Spunk Fitness Newark NY

Unless you’re fashion-conscious, it doesn’t really matter what you wear to the health club, right? Well, think again. What you wear during workouts can literally determine how you feel and how you perform. While you don’t need to purchase top-of-the-line, brand-name apparel to get a better workout, there are still certain qualities about your gym clothes you’ll want to pay attention to, such as materials, comfort, fit, layer-ability, and appropriateness to the activity. Material Matters The #1 rule for fitness club apparel? Never wear 100% cotton. Cotton is comfortable and feels great on your skin when it’s dry…but when it gets loaded down with sweat, watch out. Not only will it cling to you, irritate your skin, and cause chafing, it holds in body heat, hindering your body’s self-cooling mechanisms. Ironically, the dampness close to your skin can also leave you chilled. This is why it’s important to look for workout clothes that feature one of the following adjectives on the label: • M

In your journey to better fitness, you may have noticed that even reputable sources have different ideas about post-workout fueling. Trying to filter through this information and decide which advice to follow doesn’t have to be as challenging as it seems. The following are some guidelines to help you formulate a post-workout fueling plan that will give your body what it needs, when it needs it. Why It’s Important? If you’re trying to lose weight, it might see counterproductive to eat immediately after a workout. After particularly intense workouts, you might not even have an appetite, so why force it? The answer lies in what happens in your body after a workout. After a hard workout at the fitness center, your body starts breaking down muscle. Think of it as your body’s way of remodeling – you have to tear down the old materials first before you can build something newer and better. If you’ve been working out for at least an hour, you’ve also used up your muscle’s stored glycogen (carb

Everyone knows the more obvious benefits of working out regularly: you can lose weight and keep it off, build muscle tone, and improve your overall health. However, there are many benefits that come from regular exercise of which not everyone is aware. Below, we have composed a list of unexpected health benefits that come with exercising regularly. Regular exercise: Reduces stress Many people do not realize the powerful effect exercise can have on their mental health. One such way exercise helps you mentally is by easing your stress level. Exercises elevates concentrations of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that helps regulate your response to stress. Improves memory Exercise increases the production of cells in the part of your brain responsible for learning and memory: the hippocampus. Therefore, working out regularly improves your memory and helps you learn. If you are looking to improve your memory, add regular exercise into your schedule. Increases productivity If

The food you eat or don’t eat before your workouts at the fitness gym can have a tremendous impact on how you feel and how well you perform. Fitness experts still debate whether fasted workouts allow the body to burn more fat as fuel, but there is no doubt that your energy level will suffer — especially if you plan to work out intensely. The bottom line is that failing to eat before a morning workout (or generally working out when your energy stores are low) can result in burning fewer calories, overall because you’re out of energy to burn them with. Low blood sugar coupled with high energy output can also cause early fatigue or even light-headedness. On the other hand, fueling your body properly can help you power through workouts, pushing yourself harder and longer and making the most out of your time at the health club. Quality, Quantity, and Components What you eat before a workout is just as important as making sure you eat. Avoid the following before your workouts: • Simple sugar

At Spunk Fitness, we love seeing you in our fitness club! However, sometimes, it is better to stay home and take a break. Rest days are a necessary part of fitness because they allow your body adequate time to recover. Here are some signs that you should go ahead and take a rest day: You feel nauseous when you start working out Feeling nauseous during a workout is a fairly common experience, and is often due to dehydration, diet, hormones, or intensity levels of your workout. However, if you feel like you are going to be sick immediately after you start working out, your body is telling you that it needs a break. You aren’t making progress If you have been lifting weights daily and still find that you are making no progress, it is very likely that you are in need a rest day. Your muscles need rest time to build themselves. Get some rest, and you may see more progress the next time you hit up our fitness club. You’re in pain A little achiness is normal after any workout, but if you are

Stress is incredibly detrimental to your health. Fortunately, there are ways to relieve the stress of your daily life. One such way is through exercise. Exercise is incredibly effective as a method of stress relief because when you exercise, your body releases endorphins, the stress-fighting, mood-elevating hormone. Exercise also provides an outlet through which you can clear your head and focus on something besides your problems. When you come to Spunk Fitness for a stress-relieving workout, there are certain exercise options that are particularly good options for stress relief. Aerobic exercise Aerobic exercise, such as running, biking, and dancing, elevates your heart rate. Accelerating your heart rate causes your body to release endorphins, those feel-good chemicals we mentioned above. Whether you hit one of our fitness classes, or just go for a jog, it can have amazing stress-relieving effects. Yoga Yoga is a fantastic workout for stress relief because it is not only an exercise f

Most people have a hard time finding motivation to make it to the fitness center, but some struggle with the opposite problem – spending too much time there. Exercise is great for you, but, like many other great things in life (like dessert), it’s possible to get too much of a good thing. Our bodies need one to two days of rest a week, and if you’ve been putting in extremely intense workouts, you might need even more than that. Ramping up your workouts without allowing for adequate rest and adjustment time might lead to fitness gains temporarily, but in the long term, it will wreak havoc on both your fitness and your health. Look for these signs to know whether you’re pushing yourself too hard during your fitness gym sessions. Notice that most of them are the opposites of the normal effects of exercise. 1.    Your performance is decreasing in spite of training. Training hard should lead to performance gains -- with the right balance. You’ll know you’re training a little too hard if pe

Often the biggest battle when it comes to getting fit isn’t the one with your body – it’s the one in your head. No matter how motivated, everyone has those days when merely showing up for an early-morning or late-night workout at the fitness center is an accomplishment. Instead of phoning it in the next time you feel defeated before you even start, try one of these motivation techniques and you’ll be hurdling past those mental barriers. Remember Your “Why” – What’s Your Motivation? We all work out for different reasons: to improve our health, get better at a sport we love, lose weight, look and feel good, or maybe just to keep up with our kids. Whatever your “why,” visualizing it can help you see the light at the end of the tunnel of tough workouts. Use literal visual reminders like notecards or pictures in your fitness gym locker, or use gear with motivational mantras that remind you every time you see them. Imagine You Have an Audience Many of us find we work out harder with less ef

Even in the motivational atmosphere of a lively fitness center, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut with your workout routine – especially when it comes to the treadmill. If you’re just getting started, running for a certain amount of time can be enough of a challenge, but as your cardiovascular fitness improves and running gets easier, your workouts should get harder. This is where many of us fail, and as a result, we don’t see the changes we want in our speed, endurance and body composition. So how do you change things up on the treadmill without overdoing it? One method you might want to utilize is precision running. What Is It? Designed by athlete and trainer David Siik, precision running relies on the BITE method: Balanced Intensity Training Experience. Although it’s similar to HIIT in its use of intervals, there are a few important differences. BITE balances aerobic and anaerobic training (endurance versus sprinting), and its intervals are designed in a ladder or pyramid sequence wit

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You know that prioritizing time at the fitness center has a positive impact on your health, strength, and weight loss goals. After all, it’s what helps motivate you to get up for that early-morning workout or head to the gym on your lunch hour. But did you realize that prioritizing your fitness has benefits for other areas of your life, as well? Both formal studies and real-life examples provide proof that consistent exercise can impact your work performance, your personal goals -- and even help you with your bucket list. How Exercise Improves Your Work Performance In the last several years, many studies have revealed that regular exercise (at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week, and especially on work days) improves employees’ workplace performance. One study showed that active workers experienced as much as 15 percent greater productivity. That’s because physical activity comes to the benefits of heightened energy levels (without the need for as much coffee), alertness , and

Whether it was your coworker, your sister’s best friend, or a random internet stranger, you have probably heard about weight loss teas from some source. It may sound too good to be true: all I have to do is drink tea to lose weight? Of course, if you really want to lose weight, eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly is key. However, there is some evidence to suggest that drinking certain teas can help you shed pounds. In this blog, we will go over the different types of tea that have been associated with weight loss. White tea A recent study in Nutrition and Metabolism showed that white tea may aid in weight loss. The theory is that white tea blocks new fat cells from forming while increasing lipolysis, the process by which the body breaks down already stored fats. Additionally, white tea is a great source of catechins, which is a type of antioxidant that speeds the liver in turning fat into energy and releases fat cells, particularly those in the midsection. Green tea You may

Your gym buddy is the reason you workout as much as you do, so it’s time to give them the appreciation they deserve. In our last blog, we started going over reasons why your workout buddy deserves some serious kudos. In this blog, we will continue to give the workout buddies a shoutout for all they do. They give you someone to talk to The beauty of workout buddies is that you have someone to talk to throughout your workout. Whether you are gossiping, chatting about your days, and delving into more serious issues, the quality conversation time you get with your gym buddy benefits your mind, while your workout benefits your body. As an added bonus, talking to your buddy will make your workout fly by faster than ever before. Shoutout to the workout buddies who moonlight as therapists! They teach you what they know They say that two heads are better than one, and that certainly applies when it comes to fitness. Whereas you may be killer at plyometrics, your buddy may be knowledgeable about

Winter is coming, which means it is time to amp up your workout routine. Many of us respond to the cooler weather by curling up on the couch with a bag of potato chips, delaying our workout for another day. However, now is not the time to give up on your fitness goals. In fact, there are many reasons why winter is time to double-down on your workouts and push yourself even harder. One of them is the fact that you can take advantage of colder weather. This might surprise you; after all, who WANTS to workout in cold weather? While headed into the chilly air for a run might not sound great, there are many ways you can benefit from lacing up your running shoes and braving the cold. Benefits of Working Out in Cold Weather Invigorate yourself There are actually many runners who look forward to the weather cooling down. This is because humidity and heat tire you out much faster, whereas the cool air invigorates you. The energy you get from working out in cold weather may be enough to take you

Unless you’re one of those rare people who enjoys running, cardio isn’t included in the list of our favorite things. In fact, it would probably top the list in a poll on which type of conditioning people dread the most. Why does cardio seem like so much more work than, say, weightlifting? One of the likely answers is that cardio can get monotonous, especially if you’re using a stationary machine at the fitness center. It’s also hard. Weight-lifting is hard, too, but it doesn’t make your lungs burn and your heart feel like it’s going to pound out of your chest! Since we know cardio is a much-needed ingredient for total-body fitness and cardiovascular health, how do we take the “work” out of a cardio workout and have fun with it? Here are three keys that can help. Music and Rhythm Music can be a lifesaver when it comes to cardio, especially if you do it alone on a machine in the early morning or late evening hours. There are numerous options to choose from: MP3 players, apps for your sma