Summer’s in full swing and if you fancy getting fitter in new and interesting ways, we’ve got your back. The Healthista team have tried trampolining, swimming workouts, extreme fitness and new spinning options – find your new fitness favourite here
1. Swimming workouts
Gone are the days when you swam simply for leisure. There’s now a range of exercise classes that take place in water which test your strength and endurance whilst increasing your metabolism and weight loss. SwimFit is a 45 minute swim workout that has been available at Nuffield Health gyms since January this year which benefits your whole body and burns between 500-800 calories. You’ll swim multiple lengths with floats and one armed to hone on your techniques, strength and endurance. If you can’t wait until summer to get back into water, then why not combine it with your fitness goals and get in shape underwater.
Related Articles: Swimfit review
2. Bounce your way to hotness
Rebounce is the fun high intensity dance based workout that takes place on a rebounder, otherwise known as a mini trampoline. You’ll burn between 400 to 700 calories in a 45 minute session in which you’ll bounce through four different routines taught by choreographer and dancer, Missie Frank, whose aim was to make dance accessible and enjoyable for everyone, and boy did she succeed.
Expect leg kicks, twists, jumping jacks and a fun but exhausting Twerkoff session that is going to tone your core, bum and legs. Rebounce is all about having fun whilst working up a sweat, and sweat you will. Classes are held in Clapham Junction and Putney but will hopefully be available in central London soon.
Watch the video and find out more about Rebounce here.
Related Articles: Rebounce review
3. Get fit with a view
New Cycle classes from Nuffield health transport you to different parts of the world from country lanes, forests and seascape views. One high tech cinema screen projects different cycle lanes in front of you and your fellow spinning lovers as you progressively ride up two hills, building on intensity, endurance and speed throughout the 45 minute class. It’s held at most UK Nuffield Fitness and Wellbeing Gyms. It’s easy to forget that you’re on a stationary bike in a gym as you cycle along picturesque routes and time goes by far quicker.
Running Unlimited have created the Zone Dome for the five million avid runners out there. It transforms your mundane treadmill workout to a fascinating run amongst of some of the world’s most beautiful places such as the Mountain Valley in New Zealand. A giant dome plays a 3D film straight in front you as you run your way around the world. There’s plenty of showreels to choose from so if you wish to be running on a beach or through a meadow then so be it. Check out Running Unlimited’s showreels here. A set of films have also been shot for cyclists, from Route 66 to the Australian Barrier Reef.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAv0IuJ-gP0
You can find the Zone Dome in FITspace gyms in Birmingham and at the Jubilee Hall Trust Gym in Covent Garden, in London.
Related Articles: Zone Dome
4. Workout ’til you die
The extreme fitness workout doesn’t appear to be subsiding anytime soon. Gymbox are teamed up with Reebook with their #breakyourselfie campaign which encourages people to tweet their ‘broken’ selfies post workout, all part of Reebok’s #bemorehuman campaign, which we love. There are tonnes of classes at Gymbox currently where you can break yourself, including killer kettle bells and a Spartan Race Training only for the very brave as well as their signature Fight Klub and Muay Thai classes which will challenge you not to die. Here’s our editor Anna broken and almost crying after a kettle bells class.
Gymbox’s latest offering is , a full body workout that combines resistance, weights, cardio and abs. What is truly special about this workout is the way it is put together – the circuits are put together in such a way that no muscle gets fatigued at any one time. For example, if you are doing abs the following exercise won’t be abs again. As a result time seems to pass quickly, because you are constantly changing the type of exercise you are doing – it certainly doesn’t get boring. However, if you think this is just your average circuit training you couldn’t be more wrong. This is no workout for the squeamish, be prepared to work out as if it was your last day on Earth, sore muscles are a by-product of doing Psycho Circuits. Available at Gymbox Holborn, Bank and Covent Garden. Find out about more classes .
Gymbox’s latest offering is Psycho Circuits, a full body workout that combines resistance, weights, cardio and abs. What is truly special about this workout is the way it is put together – the circuits are put together in such a way that no muscle gets fatigued at any one time. For example, if you are doing abs the following exercise won’t be abs again. As a result time seems to pass quickly, because you are constantly changing the type of exercise you are doing – it certainly doesn’t get boring. However, if you think this is just your average circuit training you couldn’t be more wrong. This is no workout for the squeamish, be prepared to work out as if it was your last day on Earth, sore muscles are a by-product of doing Psycho Circuits. Available at Gymbox Holborn, Bank and Covent Garden. Find out about more classes here.
Meanwhile, Parkour continues to challenge the brave. Also known as free-running refers to the smooth movement through the built environment and combines jumping and running to move between obstacles such as walls of buildings or steel scaffolding. Originally an outdoor discipline, parkour has recently found its way inside. In the UK, the first indoor Parkour centre which offers daily lessons opened in October 2014. Indoor parkour is a supplement to outdoor training and gives practitioners the opportunity to get certain challenges that may be hard to find outdoors, for example a wall that’s a particular height and angle. But it is also a good place to learn basic parkour moves. The beginner classes at the Chainstore in East London are not for the light hearted. The training involves working your way around the various blocks of concrete and steel scaffolding using your entire body to move from one obstacle to the next. The class lasts for two hours including warm up and cool down and left our tester in agony for about three days. It is like no other workout and will challenge any parkour newbie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4HcSd2p-4E
Related Articles: The new Extreme Fitness (Are you woman enough?)
4. Dance Fusion
Dance workouts that fuse workouts such as Hiit and yoga with cool dance moves are all the rage this spring. Among them is Buti Yoga that fuses African tribal beats with yoga and JeKaJo that fuses high intensity interval training (HIIT) with Caribbean dance moves to RnB, Hip Hop, Soca, Dancehall and Afro beats. There’s 12 tracks meaning 12 choreography sections to learn and perfect over 12 weeks. Jekajo will tone and strengthen your whole body whilst improving your co-ordination and endurance skills. You’ll also learn to move your body in ways you never have before whilst having a lot of fun with booty-shaking tunes pumping throughout the class. JeKaJo classes are currently run in Bournemouth, Nottinghamshire and at the Jubilee Hall Trust Sports Centre in Covent Garden. They will soon be available nationwide too. Read more here.
Related articles: 6 new dance cardio workouts that will make you want to sweat
Find classes at London’s Gymbox otherwise search online or find DVDs at the Buti Yoga website.
5. New options for couch potatoes
So you hate exercise. Get off this site. Just kidding. We’re here for you. Celebrity personal trainer, Nicki Waterman, has created ridiculously easy to follow Body Blitz workouts which incorporate the Slendertone belt that means you really only need do the minimum for toned abs.
In the Abs Body Blitz class I attended, Nicki shared three moves that she promised were going to ‘change my life’. All I had to do was follow this routine for 20 minutes a day, five times a week, whilst wearing the belt.
We selected Program One, which automatically gives you a 20 minute session. There are ten programs altogether, one to seven being for beginners, eight for moderate exercise and nine and ten for when you’re doing more advanced Ab workouts. You can choose the intensity of the vibrations, which goes up to 150. During our 20 minute session, we went from 50 to 70. The vibrations feel odd at first and quite ticklish but you swiftly get used to it.
We had to do two minutes of walking monkey squats (Nicki’s own invention), where you squat really really low with your arms behind your head and then take large steps forward – you look ridiculous and can’t help but laugh but don’t underestimate it, it’s painful. We then did two minutes of press-ups and two minutes of the bicycle. We had a 30 second break between each and repeated the routine three times with a warm-up to start and cool down to finish. Throughout the session, I could feel the Slendertone belt vibrate. My arms and abs hurt a little afterwards and I wasn’t sweating much so I was surprised when I felt sore the following two days.
Slendertone devices use Electronic Muscle Stimulation technology (EMS), which has been used to strengthen muscles in physiotherapy, hospitals and clinics for over 50 years. EMS technology sends a gentle electrical impulse to contract your abdominal muscles (giving the tickling feeling) and stimulates all your abdominal and core muscles, including your Transverse Abdominal muscle which is often difficult to prompt. With the Slendertone belt, that’s no longer a problem so you can finally say goodbye to the stubborn fat that you can’t seem to work off. Signals are sent between the three gel pads that are attached to the belt and your body. The signals reach the body’s nerves which catalyse contractions that strengthen and tone your abdominal muscles.
In a clinical trial carried out by Dr. John Porcari at the University of Ulster, 100 percent of Ab Slendertone users said their abdominal muscles were more toned, 72 percent reported they had greater abdominal endurance whilst 49 per cent felt an increase in their abdominal strength.
The belt is easy to use and is so convenient as you can wear it anytime – the office, lunch break, or ideally during a workout. Buy one form Amazon here.
6. Smart recovery
The new LA Primal Series: Renew class will help your body renew itself after a workout. Renew incorporates a foam roller which is designed to massge your body’s trigger points – the painful knots and sore spots you feel after exercising.
The roller’s nodules mimic different parts of the hand; the large squares feel like palms, small squares like knuckles and the long, narrow rectangles like fingers so essentially you’re getting a 30 minute intense massage. You have to divide each part of your leg into two ‘sections’ then use the roller on the eight sections of your leg – two halves of the back of your calves, two halves of your shins, two halves of the back of your thighs, and two halves of the inside of your thighs followed by your rear end and upper back.
During the class you’ll work your way from the bottom to the top of each leg, starting by rolling over the lower half of your calves eight times, targeting the spot that hurts the most and wiggling there for a bit, then rolling over that spot four more times. We repeated this on each section of our bodies until we’d worked all the way up both legs, our butts and our backs. The roller initially hurts but the feeling afterwards is so incredible, you’ll be thankful that you used it. Find classes here.
MORE: 13 new fitness trends to watch in 2015
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