seconds in a plank, rest for two minutes and repeat the cycle, complete 3 rounds.
Try A Fartlek Sprinting Routine.
Start out with a 5-minute jog, then alternate between 10-second sprint intervals and 50-second moderately-paced jogs. Use that jog to catch your breath, then hit the next sprint hard. Perform these intervals for 15 minutes, then end with a 5-minute jog. When you start feeling stronger in your runs, try upping the sprint effort to 20 seconds with 40 seconds of jogging.
Running.
Whether you love or hate it, running is one of the best and simplest ways to burn calories, and you don’t need a treadmill to do it, just lace up your shoes and hit the road. Running in intervals, speeding up and slowing down your pace, will help make the minutes and miles go by quickly. Run in fartleks, which means speedplay in Swedish, where you pick up the pace every other street lamp or water hydrant you hit, and then slow down after you pass the next one.
Running is great, but sprinting is even better, sprinting helps engage the core and offers shorter durations of runs at higher intensities. So next time you think about running, think more about quality and not quantity, running slow is relatively easy on your body as far as exertion is perceived. But running fast at 80 percent of your capability is even harder, pushing your body even more to its limits, this conditions your body to get used to this kind of stress. There is definitely something to be said about getting comfortable being uncomfortable on your runs, so skip the road and head to a track or soccer field for some sprints next time.
