How to get better results from your workout

Top tips to get the best results from your workout with DU’IT ambassador William Dawson.

Warm Up

Every day we seem to need more and more time to do the things we need to do and working out is only one of them. It may seem as though warming up is a waste of time but in fact it is a critical component of your workout that is often overlooked by many people!

Here are some of the reasons for doing it and why you should probably start warming up before you train!

• Warming up allows the blood to begin flowing through to active muscles
• To reduce the chance of injury
• Mental preparation for the training to be completed
• Loosen joints

Stretching

Stretching is something that can improve many different aspects of your training and body. As well as the benefit of improving flexibility, stretching can better performance during exercise, decrease the chances of injury and help with joint mobility.

So when would you do it? Before training while you’re warming up, you should focus on more dynamic and active stretching as this will help with the preparation for exercise. For post-exercise stretching, focus on static and passive moves which generally tend to help the body with reducing soreness, fatigue and facilitate in returning to rest heart rate.

Proper Cool Down

The general routine people tend have when working out at the gym is to put all their stuff away in the lockers, stretch for 2 minutes, get straight into the workout and then go home. What you should know is that when you finish your workout, your heart rate is still racing and the blood is still pumping to the muscles you’ve just used. When you stop completely and don’t give your body the chance to gradually reduce your heart rate and blood flow to the muscles, you may experience rapid drops in blood pressure which may lead to dizziness and fainting.

To reduce the risk of this happening, it is recommended that you don’t stop entirely exercising but rather reduce what you are doing to a low intensity to help with returning to a resting heart rate and slower breathing pattern. It will also help with the removal of waste products from your muscles such as lactic acid which can build during training.

Eating

With all that energy spent during exercise, you will need to replenish those levels. Numerous studies have found that the ideal time frame or “window of opportunity” to eat and maximise those hard-earned gains is within 2 hours of working out. This is due to the body being depleted of various nutrients that you use up during training.

So what should you eat? Foods with adequate protein to aid in protein synthesis and muscle recovery and foods rich in carbohydrates to help replace muscle glycogen and that’s it really.

You can also use a protein shake to help with getting enough protein and sports drinks for a quick source of fast acting carbohydrates. Supplements may also be help depending on the type of activity you may be participating in.

Taking Care of Hands

If you’re in the gym all the time, chances are you have callouses, or dry skin right? If you’re one of these people, then you would know that as much as callouses make your hands more accustomed to all that iron, it looks terrible and peeling all that dry and dead skin off probably isn’t ideal. Taking care of your hands by using products such as Tough Hands by DU’IT, will help alleviate this burden by repairing and moisturising hands to keep them in top condition, all day every day. Tough Hands is a scientifically proven, intensive strength cream that works to seal cracks, replace lost oils, condition the skin and form a protective barrier to keep hands in top condition. It’s one of the best hand creams in Australia and repairs dry, rough, cracked, irritated and calloused hands, fast.

Active Recovery

You can’t be at the gym every day, so those rest days you usually do nothing on could be spent with doing a little something called active recovery. This doesn’t involve anything strenuous but rather a form of activity that is low impact and intensity that is meant to promote blood flow around the body to help facilitate with soreness, tightness and general recovery.

Active recovery can be any activity of your choice from walking, swimming, using a few of the aerobic machines in the gym to stretching, take a pick and see if you can notice the differences yourself!

Sleep

Everyone knows what it’s like not to get enough sleep and it’s horrible! When you’re active, we need sleep and we need the right amount consistently or our bodies get thrown off and you can be left with some health problem. Adequate and quality sleep is essential for our bodies to function at optimal levels. Sleep is where our body does all its work to repair itself so if you are one of those 2a.m. and still browsing the internet, you should probably try sleeping at a more reasonable hour, if not for you, at least do it for the hard work you put your body through when you’re working out.