Exploring Intensity

Some Cardio High clients and a couple of our coaches are tracking improvements in fitness. Consistency is a key to making gains in strength, speed, balance and endurance. We are acutely aware that injury can be one of the primary obstacles to staying on track with fitness goals and at Cardio High we take great care to help clients train free of injury or pain.

We have rediscovered that working out in a warm room or when it’s hot outside will help you burn more calories when you exercise. Our recent study with a subject of one (your author) found that doing the exact same workout in a warm room vs. a cold room can lead to double the calorie burn. Here’s the experiment.

It’s a new year, and many of us are scrambling to figure out how to stick to a new diet or a new exercise plan.

Dear Exploring Intensity readers, we’d like to introduce you to Doctor S.

Before we go on, this is absolutely not an invitation to stop working out. Studies generally show that more exercise leads to better health outcomes – so don’t get ready to rest on the laurels of your previous sweat fests.

Breathing. We have to do it, very often, and yet many of us are not very good at it. Breathing correctly, though, could mean huge benefits not just for your mind but body as well.

If you’re looking for a simple way to increase your foot speed, a perfect playlist might do the trick. We have many debates at Cardio High about what makes a perfect playlist. We get requests for ’80s, rock, pop, EDM and “anything with a beat.” Researchers recently conducted a study that tested working out with and without music.

For a brief moment Cardio High offered outdoor workouts at Newton North Track, though we mostly used the turf football field. We are now going through a period of sheltering in place, and Cardio High is only offering workouts via Zoom.

We occasionally like to highlight the fitness improvements of clients who make excellent strides improving their strength and speed. Sue S. is a client who recently dropped more than 35 pounds in a couple of months. We are not fans of rapid weight loss because that weight usually comes back at some point, but we think Sue will keep the weight off.

While smoking or eating weed has long been thought to lead to the munchies and zoning out on the coach, a new large study presents evidence that marijuana may actually be a great way to help people exercise.

You experienced an elbow injury. Managing pain and injuries is a key part of trying to stay healthy, so you can get a cardio buzz every day. Tell us about your experience fixing your elbow.

You need to be eating more flavonoids, according to a recent Danish study...

Well gang, we are opening a Cardio High gym dedicated to exploring intensity.

An underrated workout addition to your HIIT workouts: battle ropes. These long, heavy ropes can hit on all parts of the body and are trainer approved to add to your exercise routines...

Can you make a difference in your health by simply removing 300 calories per day from your diet? It’s harder than you think, but it could mean huge benefits...

One of the things about exercise that we like to tell ourselves is that sooner or later we’ll get used to it. One day we’ll wake up and the idea of going to the gym will be second nature for us. And maybe one day it will. But if you are struggling to workout today, finally feeling motivated may not happen for a long while...

A new study looking at both primates and men may hold some very novel, and important, insights about how our hearts work....

Building muscle is one of the most important things you can do for your health, especially when you get older and you start to lose muscle mass every year.

We have written often about the great things you can get from doing high-intensity exercise; makes you feel great, helps reduce risk of disease, burns calories efficiently, can be fun. But there are a couple negative aspects of high intensity fitness we should note.

Standing has become so important nowadays, that maybe all you have to do is stand, right? As long as you reduce sitting, could your new desk be the replacement for your gym?