What are the Latest Fitness Trends Out There?
It’s a new year, a time for new beginnings and new goals. It’s great to educate yourself and implement some of the newest diets and fitness trends that are at the cutting edge of science. Implementing new things keeps your body from plateauing and can help jump-start your metabolism or muscle growth. Let’s take a look at four of the hottest nutrition and fitness trends for the coming year.
Fitness Trends to Get You Started
1. Reverse dieting
You may not have heard about this one yet but it is really picking up a big following. The idea is that after so many years of yo-yo dieting in which you are constantly losing and regaining weight your metabolism is screwed up.
Basically, if you severely limit your caloric intake and do a ton of cardio but you still don’t see any weight loss, your metabolism could be out of whack.
To get your metabolism back to normal you can reverse diet.
The idea is that you continually increase your caloric intake slowly to find the number of calories that your body needs to maintain constant body weight.
For instance, raise your daily caloric intake by 50-100 calories a week until you see weight gain. If you see weight gain in back-to-back weeks (don’t be intimidated by this, it is the healthy way to lose weight) at a certain calorie level you have found your caloric maintenance level (this could be surprisingly high) and you will notice an increase in energy and gym motivation.
This is the best way to get your metabolism back in line and you losing weight without drastically decreasing your caloric intake. This could take several months and you need to be patient but it really is worth it.
It results in a sustainable weight loss that won’t wreck your metabolism or energy levels.
2. Feasting away your fat (sustainability)
Another hot trend in nutrition is feasting your fat away. Coined by Nate Miyaki and discussed at length by Jonathan Bailor author of The Calorie Myth in a DIY Active interview, this is a form of nutrition in which you are eating so many quality foods you aren’t hungry for low-quality foods.
The diet is basically a way to make eating healthily sustainable and therefore more likely to be turned into a lifestyle. This type of diet can prevent you from constantly losing weight via dieting and regaining it back…over and over and over again (weight yo-yoing). Sustainability is needed to keep this from happening!
If your diet isn’t sustainable or convenient then it won’t work for you in the long run!
The idea is to eat so many hearty nutrient-dense proteins and non-starchy vegetables (among other things) that you won’t want to eat crappy food.
You don’t want to ever starve yourself into losing weight because that is where binge eating comes into play (among other things) and that just isn’t healthy.
Unless you are in physique competitions or want a really low body fat percentage, you should never be hungry!
So what should your typical dinner plate look like? Jonathan Bailor broke it down for us, “The order of volume: non-starchy vegetables [50%], then nutrient-dense proteins [30%], then whole food fats [10%] and low fructose fruits [10%]; eat as much of those as you want in that order whenever you want, so that you are too full for starches and sweets…”
I agree! This is a sustainable, healthy diet.
3. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
Well doing just three, 15 minute HIIT sessions a week you can increase endurance, increase VO2, and increase your metabolism (Gibala & McGee 2008). If that’s not enough to make you throw in a couple of HIIT sessions a week, combining HIIT sessions with resistance training you can ramp up your metabolism for 38 hours after your workout (Schuenke et al 2002)!
Some examples of HIIT sessions could be the typical HIIT sessions, Tabata sessions, 4 Minute RampUps, or performing really intense circuit resistance training (not necessarily HIIT sessions but you get some of the same benefits)!
4. Functional Strength Training
One of the hottest fitness trends is functional strength training in the form of bodyweight training. The beauty of bodyweight training is that no equipment is required, you can do them anywhere, it doesn’t cost you a gym membership, and it can greatly improve your functional strength!
Functional strength training can improve your ability to perform your daily tasks and this is really important for the elderly. It’s been found that functional strength training, such as bodyweight exercises, is as effective, if not more, than traditional weight lifting (Weiss et al. 2010).
These types of exercises will make it easier to push a stroller, walk up the stairs with a load of laundry, or carry groceries in from the car.
Many people are intimidated by bodyweight exercises because they can be hard to do. But there are many ways to modify the exercises so you can perform them and build up your strength until you can do the unmodified versions. Start with the modified versions and keep building up your strength!
For instance, every morning perform 30 squats when you get out of bed. Every morning keep doing those squats and keep improving your repetitions! You will get stronger and life can get easier!
Wrap-Up
These four nutrition and fitness trends are what I believe to be the biggest movements in the fitness industry this coming year.
Implement some of these trends into your regime to help you jump-start your metabolism, improve your strength, or just become a healthier you!
You can improve your health this year, go out there and own this year!
References
Gibala MJ, McGee SL (2008) Metabolic adaptations to short-term high-intensity interval training: a little pain for a lot of gain. Ex Sport Sci Rev 36:58-63.
Schuenke MD, Mikat RP, McBride JM (2002) Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: Implications for body mass management. Eur J Appl Physiol 86: 411-417.
Weiss T, Kreitinger J, Wilde H, Wiora C, Steege M, Dalleck L, Janot J (2010) Effect of functional resistance training on muscular fitness outcomes in young adults. J Exer Sci & Fitness 8(2):113-122.
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