Latest news with #bodyrecomposition
Daily Mail
18 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Fitness expert reveals the MAJOR mistake in the gym that is stopping you from losing weight
If you feel like you're constantly working out with no results, there could be a reason why. Dr. Shannon Ritchey, a doctor of physical therapy, fitness trainer and founder of Evlo Fitness, revealed the common reason people aren't achieving their fitness goals - despite regularly going to the gym. The answer? Group fitness classes. Shannon, who first shared her thoughts on TikTok, explained that most group fitness classes are not physically changing your physique. Clarifying she's 'not a hater' when it comes to group classes, the expert instead suggested there are more efficient ways to get into shape. 'I've been teaching group fitness for over 15 years, I've taught at big gyms, local studios, corporate studios, rec centers, and on my own virtual platform, Evlo Fitness,' she told Despite leading 'nearly every format' of fitness, Shannon says there are common misconceptions with group fitness classes - stating they 'don't actually change your body composition in the way they claim to.' Shannon explained that when embarking on a fitness journey, you want to see physical change in your body - or body recompositionng. 'You want fat loss and muscle growth,' she pointed out. 'Body re-composition means losing fat while building muscle - it's the goal behind what many people refer to as looking "toned."' 'Group fitness classes can be a great way to stay active, especially if they help you stay consistent. 'And for beginners, they may trigger some early changes in body composition,' she pointed out. Shannon said that over time the lack of progressive overload and failure-based training in most group classes tends to stall results, particularly when it comes to muscle growth and long-term body composition improvements. 'If you love group fitness, you don't need to stop. 'But knowing this science allows you to make more informed decisions - and apply principles that will actually move the needle,' she shared. Below, Shannon breaks down the best way to achieve your fitness goals with FEMAIL. Group fitness classes have the wrong 'focus' Shannon explained in most group workouts, the focus is on fatigue, not failure, which she says helps to build muscle. She explained in order to 'effectively stimulate muscle growth' - or even maintain it - each set must be done until 'failure,' or at least 'one to three' reps shy of failure. 'You can use anywhere from about five to 30 reps per set — as long as the final rep is challenging enough,' she explained. 'Each set should last about 20 to 70 seconds.' According to the fitness trainer, doing more than 30 reps or hold a position longer than about 70 seconds, will result in fatigued or an intense burn or shake, but studies show it's not heavy or intense enough to build muscle. 'So holding a plank or lunge for minutes may burn and feel tough — but it's not the right kind of challenge to build muscle,' Shannon explained. The expert warned that just because something involves weights, burns, or feels hard doesn't mean it's stimulating muscle growth. Are group fitness classes burning fat? 'Likely not in a significant way,' Shannon admits. While exercise can burn some fat, the actual amount of fat burned during a single workout is small and usually insignificant without dietary intervention, the doctor added. '"Toning" means building muscle while losing fat. But fatigue-focused workouts often don't build muscle,' she shared. 'Most classes don't burn enough fat to meaningfully change body composition,' she warned. Shannon added that you cannot 'spot-reduce fat' by targeting specific muscle groups— fat loss happens systemically, and is mostly driven by diet. Is cardio good for weight loss? Shannon said cardio supports fat loss by increasing your total energy expenditure, but its effects are modest unless combined with dietary strategies. 'It's best used as a tool for health and activity, not as your main fat-loss method,' she advised. 'A good starting place is 150 minutes of light-to-moderate intensity cardio per week. That could be walks, bike rides — whatever you can stay consistent with,' Shannon added.
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
This Form Of Exercise Might Aid In Fat Loss—And All You Need Is 7 Minutes
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Losing weight and gaining muscle are two major feats in and of themselves, but if your goal is to achieve both at the same time, you're likely working toward body recomposition. Strength training and intentional nutrition are two vital keys to success, but there's another secret weapon worth adding to your arsenal: sprinting. By definition, a sprint is an all-out, maximum effort run over a short distance or time, says Hayley Akradi, CPT, a certified personal trainer at Life Time and the creator of the Body Blueprint Program. 'In practice, that means pushing to about 90 to 100 percent of your top speed for 10 to 30 seconds,' she says. You may have sworn off sprints since high school gym class, but it's worth lacing up your running shoes again. Aside from boosting cardiovascular endurance, a growing body of research supports that these intense intervals are a leading way to change the ratio of fat to muscle in your body. Don't be fooled, though—sprinting alone won't get you to your goals. Fat loss and muscle gain is largely accomplished in the kitchen, by increasing your protein intake and lowering your overall caloric intake. Without those two changes, sprinting can only help you so much. Once you have your nutrition nailed down (with the help of a dietitian, if you can!), here's how sprinting can help you reach your body recomp goals. Meet the experts: Hayley Akradi, CPT, is a certified personal trainer at Life Time and the creator of the Body Blueprint Program launching soon on the LT Digital app. Sara Hayes, is a RRCA-certified running coach and founder of Mindful Miles. How Sprinting Can Help Stimulate Fat Loss It can burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time. Sprinting is a high-intensity exercise that demands a lot of energy in a short amount of time. Given such, sprinting burns significantly more calories per minute than lower-intensity exercise like jogging, walking, or even traditional high-intensity interval training (HIIT), says Akradi. In fact, thanks to the high caloric burn, sprint interval training results in a 39.59 percent higher reduction in body fat percentage than HIIT, according to a 2024 meta-analysis of several studies in RunRepeat. You'll also save time while burning more calories because the same study found sprint intervals required 60.84 percent less time than HIIT. It's a win-win. It can increase excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. After sprinting, your body requires more oxygen to return to its resting state than walking or jogging, says Sara Hayes, a RRCA-certified running coach and founder of Mindful Miles. This is colloquially known as the 'afterburn effect,' but scientifically speaking, it's called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). 'EPOC essentially means your body keeps working hard even after you're done training, which means your body keeps burning calories during recovery,' Hayes says. As a result, sprint intervals can trigger fat loss by increasing total caloric burn throughout the day, in turn, boosting metabolism, and increasing fat oxidation (the process where the body breaks down fatty acids to produce energy) post-workout, per 2023 research in Physiological Reports. It can help build and maintain muscle. Sprinting helps maintain muscle, and can even build some in those that are generally untrained (if you've been lifting for several years, don't expect to see any gains from sprinting). Muscle growth plays a key role in shifting body composition, Akradi says. This is because muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat tissue, ultimately raising your resting metabolic rate over time, she explains. Sprinting activates your entire body, but 2025 research published in Applied Sciences found it's especially great for engaging the hamstrings and glutes. It releases fat-burning hormones. Sprinting increases the release of fat-burning hormones like adrenaline, human growth hormone, and testosterone, which creates the perfect storm for body recomposition, according to Akradi. Consistent sprinting can also improve insulin sensitivity (insulin is a hormone used to help regulate blood sugar levels), meaning your body becomes better at using carbohydrates for fuel rather than storing them as fat, per 2020 research in Molecular Basis of Disease. How Sprinting Impacts Your Metabolism 'In the short term, sprinting demands a high level of energy, so your metabolism spikes, but over the long term, sprinting encourages more muscle mass, and more muscle means a higher resting metabolic rate,' Hayes explains. EPOC also comes back into play here. The intensity of sprinting requires your body to burn more calories post-sprint to restore oxygen levels and repair muscle tissue, raising metabolism for hours, per 2024 research in Scientific Reports. So, put simply, consistent sprinting helps your body become more efficient at burning energy, even when at rest. Does sprinting build and maintain muscle? Sort of. Sprinting is essentially explosive resistance training using your own body weight, so every sprint activates your glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, and core, allowing you to maintain muscle, and even potentially build some if you're body is not used to resistance training, Hayes says. Speaking of, sprinting is a great complement to traditional resistance training. 'Sprinting and strength work are a perfect pair because strength training builds your foundation, and sprinting adds power and speed, so together, they increase lean muscle, boost coordination, and promote metabolic efficiency,' she says. Sprints and strength training work hand-in-hand to support each other: more strength means stronger sprints, and stronger sprints reinforces movement patterns that support lifting and athletic movement. The intensity of sprinting also trains your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which your body recruits when you need to execute quick, explosive movements, Akradi says. 'These fibers produce force quickly but fatigue fast, so training them builds muscle density and strength, while also preserving muscle mass as you age.' How does sprinting differ from steady state jogging when it comes to muscle growth? I'm glad you asked. 'Steady-state cardio primarily recruits slow-twitch fibers and burns fewer calories per minute, so while it supports endurance and cardiovascular health, it doesn't offer the same muscular stimulus or post-exercise metabolic boost,' Akradi says. 'Sprinting, in contrast, challenges fast-twitch fibers, preserves or builds muscle mass, and stimulates more hormonal activity.' Both have their place in a well-rounded fitness routine, but if your goal is body recomposition, Akradi says sprinting is more $180.00 at 2 $180.00 at 22 $164.95 at How To Incorporate Sprinting Into Your Workout Routine Whether you're up for a standalone sprint workout or implementing a few intervals as a finisher, start conservatively. 'Consistency matters more than volume, so it's about quality over quantity,' Akradi says. And there's good news: Even if sprinting isn't your favorite workout but you still want to reap the benefits, Akradi says just four to six all-out sprints can drive results. 'If you're looking for the bare minimum but still want to see results, I recommend sprinting one to two times per week with four to six intervals at 15 to 30 seconds each.' To get you started, Akradi programmed the below sprint workout that can be done on its own or as the cherry on top of a strength training session. Pro tip: Save your sprints for upper body days. Running on fresh legs will lessen your chance of injury. If you have to tack it to the end of your leg day, that's okay—just be cautious of how hard you go on already tired legs. Warm-up (about 5 to 7 minutes) Dynamic stretching and two to three gentle accelerations Sprint intervals (about 7 to 11 minutes) Four to six rounds: 15- to 30-second sprint (give 90 to 100 percent effort) 90-second walk or slow jog between each interval Cooldown (about 5 minutes) Easy walk and full body stretching You Might Also Like Jennifer Garner Swears By This Retinol Eye Cream These New Kicks Will Help You Smash Your Cross-Training Goals
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time, According to a Fitness Researcher
One of the biggest misconceptions about fitness, especially for people trying to change how their body looks, is that losing weight is the key to getting the body of your dreams. And while reaching a healthy weight can help you look better and lower your risk for a variety of diseases, it won't give you that toned, muscular look many people are after. The only way to achieve that is by building muscle and losing—specifically—fat. Old-school lifters might say you can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but the concept of body recomposition proves otherwise. Simply put, body recomposition is the process of transforming your physique by reducing body fat and gaining muscle at the same time (this might not result in a lower weight, but it will lead to a healthier, more-toned body). While many people believe this requires a strict calorie deficit, long thought to be the gold standard for fat loss, renowned nutrition researcher and fitness expert Alan Aragon says that's a common misconception. "Like 10 years ago, we thought, okay, you need a caloric surplus to gain muscle and you need a caloric deficit to lose fat," he said in a recent interview with Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. "But what happened in these a lean-mass-gain-dominant recomposition. In other words, more lean mass was gained than fat was lost. So there were net gains in body mass by the end of these trials, which would very strongly imply that fat was lost in a caloric surplus."And this process isn't just for competitive athletes. According to Aragon, the average person can successfully recomp their body, too. The key? Research shows that slightly increasing your calorie and protein intake can support muscle growth. Pair that with three to four strength training sessions per week and a bit of cardio, and you'll be on your way to transforming your physique. "I would say sort of the simple and direct answer is you try to keep the caloric surplus pretty judicious," Aargon said. "So 10 percent above maintenance conditions, which could be somewhere between 200, possibly 300 calories above what you see as maintenance. And the common thread amongst these recomposition studies was that protein was very between a gram to a gram and a half per pound of body weight." Eating roughly your bodyweight in protein grams is a solid benchmark, but according to Aragon, bumping that number even higher can accelerate results. When people increase their protein intake beyond the basics, that's when the real shifts in strength, muscle, and physique tend to happen. "There's a series of studies done by Joey Antonio and colleagues where they fed the subjects 400 to 800 calories above and beyond their habitual intakes, just in protein," he says. "And either recomposition happened, or no significant change in body composition happened." How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time, According to a Fitness Researcher first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 15, 2025
