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2016 is just around the corner, which equals New Year resolutions for lots of people. Many of these New Year resolutions probably have something to do with a desire to improve health and/or fitness. Therefore, this post will focus on the fitness trends for 2016. Thompson (2015) found in the American College of Sports Medicine's annual Worldwide Fitness Trend survey that wearable technology is predicted to be the biggest fitness trend in 2016. This includes activity trackers, GPS tracking devices, smart watches and heart rate monitors (on a side note the wearable technology market is estimated to approach a whooping $6 billion by 2016). The runner up in the survey is body weight training , which is so much more these days than just push ups. Gymnastic training such as calisthenics is very impressive as it requires extreme body control, it primarily consists of body weight training, it is seen at many gyms and parks these days. The third trend to watch out for is High Intensi

The are many types of dietary supplements in fitness, a simple Google search will confirm that. Many athletes - no matter if they are high or low performance athletes - take some type of dietary supplement. Research suggests that more men than women use dietary supplements to improve their performance, furthermore individual athletes are more likely to use dietary supplements compared to team athletes (Giannopoulou et al, 2013). However, does it really work? Wilborn et al (2013) found in their study that combining pre- and post exercise protein supplementation with resistance training significantly enhances the performance and body composition. Furthermore, it was discovered that there is no difference in the performance-enhancing effects between whey and casein proteins. This is just one study, however, it clearly suggests that protein supplement does indeed work. Pritchett et al (2009) researched the effects of chocolate milk verses commercial beverage as potential recovery

When you workout, you most likely want to be as efficient as possible, but how do you achieve that? Research (Madsen et al, 2015) has shown that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is highly efficient when it comes to burning fat. According to Gillen and Gibala (2014, p. 409) "HIIT is characterized by brief, repeated bursts of relatively intense exercise separated by periods of rest or low-intensity exercise. “Low-volume” HIIT refers to exercise training sessions that are relatively brief - consisting of ≤10 min of intense exercise within a training session lasting ≤30 min including warm-up, recovery periods between intervals and cool down ." Zhang et al (2015) found in their study that HIIT was effective when it comes to burning subcutaneous fat, but also controlling abdominal visceral fat. Likewise, Madsen et al (2015) found that there are many advantages with HIIT, besides abdominal fat loss they found many health benefits for patients with Type 2 diabetes. As m

Motivation is fundamental if you want to reach any goal you set out. Taylor (2009) states that "motivation in sports is so important because you must be willing to work hard in the face of fatigue, boredom, pain, and the desire to do other things." However, once you get started your level of motivation might drop, so what are you going to do about that? At one point in your training you will most likely start to feel that it is no fun anymore, you might be tired, or in pain. However, according to Taylor (2009) this is the time, where you have to push through and keep working towards your goal. To help you reach your goal Taylor suggests some motivational tricks: Focus on your long-term goals Have a training partner Focus on the greatest competitor Motivational cues Set goals Daily questions The heart of motivation Krahn (2014) suggests that for motivation to really work, the motivational factor must be intrinsic. If they are, some things that may help keeping y

Motivation is crucial when it comes to sport and working out. But how do you find the motivation to start? How do you keep it, and what motivates you? Before you start anything, it's important to find out what type of sport or exercise that motivates you. Kilpatrick et al (2005) did a study on college students and their motivation in relation to sports participation and exercise. They found that students participating in sports were motivated by intrinsic motives like enjoyment and challenge. However, students' motivation for exercise were extrinsic, as they were more focused on weight and stress management, as well as physical appearance. This suggests that if you are looking for a workout where you have a clear goal you wish to reach (i.e. being stronger), then you might be more motivated by exercise due to your goal. Where as, if you are looking for something active with no set goal to reach, then participation in sport might be what is most motivating. Ko et al (200

When you google "muscle building exercises" you get about 16,300,000 hits in less than 0.50 seconds. In my world that's a lot of hits! So how do you find the best exercises if you want to build muscles? Garber et al (2011) found that there is scientific evidence that in most adults, there are far more benefits from exercise than risks, therefore, there are no excuses not to exercise. But where does that leave you? Especially when it comes to building muscles. Bodybuilding.com has gathered a great list, with all the best body movement exercises for each body part (Gelger, 2015). The article gives the full picture of each exercise, as it is based on EMG analysis and scientific research. In addition, it includes tips on how and when to do the exercises, and also how many reps to do. Have a look at the exercises - even though you are not planning on becoming the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like Garber et al (2011) found, exercise caries a lot of benefits, it's all a

This website and blog is going to be about sport, gym life and everything in between. It's not going to be about me, but about all the clever and brilliant people out there who spends hours researching, testing and training. The blog is going to be based on journal articles and articles from serious sources. The purpose is to gather some of the exciting information that is out there, and bring it together on this website. Stay tuned for the next post.