The fitness industry is starting to move away from traditional weight machines as working muscles in isolation does not replicate how our body moves in our day-to-day environment. As such, the Functional Fitness Studio is looking at a whole body movement exercise package that facilitates our body’s everyday movements and concentrates on building core strength.
Our slogan, “Move the Way You Live” is a summary of this principle, training our body’s to better cope with the everyday stresses that we encounter and place upon it.
Using this philosophy, I have created a program where-by participants can come into a fitness class and experience a total body workout using their own body weight with free weights, balls, sandbags, kick pads and many other pieces of equipment. Every class is different, routines get changed every day, so your body cannot adapt to a particular exercise or exercise routine. This not only eliminates boredom through repetition, but enhances strength and endurance. Weight trainers have known for years to get the best results for muscular growth and strength, you target the same muscle(s) using a variety of exercises so your body cannot adapt to a specific routine. The only difference I make, is that I do not isolate muscle groups, rather target ‘regions’. For example, If I wish to do a bicep workout, I would use free weights while lunging, challenging my entire body, but still getting that ‘burn’ in the bicep.
Furthermore, when you attend one of our classes, you will notice that all the routines are superset (simply put; two routines done back to back ), this is to encourage a Lactic Acid build up in the blood stream, which stimulates the production of Human Growth Hormones (HGH). This is great news as HGH is responsible for burning fats even after a workout is finished.
Class content consists of a mix of Cardio and Strength, however, every class is different and you wont know what you are going to get until you the end of the class. Most Cardio routines that are run at GV Functional Fitness are set out in a HIIT format (High Intensity Interval Cardio) as opposed to steady state cardio. HIIT Cardio is any workout that alternates between intense bursts of activity and fixed periods of less-intense activity or even complete rest. For example, a good starter workout is running as fast as you can for 1 minute and then walking for 2 minutes.
Research shows that a 15 minute HIIT workout is more effective for your cardiovascular fitness that a 60 minute steady state jog. Furthermore, not only do you burn more calories during a HIIT workout, but the effect of all that intense exertion kicks your body’s repair cycle into hyperdrive. That means you burn more fat and calories in the 24 hours after a HIIT workout than you do after, say, a steady-pace run. This is because HIIT stimulates high levels of Human Growth Hormones (HGH) as mentioned above.
Strength
Losing body fat – and keeping it off long term – is not only about nutrition (however it is extremely important). As any trainer will tell you, strength training is absolutely crucial for sustained fat loss. Muscles are like fat-burning incinerators, and the more muscle you add – the more calories your body will burn each day. Adding muscle is one of the best ways to lose fat and keep it off. Similar to weight trainers, we lower the number of repetitions, but increase the ‘load’. Keeping this in mind, we generally train movement patterns under load, as oppose to isolating a specific muscle.
To make training interesting, we either run circuits or partner up with routines, and as mentioned above, exercises are superset and sometimes giant set for maximum effectiveness.
Lunch Classes
From 12:00pm Monday to Friday we run a 45 minute Fitness Class that incorporates both Cardio & Strength. Classes are slightly shorter to assist those who take time off work for a ‘quicky’. Although only 45 minutes in duration, for those that want to push it hard, its an extreme workout. Conversely, for those that just wish have a regular workout, they can adjust their own pace. As with other classes, the routines constantly change, so there is never a dull moment. “Expect the unexpected”.
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