The Problem With Resolutions
It’s the season of getting started… and giving up! That’s right, on average most people have already given up on their New Year’s Resolutions and it’s only the first week of February. We can do better people!
And according to Strava (the social media platform for athletes) on average, this happens a lot sooner than we care to admit. And by soon, we mean the second Friday of January every year (yes, we really don’t learn our lesson do we). That means before we even hit February most people have packed away the running shoes and gym bags before they have even had the chance to crush their goals.
Now this can happen for a variety of reasons and funnily enough, Quitter’s Day as it is often known usually falls the week before the dreaded Blue Monday so quitting those resolutions might not be 100% our fault most of the time.
And once it’s gone it is very unlikely that we will get it going once again.
Here at U Perform, it is our mission to make getting and staying active accessible to all and over the last few weeks we have been beating the hype to help everyone create and maintain healthy habits that won’t just last a month… but a lifetime!
From simply sharing our knowledge about exercise and nutrition to sharing tools to help you better understand how you tick – all to help you take your active lifestyle up a gear.
Now we’re sure there’s a few of you out there who are already doing fine and looking ahead and looking forward to the next month of workouts, activities and progress. For some of you however, you may have already fallen off the wagon and that’s ok. It happens! But we’re here to give you the giddy up you need to get going again!
To do this, we have had an ask around (we like to keep our eyes on the fitness world to see what’s new) and now we can share our findings. By the end of this blog, you will have all you need to know to make the most of the year ahead.
We’ll also be taking deep dives into these topics throughout the year, so stay tuned!
With that in mind, here are your Top 5 Fitness & Wellbeing trends that might just be the key for unlocking your 2022:
You’ll track more than fitness!
Wearable technology is here and here to stay and no longer are we only tracking steps and calories. Keep up people!
Now we can measure heart rate, respiratory rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen saturation and even track sleeping minutes as well as active minutes to get a 360 picture of how we are feeling and responding to everything going on in our busy lives.
Technology companies like Apple, Fitbit, Whoop, Oura Ring and more, are all fighting to hold pride of place on your wrist 24/7 with new charging technology allowing you to charge your device whilst it’s still on your wrist!
This 24/7 approach to health and performance data makes sense as this year we look to elevate our wellbeing by proactively engaging with all kinds of technology and practices to improve our physical AND mental health and wellbeing.
Home gyms
For lots of us, the reality of working from home is still very much with us and so the comfort and convenience of also workout out from home is still on everyone’s mind. Especially so over the winter months where access to gyms and other sporting facilities, or simply exercising outdoors, just isn’t possible or maybe just not very appealing.
Now we’re not saying you must rig up a professional standard gym in your garage but it’s worth getting some of the basics so that you can, at any time drop the laundry and pick up the dumbbells.
Your home workout shopping list:
- Yoga mat
- Resistance bands
- Free weights (dumbbells/ kettlebells)
One final thing to help you get the most out of your home workouts is to create a dedicated space (where possible) in your home to get your workouts done. No more squeezing in a workout between the sofa and the dining table or in the hallway at the top of the stairs.
Just like we should make time for exercise like we do everything else in our lives, we should also make space for it too. Exercise is at it’s best when we can do it without the distractions of everything else in our lives.
HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training
Speaking of exercise that we can do indoors (and with minimal equipment too), we’ve all heard of High Intensity Interval Training; HIIT for short and it’s here to stay.
HIIT training is simple; complete short, high intensity exercise intervals with equally short rest intervals in between. Designed to work up a sweat, raise your heart rate and build your muscular strength and endurance all in a workout that needs minimal equipment and time.
Gone are the days of hour long runs for fitness gains. With HIIT training all you need is you and half an hour. A bottle of water and a towel would be handy to!
If you would like to get more insight into HIIT training; what it is, why it works as well as a couple of example workouts, then why not check out one of our other blogs that does just that. Just click here!
Outdoor activities
I don’t know about you, but all this talk of indoor exercise has me feeling a bit snowed under with cabin fever. So, let’s be honest it’s nice to get outdoors sometimes and certainly, as the weather turns brighter and warmer, we will all head outdoors once again.
This year more than any year we are set to try a greater variety of outdoor activities that can all count towards our weekly exercise minutes. We no longer only go outside to run, cycle or open water swim or even just head to the gym.
More and more we are heading out paddle boarding, hiking and rock climbing, just to name a few. And if you cast your memory back to last summer, we featured a whole summer of sport across our blogs and social media channels
Group exercise
Group exercise classes are a great way to get fit, meet new people and have fun while doing it and are becoming more and more popular now that we can more confidently socialise and exercise in groups again.
Another big reason these classes are so popular is because they're an efficient use of time; a group fitness class can last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, and there's no need to do anything but show up.
Some people take group fitness classes as motivation to become active; others enjoy the social aspect of working out in a group. Classes like boot camp, cardio kickboxing and spin offer high-intensity workouts that can be difficult to replicate on your own.
Nutrition
The best results come from the best nutrition! It’s a saying we live by, and we see the success from in customer stories and reviews every single day.
Now you’re probably thinking that it is easy for us to say but as a team, all of us has been or is still involved in high performance sport in some way. Whether that’s as an athlete, coach, scientists or performance specialist so you really are in good hands.
It’s helpful to highlight that by nutrition, what we really mean is the breakdown of what is in the foods we eat. The foods we eat being our diet and nutrition being the protein, carbohydrates etc. that those foods comprise of.
Nutrition is about balance and specificity especially when you have a busy life or a strict budget; or indeed both of those things at the same time.
We’ve already touched on some of the ways we can get and stay more active this year and with the right nutrition we can fundamentally improve our ability to maintain that momentum, that progress, over the course of a day, week, month, year and decade.
Here at U Perform, every single product in our range is targeted at a different element of our nutrition and when taken daily, can make a real difference in your ability to perform and recover every single day. And you’re in luck… as a thank you for taking the time to read this blog we are giving you the exclusive opportunity to save 20% site wide so that you can find your next game-changing sports recovery supplement!
Just use the code TRIAL20 at checkout to save 20% OFF*
Thanks for checking out the U Perform blog this week! Our very first one for 2022 and the first of many, so stay tuned. Let us know what your goals are for 2022 by leaving a comment below. Be sure to share this with someone who you know would benefit from reading this. The U Perform family loves sharing ideas and encouraging each other!
*Discount code not valid in conjunction with any other offer or discount including subscriptions and bundle offers. For full terms and conditions – click here