With the right knowledge of technique and form during fitness training, there are many approaches to achieving results when it comes to losing weight, increasing stamina, improving performance, burning fat and generally improving your health. The fields of personal training and sports science are constantly revolutionising new ways to work out which are ever more effective, efficient and challenging. This article explores four of the best workouts for building fitness.
Before we start, this article assumes an intermediate-to-advanced level of fitness. The routines listed here are fairly challenging and so are not ideal for beginners. Much of what is covered in this list is concerned with high intensity training. This means that if you are just starting out, you should probably first read this article on.
Become fit with these workouts
1. High Intensity Interval Training
High intensity interval training (HIIT) has is widely regarded as one of the most effective workouts for building fitness. It requires little-to-no equipment, delivers results fairly quickly, and also offers time-efficient workout routines. This allows personal trainers to complete a session in just 35 minutes (or less depending on the intensity of your workout).
The key point to HIIT circuits are their greatly shortened recovery intervals, each of which separates extremely intensive bursts of cardio activity. Recovery times should be no longer than just 20 seconds. These should be separated by high-intensity cardio exercises, each of which should last around 40 seconds. A single circuit should last about four to five minutes. The number of circuits that you complete will depend on your skill level. You may even feel like going until you burn out. For a challenging session we recommend that you complete a total of four circuits.
2. Elliptical Interval Training
While offering an extremely effective workout, elliptical interval training does require the use of an elliptical machine. People often use them more for a consistently paced cardio workout or for warming up before a routine. However, a far better way to get a great workout out of the machine is to constantly increase resistance with intervals that push your body a little bit harder each time.
This type of workout combines intensive intervals of varying lengths (some of them are one minute long while some are two) with a constant increase in resistance, as well as short, steady-state recovery periods in between. This make it one of the best workouts for building fitness.
3. Tabata Cardio Training
Tabata workouts sound easy enough on paper but they actually offer one of the most gruelling and effective ways of building fitness and developing endurance. This is why it is on the list as one of the best workouts for building fitness.
The concept is fairly simple:
- You do four cycles of four different, extremely high-intensity exercises. Each exercise is only 20 seconds long. In between you take 10-second rests.
- Once you have completed all four exercises you repeat these cycles a total of four times.
The point of this, which you will become acutely aware of while doing this routine, is that 10 seconds simply isn’t enough time for recovery. This enhances the rate at which this routine shreds through calories and enhances endurance while making it a particularly challenging though rewarding way to build fitness.
4. Outdoor Circuit Workouts
Outdoor circuit exercises combine cardio, pace-changes and alternating resistance, as well as high-impact workouts into a single circuit. This challenges your body in a variety of ways in a way that indoor training and machines cannot.
During these workouts, you start at – and keep – a constantly moderate pace throughout the duration of the workout. You’ll interrupt your sessions by intermittently increasing the pace or by running uphill. To further increase the intensity of the circuit, periodic stops are made to do high-impact exercises such as push-ups, burpees or long jumps.
Contact Trifocus Fitness Academy
There are a variety of ways to increase the body’s stamina and strength. When armed with the right expertise, you can even make a successful and exciting career out of helping others to do the same. If you are interested in becoming a personal trainer, contact the Trifocus Fitness Academy today, or visit our website to find out more about taking our internationally accredited online personal training courses.
