The ‘lazy girl workout’ is the perfect recipe for health
A low-intensity cardio workout is just as important to keep you fit can be as essential at keeping you fit as a high-intensity workout.
Mixing up Low-Intensity Sustained State (LISS) cardio exercises with high-intensity workouts may be the perfect recipe for health according to personal training experts.
A low-intensity cardio workout is just as important to keep you fit can be as essential at keeping you fit as a high-intensity workout.
Walking, swimming, cycling and jogging for up to an hour helps quiet your mind and also strengthens your heart.
Experts suggest that adding light workout to one’s regular routine helps build muscle and gives a break from heavy lifting.
This fitness trend is called the ‘lazy girl workout’, and while it doesn’t help build strength or muscle like a high-intensity workout would, it has overall health benefits.
Low intensity exercises keep your heart rate consistent throughout the workout and promote cardiovascular endurance.
Rui Li, personal trainer and owner of New York Personal Training told Daily Mail Online that while gym freaks prefer high-intensity workouts to build muscle, a combination of high and low intensity exercises should be part of your routine.
She said, “There are a lot of trainers who knock LISS, but if you’re focusing on dropping body fat you want a combination of the two.”
Training at a lower intensity allows more oxygen to be available to your body and fat needs oxygen in order to be broken down.
That’s why Rui suggests LISS on rest and recovery days.
Rui said: ‘If you are trying to improve overall cardiovascular endurance you will need steady state cardio, but there is always place for high-intensity.’
Weightlifters, for example, may have issues catching their breath between sets.
Rui recommends throwing in a couple of days of two-mile runs or rowing to boost their heart’s endurance and help them recover from strenuous exercise quicker.
Low-intensity workouts are complimentary to high-intensity ones and should be done on rest days, as it ups the heart’s endurance and helps one recover from strenuous exercises quicker.
But only low-intensity exercises leave you at a plateau and you won’t be able to build muscle and strength.
“No amount of steady state cardio is going to improve that tremendously, so you have to make sure you have strong glutes, hip flexors and deep abdominal in order to sustain those low-intensity workouts,” Rui added.
“Physiologically, you can’t have adaption from low-intensity because the human body responds when it’s doing something it hasn’t done before. People go on long walks for the mind and to relax in general”, said Kevin Richardson, owner and founder of Naturally Intense Training to Daily Mail Online.
Looks like you don’t always have to spend countless hours in the gym to get fit.