Inside Your Fitness Body

What's happening to your body when exercising

Because your body uses different energy systems for different activities and duration of exercise, it’s often challenging to understand when your body’s burning stored fat or the bagel you ate for breakfast as energy. That’s important information to discover to sidestep the potential for frustrated ambitions so you can achieve your training or weight loss goals. Exercise science is complex and comprehending the processes in your body can be mentally exhausting – sometimes these explanations can make even your trainer break a sweat -- but this article from Women’s Health tells you simply what’s going on in your body before, during and after cardio, including why and when you should eat the right foods to give your workouts your best effort.

Nissan Drives Your Fitness

Car companies have been blamed for contributing to sedentary lifestyles, but over at Nissan’s mastertheshift.com, one automaker is targeting active lifestyle enthusiasts through a series of 13 running and cycling events and a training website. There such elite athletes and trainers as Chris Carmichael, Ryan Hall and Tara Styles offer a rare insiders look at how they train for success and offer tips on how to shift your performance to a new level of personal achievement. Get free training and weight loss plans, access to blogs, downloadable workbooks and watch video segments from Lance Armstrong’s coach and running experts on mastertheshift.com.

Boredom Breakthrough

Does your fitness trainer make you do weird moves with one of those “thingamajigs”? Many coaches introduce exercise aids such as Bosu balance trainers into their client’s routine to boost the client’s motivation and keep their interest level high – even if they aren’t training for a sport or goal that would benefit from such training.

Despite that most gyms don’t have them, this video shows why Gymsticks and suspension straps are the hottest trend this spring at my club, toning and strengthening the bodies of dumbbell dolls who bring these tools with them to the gym. If you’re often bored with free weights and machines, but smartly refuse to skip your workout, follow their lead and ask your trainer to switch up your routine with new training tools. A combination of exercise stick and resistance bands, Gymsticks are simple to master: attach the resistance bands to both ends of the stick; now you’re ready to try hundreds of different exercises and multi-muscle movements.

Used by professional athletes to senior citizens and young athletes, GymSticks and suspension trainers help improve your muscular endurance and fire up your results.

Workout Playlist: 5 Hot Cardio Songs

Use music to motivate you to move:

•Paper Planes DFA remix)
•Shannon Stone (Let the Music Play, Gimme Shelter)
•White Stripes vs. Led Zepplin
•Stevie Wonder vs. The Killers
•Lost+ Coldplay vs. Jay-Z

5 Deals this Week:

La Senza Sport: tops from $12.50.

Suunto t6c fitness watch, $320.95.

TRX suspension trainer, $212.16.

Anne Cole one-piece swimsuit, $99.

Roots Yoga, one-week unlimited classes, $20!

Shopper