After practicing Pilates for 5 years and teaching it for 3 years I’ve seen changes in my body and mind as well as observed the same transformations in my clients. Most people come to a Pilates class to get a flat tummy, ease joint pains and discomforts, rehabilitate after surgery or improve their athletic performance. And Pilates can do all of that!

But the most amazing part happens when students start seeing changes not only in their bodies but also in their minds, in their emotions and in their lives altogether. I’m partial, of course, but Pilates is a true miracle tool.

The modern world is full of distractions, stresses, and chaos. Each one of us is looking for a personal state of peace and tranquility that would help us make sense of everything that is going on in our lives. When searching for that inner balance we usually consider popular self-improvement techniques like meditation, simplifying, affirmations etc. but we rarely consider any form of exercise as a viable tool to help us balance our lives.

12 scientifically proven reasons Pilates is an all-inclusive ticket to your peace of mind

The Pilates Method of Body Conditioning is complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit.

1. Pilates improves your memory and makes you smarter.

Beginning in our late 20s most of us start losing about 1% of the volume of our hippocampus, a portion of the brain responsible for memory and cognitive function. Our brains are literally shrinking.

For a long time scientists thought that we were born with a certain number of brain cells but recently they discovered that our brains could create new cells thus slowing down or reversing brain shrinkage. What will it mean to you? It means better memory, lower risks of Alzheimer’s disease, better learning and problem solving, a higher IQ and more.

2. Pilates trains your brain.

Learning new activities is a proven brain-training technique. If the neurons are formed but they don’t connect then eventually they die without any benefit to brain health so this white matter is extremely important.

Learning a new activity is an important part of brain fitness. But most of us don’t have extra several hours a week to learn how to juggle (that is what Heidi Johansen Berg used in her research) or take on a new hobby.

An exercise program, however, can be just the right way to multitask – benefit our body and our mind at the same time. If you start to automatize your workout (like running on a treadmill while watching TV, doing reps at the gym without focusing on your form or flying through the same Yoga sequence every week) you cut the benefit of your workout in half (not even mentioning that you double the risk of an injury.)
According to Anne Bishop, a Pilates instructor, and researcher, learning a new movement or a new modification in a Pilates routine provides just the effect we are looking for by challenging the body and mind at the same time.

3. Deeper muscle activation means a better function of the nervous system.

Every time we move we use several specific areas of our brain. The brain then sends an impulse through the spinal cord to muscle fibers (the process is more complicated than that and requires a bunch of words that my spell checker doesn’t even know.)

When you learn to voluntary engage certain muscles (like deep core activation in Pilates) you fire a movement chain that might have been asleep for a long time. Did you know that your core consists of 29 muscles and not just a six-pack? Learning to use them is a cleansing rinse for your nervous system.

A healthy nervous system means better communication between your brain and other parts of your body as well as the release of stress-fighting and mood-boosting hormones.

4. Calm mind and emotions with Pilates.

You have probably heard a lot about the benefits of mindfulness meditation for your mind and body. To sum them up, meditation:

• Relieves anxiety and depression,
• Bits of help treat insomnia,
• Sharpens the mind,
• Uncovers creative thinking,
• Relieves stress,
• Helps with chronic pain management,
• Reduces negative emotions,
• helps fight addictions and instill positive habits,
• Lowers blood pressure and improve cardiovascular health.

When most of us think about meditation we imagine a Buddhist monk or a New Age person chanting in solitude. But perhaps we are wrong as we envision only one way that mindfulness can enter our lifestyle.

Though the concept originates in ancient Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese traditions, when it comes to experimental psychology, mindfulness is less about spirituality and more about concentration: the ability to quiet your mind, focus your attention on the present, and dismiss any distractions that come your way.

Pilates lets you concentrate your attention on one thing – your body. Whether you want it or not, you have to clear your mind of any distractions if you are performing Pilates coordination work on the Reformer or if you are just visualizing an inner spring in your core that your instructor is talking about.

Pilates lets you reap all the benefits of meditation without actually sitting still and feeling like you are wasting your time.

You can gain mindfulness benefits only if you are comfortable with what you are doing. Some enjoy the peacefulness of a traditional meditation while others get better results from a mindful movement that cleanses the mind while exercising the body.

5. Pilates relieves stress tension in our body.

You have probably heard about the famous “fight-or-flight” response to stressful situations. When confronted with a stressful situation (real, like almost getting in a car wreck or imaginative, like fear of public speaking) our body releases a wave of stress hormones to prime our body to fight or flee.

In a stressful situation, our body is ready to move at its peak performance but in most modern-day scenarios we can’t run away when stuck in a traffic jam and can’t pick a fight with our boss. Physical activity is supposed to metabolize the buildup of stress hormones but instead, we try to keep everything inside and work our way through it.

The result? Stress hormones settle in our body causing hypertension, muscle spasms, and pain.

Pilates relieves tension built up in the muscles through gentle stretching and gradual conditioning. An energetic Jump board workout will let you metabolize stress hormones built up in your muscles. And facial release techniques that many Pilates instructors use in their classes today will help you loosen tight muscles that are not responsive to passive stretching. When you get stress out of your body, you also get it out of your mind.

A body free from nervous tension and fatigue is the ideal shelter provided by nature for housing a well-balanced mind, fully capable of successfully meeting all the complex problems of modern living.

6. Pilates and Yoga tame your stress.

While it’s important to drive stress out of your body, it’s even more important to prevent stress from entering your mind. If you don’t address the cause of stress (the way you perceive situations and respond to them) you won’t be able to have lasting stress relief.

Research about the benefits of Pilates to tame stress is pretty much non-existent but Yoga has been proven time and time again to be a powerful stress reliever. While Yoga and Pilates are quite different (and that’s a subject for another article) they still share several similarities especially if taught as a mindful movement practice and not just as a fast-paced gym workout.

Several recent studies have found the positive effects of regular Yoga practice on stress reduction and improved wellbeing.

Yoga and Pilates pose embody steadiness and ease, they teach you to find opposition inside your body and use it to gain greater control of the body.

Another group of studies published in the Yoga Journal showed the stress-reducing benefits of regular and even a one-time Yoga session. According to the authors, the physical challenge of a pose becomes the equivalent of a stressor. The same happens during a Pilates class that incorporates intermediate and advanced Pilates moves or is focused on the flowing transitions. When physical demands are met with steady breathing and mindfulness the nervous system responds by maintaining activation while keeping an underlying sense of calm. This response lets us face our day-to-day stress with clarity and respond to it without getting overwhelmed.

7. Pilates makes you happier.

If you love Pilates then it will make you happier.

When our body is positively stressed, like when you go through a favorite workout, endorphins are released into the body that makes us feel good. If you enjoy your workout and stay focused on it instead of letting your mind wander somewhere else you will feel happy and calm at the end.

Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.

8. Pilates makes you more creative.

A creative and open mind lets us experience life fully and come up with inventive ways to deal with life’s challenges.

Exercise and mindfulness meditation each have proven to improve creativity. When you combine the two in a Pilates workout you get even better results for your mind and your body.

9. Pilates lets you control your emotions.

Our emotions and breathing are closely connected. A recent study by Pierre Philpot (as cited by Psychology Today) showed that different emotional states are associated with distinct breathing patterns. Think of how your breathing changes when you face something frightening as opposed to something pleasant. There is no major breakthrough in this finding, just common sense.

However, the interesting part of the study was that different breathing patterns evoke certain emotions. You can basically breathe yourself into calmness or anxiety.

Above all, learn to breathe correctly.
~Joseph Pilates

Breath is one of the six fundamental Pilates principles. Learning to control your breath is probably the biggest benefit of Pilates since many of us are “lazy-breathers”. The techniques that you learn in a Pilates class can also be used in different life situations to calm your mind or get through a stressful situation.

10. Mindful Movement helps release emotional tension.

Any mind/body professional can tell a lot about your personality by simply looking at your posture and observing your movement. Over time we store our emotions and anxieties in our body. We clench our jaws when we want to yell, slouch when we feel inferior or shy, and tighten our hips to suppress emotions of sadness and fear.
Pilates practice lets you release your muscles and gain control of the deep core muscles that tend to be closely connected to your emotional baggage. When you release muscles that hold your emotional tension you also let go of the emotional baggage that you’ve been carrying around for who knows how long.

11. Pilates teaches you to be yourself.

The modern world puts us under a lot of stress because we constantly feel the need to conform to certain standards. We constantly have to push our boundaries to meet a deadline, be a better parent or look an act according to modern-day standards.

Pilates teaches us to respect our body and be content with it. Pilates practice is focused on working within your range of motion and building up your strength and flexibility gradually. Interesting enough, once we become confident in what we are doing we find strength and motivation to move to the next level. However, our progress is not propelled by comparing ourselves to someone else but rather by setting our personal standards and priorities that are meaningful to us.

When we learn to respect our bodies this way we also learn to do the same with everything else in our lives. We start living according to our priorities and desires, instead of keeping up with the Joneses.

12. Become more confident.

In her TED Talk, social psychologist Amy Cuddy discusses how the “power” posture boosts confidence levels. I hope you listened to your Mama when she told you to sit up straight and straighten up because it is the exact posture that makes us more confident.

Pilates is all about good posture and proper body alignment. Of course, good posture is important for your health but you will also gain the confidence benefit from it.

Through the Pilates Method of Body Conditioning, this unique trinity of a balanced body, mind, and spirit can ever be attained. Self-confidence follows.
~Joseph Pilates

If you didn’t have enough reasons to try Pilates or to fit another class into your schedule then hopefully you do now.

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A workout is something that should be initiated in our everyday life routine, but for us to see the results that we want. It’s totally dependent on how serious we are with the workout and not only that, there are certain things we should make as a habit to do before every workout to get the desired results. Here are 4 very key things to do before every workout.

#1: Eat 60 to 90 Minutes before Training

If your routine usually takes place in the morning, it’s advisable that you take a small green smoothie before you start, to keep you fuelled and help boost your energy for the workout. Some people tend to think that training on an empty stomach helps you to burn more fat, this does more harm than good because your body becomes starved and not likely to perform its best.  Taking a meal before workout gives you stamina and drives metabolism, it does this by contributing to protein synthesis, a way in which cells build and manufacture proteins.

#2: Use a Foam Roller 10 – 15 Minutes before Training

When you spend about 10 minutes on a foam roller, you tend to feel more agile and you will be able to perform your workout more effectively.  For pro athletes they have deep tissue specialists that work on them before games, this treatment breaks up knots in the tissues, improves muscle quality and it increases motility. But for sake of just exercising and cannot afford them, the foam roller also performs that function as well, it can be used in place of it and it still gives you that feeling of relieve that you need. If you have a tensed area, you can place the foam roller there, till the tension leaves.

#3: Do Dynamic Mobility Work 5-10 Minutes before Training

Prior to every exercise, it’s essential to focus on dynamic mobility, full body movements where the stretch would be held for about one or two seconds in each position. But for the static mobility it’s better to be done after the work out. Research has shown that those who engage in dynamic warm ups produce longer gains in mobility and flexibility as well as strength than those who do the static warm up or skip them.

#4: Do a Workout-Specific Warm-Up at the Beginning of Training

Warm ups before helps to prime the nervous system, prevents injuries, and improves performances during your work out. It is advisable that the closer to your max that you are attempting to lift, the more warm up sets.

Conclusion

Aforementioned are four ways you should prepare for each workout routine. Start today and be sure to benefit

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more from your workouts.

Although when anyone talks about exercise, the first thing that always comes to mind is 6 packs and abs but it is also paramount that a healthy workout should include also the building of the lower body strength. Here are 5 exercises that will help enhance your thigh muscles.

1.Heavy squats or leg press

You need a high level of power because you want to be both quick and strong. The exercises aren’t going to stress you very well so it’s important that to perform one exercise where you will lift as heavy as possible. For example barbell squat, this will put you on track to develop a very solid strength foundation.

2.Jump squats

After doing the squats, and you take a little break the next one in line is the jump squats. These aren’t performed with much weightlift, it focuses on maximum quickness and explosiveness.an example of the jump squat is the freehand jump squat.

3.Calf raises with a quick eccentric component

One factor that people forget is that the role of the calves is generating power during exercises. It is very vital that the muscles are trained for power. Example of an exercise that can help you work on your calf muscles is the seated calf raise.

4.Tempo hamstring curis

Both the quads and hamstrings are worked on during squat. To focus on mainly the hamstring, you add some tempo to the to the hamstring curis. You have to focus on a constant speed throughout the entire movement. But you can always adjust the tempo if you want to slow things down, or take things down a notch. An example of this exercise is the lying leg curis.

5.Interval sprints

The last way to get everything up for a high boost is to perform interval sprints. Normally, you are meant to do this separately than the normal exercise workout because weight training usually slows the muscles down.

Conclusion

So when you want to enhance your thigh muscles, make sure you include all these exercises, it might be stressful on the body and you might be over training but you have to be careful. And also remember that you have to keep a good diet and also stay hydrated for your health purposes.

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Sometimes it’s not about how hard you’re working out, how smart you work out is actually more important with regards to fitness. So when you’re working towards getting in shape, make sure you consider the four fitness factors, or FITT: Frequency, Intensity, Type and Time

Frequency

Let’s start with frequency. Ideally, exercise is something that you need consistent with. However, the frequency of your exercise depends on the type of workout you do.

Bodybuilding: Using the body too frequently will cause muscle damage, so you need a break between each day of workout.

Aerobic: Some aerobic exercise should be done every day to promote good cardiovascular conditioning. Intense aerobic exercise (sprinting, for example) should be done every two or three days, as the muscles used need to recover. Low-intensity and steady-state aerobics can be done every day.

Other: Yoga, martial arts, dance, and all the other forms of exercise can be done daily.

Intensity

Low Intensity: When it comes to weight loss, low-intensity exercises are just the best. At 60 to 70 percent of maximum heart rate your body will be burning fat, pumping blood and using up your energy at a steady rate — but not so much that you’ll be exhausted. You can usually go for 30 to 60 minutes every day at this level of intensity.

Medium Intensity: You can’t do medium intensity exercises daily, as your body needs time to recover. The average exercise time will be about 20 to 30 minutes, but no more than 60 minutes. You should only perform at medium intensity three to five times per week.

High Intensity: High-intensity exercises are ideal for weight loss, as it burns large amounts of energy in a short period of time. Endurance athletes (triathletes, marathon runners) usually go for this intensity level, as it improves their performance.

Type

The type of exercise you choose to do is solely dependent on your goals. For instance, if you’re trying to lose weight, high-intensity training is highly recommended. So sprint training, HIIT and CrossFit exercises are actually the best for you. Jogging, cycling, and other low-intensity steady-state aerobics can be good, but weight loss will really only occur if you combine weight-training with this low-intensity exercise.

Building Muscles: For the man or woman looking to bulk up, power (1 to 3 reps) and strength (4 to 6 reps) training with weights is the ideal type of exercise–with 20 minutes of low-intensity aerobics thrown into the mix every day.

Time

The intensity of the exercise you do influences the amount of time you spend training. Low intensity, for instance, requires you to be able to keep your steady-state, low-intensity workouts up for at least 40 to 60 minutes per day.

When it comes to medium intensity, on the other hand, it’s not recommended to push your body beyond 30 minutes.

10 minutes is enough for the time in regards to high-intensity exercises.

Conclusion

If you understand and apply what you’ve learned here in your daily workout routine, you’re surely one step closer to reaching your fitness goals.

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Concentration curls is a variation of exercise that targets the long (lateral) head of the biceps brachii to a greater degree than the short (medial) head. If you need an exercise to keep your muscles toned and strong, concentration curl is an exercise you should definitely give a try.

Below are steps to perform this exercise

Step 1: Sit on a flat bench, and keep your legs stretched out, with both knees bent. With your feet resting on the floor, grab a dumbbell and keep in front of you, between your legs.

Step 2: Still in the step 1 position, pick up the dumbbell with your right arm, and place the back of your right upper arm on your inner thigh. Now, rotate your right palm gently, such that it faces forward away from your thigh. You should also ensure that your arms are extended and the dumbbell is slightly above the floor.

Step 3: The next step is to curl the weights to the front, while you contract your biceps as you exhale slowly. Keep contracting and exhaling, till you feel your biceps are fully contracted and the dumbbells can now be seen at the shoulder level. While you do this, your pinky finger should be higher than your thumb, to ensure good contraction.

Step 4: After contraction, you are to bring the dumbbells back to the starting position, as in step 2, while you inhale.

Step 5: After following the first four steps, you can then repeat for as many times as you can, on that same arm.

Step 6: Now, repeat the process on your left arm, and keep doing it until you feel a strong contraction on your biceps.

Conclusion

Concentration curls can be done in several ways; like standing with torso bent forward, and arms in front of you. Your legs aren’t needed in this case, and it is quite challenging compared to the one explained above.

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The big question here is that, what is flexibility?
Flexibility or limberness refers to the absolute range of movement in a joint or series of joints, and length in muscles that cross the joints to induce a bending movement or motion.
One of the main aspects of body fitness is flexibility, and stretching is one of the best ways to enhance flexibility. With age, our muscles and joints become stiffer and tighter, thus reducing the flexibility of the body.
But regular practice of muscle stretching exercises help in keeping the muscles, tendons, and joints flexible and agile, thus reducing the risk of injuries.
Many are the people who wish to exercise their body’s flexibility but do not how. Here ways to improve one’s flexibility:

Chest:

Take a pair of dumbbells with the amount of weight you would use for about 12 reps of flies. Lie flat on a bench and lift them in a contracted position. Then slowly lower them where your pecs will be stretched to the maximum possible. Hold this position.

Triceps:

Position a bench with about a 60-degree incline. Grasp a pair of dumbbells, sit and lean back on the bench. Extend both arms straight upward and then lower the dumbbells slowly to either side of your head. Hold until a stretch is complete.

Basic stretching exercises:

These exercises stretch the muscles in the leg and back that are tight. Maintaining flexible muscles in the legs and back is desirable as it allows the muscles and joints to work more efficiently and decreases the frequency of muscle injuries.

hamstrings:

Prop your leg on any raised surface, a chair or bench works fine. Keeping your leg straight in front of you, bend your torso without curling your back forward and try to touch your toes. Hold this position.

Back (lats):

Hang from a bar with your palms facing away from you in a pull-up position. Lift your body up then back down. Once in the down position, hang from the bar for 30 seconds. Note if you don’t have access to a pull-up bar or unable to perform this exercise, simply stretching and holding your arms as high as possible is also a great lat stretching exercise.

Back (lower):

Lie on your back with knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your hands on the back of your thighs and pull your legs toward your chest. Pull until a gentle stretch is felt. Hold this position.

Inner thigh:

Sit on the floor. Place the soles of your feet together and bring them about two feet away from your body. Place your hands on your knees and gently push down toward the floor. Slowly bend forward, trying to touch your nose to your feet.

Note: The above-mentioned steps are very good not for only flexibility but also for the strong and healthy body. Try exercising daily for body fitness and strong muscles.

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It seems that knee pain and injuries are far more common than not these days and can easily interfere with your favorite activities and exercises. Maybe a 3-mile run was a no-brainer in your earlier years, but now with your constant knee pain, it can seem impossible. But don’t fear and don’t give up on cardio yet! Whether you’re recovering from a recent injury or dealing with chronic pain, running or jogging is typically not recommended, which is why we’ve come up with 5 alternative exercises for bad knees to still break a sweat while keeping your knees healthy. Just be sure to always check with your doctor and listen to your body.

1) Walking

If you can’t run, walk! Walking is one of the low-impact workouts out there, providing many of the cardiovascular health benefits of running without being so hard on your knees. In addition to helping you burn calories and benefit your heart, walking has also been shown to reduce your risk of high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes. Try for at least a 30-minute, moderate-paced walk three times a week. You can also incorporate light weights as you walk to continue to elevate your heart rate and build strength.

2) Swimming

When you’re looking for a non-running cardio workout that’s easy on your joints, head to the water! Swimming works for major muscle groups like your abdominal and glute while burning a ton of calories. A 155-pound person swimming freestyle for one hour will burn approximately 700 calories swimming at a fast pace and close to 500 calories at a slower pace — all while the water’s buoyancy takes the strain off your knees.

3) Elliptical

Elliptical machines are great for people who want a cardio workout that’s easy on their knees. The fact that your feet never leave the pedals means a fluid range of motion that’s vastly different from the hard striking of your foot on the pavement when you’re jogging or running. Use intervals on the elliptical to take your calorie burn up a notch — exert maximum effort for a few minutes, then return to more moderate intensity. Try our Kick-Butt Elliptical Workout for a great interval workout on the elliptical.

4) Yoga

If you don’t believe yoga can give you a good workout, you haven’t tried the right class! Try a vinyasa-style workout to still reap the benefits of cardiovascular exercise while also uniting your movement with your breath. Sun salutations, chair series, and warrior poses can all build strength in the body and once you start to flow, you’re heart will definitely be pumping. Plus, a limber, flexible body is more likely to avoid future injury than anything else. There are also Yoga Sculpt classes where free weights are utilized to give you an even more intense cardiovascular workout.

5) Cardio Kickboxing

You can’t deny that cardio kickboxing is fun — it gets your heart rate up, is often set to upbeat music and usually does wonders at blasting away any residual stress leftover from the day. It’s also fairly low-impact, without a ton of lunges or work on your knees. You’ll incorporate kickboxing moves like punches and jabs and utilize continuous movement to keep your heart rate up. Our Cardio Kickboxing class on getting Healthy U TV is one of our most popular ever—people of all fitness levels (bad knees or good!) love it for a low-impact cardio workout that doesn’t place undue stress on the joints.

Conclusion

The human body is designed in such a way that it can stay active in almost any form it is in. So even though a bad knee comes with some shortcomings, there is almost always an alternative out there to stay active.

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Contrary to popular belief, the gym isn’t the only means of working on your body. There are other more natural methods that do not require the help of heavy machinery or excess weight and these methods are what we’re going to disclose to you in this article.

Here are 4 simple ways by which you can improve your lower body muscles:

1. Cycling

When riding a bicycle, most of the muscles that produce the power for you to be able to ride are found in the lower parts of your body. The more you engage these muscles by riding more often, the more you enhance their improvement and before you know it, they’ll begin to grow bigger outwardly.

To get your leg muscles to do more work, try cycling on hilly areas. That way, as you climb each hill with your bike, you’ll need to exert more pressure, thereby, giving your legs more weight to push.

2. Jogging

Jogging is definitely one of the best ways one can work their leg muscles into better shape. In as much as jogging involves the whole body muscles, it exerts a lot of pressure on the muscles of the limb, forcing them to work themselves harder than usual.

Try adding jogging to your daily exercise routine and within a short period, be certain to see a difference in the muscle build of your lower limbs.

3. Squats

This list would be perfect enough if squats weren’t mentioned. Squats can’t be said to be the father to all leg exercises. They’re also not as easy as the two exercises we’ve already mentioned above, but they are very efficient. The beauty of this exercise is that it can be done anywhere at all. From your bedroom to the parlor, your office, outdoors, at the park, just anywhere at all would be okay for this exercise.

4. Skipping

Growing up, we all thought that skipping was strictly for young girls. But at some point, we tried it. Looking back, you’d realize that takes a whole lot of energy but then you never realized because you were too busy having fun.

Skipping is not just one of the best exercises for weight loss, but one could also say that it’s one of the best exercises that gives life to your leg muscles.

Conclusion

These are the 4 basic exercises that you need if you’re looking to building your leg muscles. You could do all of them each day of your exercise routine or you could choose to do each exercise for a week. But we advise that you choose the former.

WhatsApp number: +971565830067 (Just send us code 14575 and we will get back to you ASAP)
Contact Us: Click here to send us your details or fill in the form below.

You can get in touch with us 24/7 and one of our experts will not only give you a free consultation but also help you pick out an appropriate male or female personal trainer to meet your needs. One-on-one personal training lessons are available in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman and RAK.
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If you’re the observant type, you’d notice that in the gym many people don’t give any attention towards building their leg muscles. You might be the only one using the power rack for squats and you look around the gym and see others putting a whole lot of efforts towards building their upper body. This is why you can see a man with a huge upper body but toothpick legs.

Not training your legs can be the greatest training mistake you can ever make. Here are 4 reasons why you should train them instead.

1. More Muscle

Of course, if you don’t want to like one of those funny looking people who have a larger upper body and toothpick legs, then you don’t need more encouragement to work on your legs.

Squats and deadlifts according to studies, will help increase the release of Growth Hormone and Testosterone more than any other exercise.

2. Bigger Upper-Body

The exercises that you do to help build your leg muscles in turn, also build your upper body. How cool is that? It’s like killing two birds with one stone.

Quick examples of how squats and deadlifts stimulate upper-body growth too:

• Your arms squeeze the bar hard during heavy Squats & Deadlifts.
• Your abs work hard at stabilizing the weight during Squats.
• Your chest muscles tense hard during heavy Deadlifts.

If you can’t train your upper-body because of an injury, you can prevent muscle loss in your upper-body by doing heavy Squats & Deadlifts.

3. More strength

Stronger legs and core muscles will increase your strength on upper-body lifts and thus help upper-body muscle development. Quick examples of how Squats & Deadlifts can cause strength gains on your other lifts:

• Leg drive matters on the Bench Press. Stronger legs mean more leg drive and a bigger bench, and thus bigger muscles.
• Squats & Deadlifts strengthen your legs & lower back. These muscles help you stay strong during the Overhead Press.

4. Mental Strength

The main reason why people don’t actually train their legs is that it is physically and mentally hard. Now overcoming this barrier is surely one way to build your mental endurance. That’s one other reason why you need to engage in exercises like squats and deadlifts.

Conclusion

The 4 reasons must have dealt with any other reasons why you’ve been running away from training those leg muscles. Now it’s time to change your workout routine and exercises that will help build your legs muscles and at the same time work on your upper body.

WhatsApp number: +971565830067 (Just send us code 14579 and we will get back to you ASAP)
Contact Us: Click here to send us your details or fill in the form below.

You can get in touch with us 24/7 and one of our experts will not only give you a free consultation but also help you pick out an appropriate male or female personal trainer to meet your needs. One-on-one personal training lessons are available in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman and RAK.
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If it has always been your dream to build those muscles and look as sexy and hot as most of these models you see on television and online or if you just want to be healthier, we’ve got something for you on our list of really great workout apps.

Like the title above says, these apps are absolutely free and you can get them on your iOS or Android device.

You’ll find apps that provide step-by-step instructions–just like an expensive trainer–for little or no cost. From strength training and yoga to running and more, you’ll find a great workout partner here.

Here are 5 Workout Apps that are great for you:

Skimble’s Workout Trainer

This app offers its users thousands of free workouts complete with timed step-by-step audio and video instructions to help you get into shape. Workout trainer has a routine for you, no matter what you’re trying to work on exactly.

In addition to the built-in workouts, users can access the app’s library to build their own custom routines and share them online, as well as try out routines shared by the community. A premium subscription unlocks more features such as HD workout videos, more exercise routines, as well as removing ads.

JEFIT

This app is specifically perfect for those user looking to do strength training and bodybuilding. It is loaded with a database of different routines specified for different parts of the body. It comes complete with detailed instructions, a workout planner, exercise log, progress tracker, numerous timers and options.

Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App

If you’re a beginner, then you would definitely appreciate this app more. Just like its name, this app guides users through the original 7-minute workout, as well as more advanced routines of varying duration and intensity, complete with short videos.

A Smart Workout feature can function as your personal trainer. We also like that users can create their own custom workout routines.

Sworkit

Instead of focusing on set exercise routines, Sworkit (Android, iOS) has users creating targeted workout routines. Select whether you want to build strength, do yoga, practice cardio, stretch, pilates or build a custom routine, as well as duration, and Sworkit builds you a routine of randomized exercises that fit your exercise goals. Each workout is different, making sure that you stay alert and are never bored by your workout.

Strava Running & Cycling

If you love cardio exercises like running and cycling, then this app is ideal for you. Asides from being a being an awesome running and cycling tracker, Strava Running, and Cycling adds some pretty neat competitive and gamified features to the usual run-tracking recipe. This app records your speed while you run or ride, the distance you traveled, time and course taken. It doesn’t just stop there. It also combines all that data with leaderboards, achievements and challenges.

Conclusion

If you didn’t see the need of having any of these workout apps in your phone before, we believe after reading this, your mind must have been totally changed. Get any of these apps and enjoy your workouts daily.

WhatsApp number: +971565830067(Just send us code 14513 and we will get back to you ASAP)
Contact Us: Click here to send us your details or fill in the form below.

You can get in touch with us 24/7 and one of our experts will not only give you a free consultation but also help you pick out an appropriate male or female personal trainer to meet your needs. One-on-one personal training lessons are available in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman and RAK.
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