In this modern day and age, the hectic and busy lifestyles many of us lead may cause us to sleep later at night and impact the quality of sleep we get as well. Although sleeping in the wee hours of the morning may be a usual routine to some already, the effects of sleep deprivation are detrimental and may lead to unimaginable effects on the human body. In today’s blogpost, we’ll be talking about the importance of sleep and why you should go to bed earlier and sleep more!
Risk of Illnesses
When people sleep for shorter period of time, it affects the body’s release of insulin, which is a hormone that lowers blood sugar levels. This will increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes in future, especially if they already do not lead a healthy lifestyle and consume sweetened food and beverages regularly. Additionally, sleep deprivation may lead to increased blood pressure and higher levels of chemicals that are linked to inflammation, both of which are factors that may exacerbate the risk of contracting coronary heart disease in future.
Cognitive Decline
When we’re asleep, our brain helps to make connections which allow us to remember new information and processes – a lack of sleep affects our short and long term memory, which may have detrimental impacts in future especially with old age. Furthermore, it may cause trouble with thinking and concentration, whereby a person’s cognitive abilities – like problem solving skills and staying focused can get affected.
Poorer Immunity and Balance
Lastly, insufficient sleep can affect coordination and balance, which may contribute to a higher risk of falls and physical accidents since a person’s alertness will be compromised when they are sleep deprived. Too little sleep also affects the immune system and weakens its defenses against common cold and flu – this puts a person at a higher risk of falling sick when being exposed to germs and viruses.
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You don’t always need to do intense exercise to see progress.
Whether your goal is weight loss, improved fitness, or better performance in a particular sport, there is an important place for easy, moderate, and hard workouts in every exerciser’s schedule.
Low-Intensity Exercise
Easy workouts, or low-intensity exercise, will increase your heart rate, but not to the point that you have to breathe heavily. On a scale of one to 10, low-intensity exercise would rank between four and six. Your heart rate during this type of activity would fall between 40% and 50% of your maximum heart rate. You should feel comfortable enough that you can continue the activity for a long period of time.
Moderate-Intensity Exercise
Experts often recommend moderate exercise for improved health and weight loss. But a moderate workout for one person could mean highly intense exercise for another. So how do you know if your workout falls into the moderate category?
When you are participating in moderate-intensity exercise, you should feel like you are working but not working so hard that you want to quit in the next few minutes. You are breathing deeply but not gasping for breath. On a perceived exertion scale of one to 10, you should feel like you are working at a level of six to seven.
In terms of how much moderate-intensity exercise you need, The American College of Sports Medicine offers guidelines to help you meet specific goals:
To see modest weight loss, exercise at a moderate intensity between 150 and 250 minutes per week.
To see clinically significant weight loss, participate in moderate exercise for more than 250 minutes per week.
If you combine diet and exercise to lose weight, engage in moderate-intensity exercise between 150 and 250 minutes per week.
To prevent weight gain after you’ve lost weight, engage in at least 250 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week.
High-Intensity Exercise
The most effective fat-burning workouts are the sessions that you can only maintain for a short period of time. But you can’t do intense exercise every day. Because the workouts are very difficult, your body will require substantial recovery, both within the exercise session and in the days following the workout.
When you participate in high-intensity exercise, you are breathing very deeply and on the verge of gasping for breath. You should feel that you cannot maintain the activity for more than a few minutes. On a perceived exertion scale, you should feel like you’re working at a level of eight to nine.
Because high-intensity exercises can only be maintained for a short period of time, they are often programmed into interval-style workouts. A popular form of interval training is called high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. To program a HIIT workout, you combine bursts of intense exercise that last 30 seconds to several minutes with short recovery periods that last 30 seconds or more.
Combine Easy, Moderate, and Hard Workouts
There are drawbacks to high-intensity exercise. These extreme sessions put you at higher risk for injury and burnout, and they require low-intensity recovery time in the days following the session. This is where careful exercise programming comes into play, so make sure you’re scheduling your week to have rest days between those intense exercise sessions.
If you are healthy enough for physical activity at every intensity level, plan one or two hard workouts during the week. These short workouts will help you burn maximum calories in minimum time. You’ll also build muscle to boost your metabolism during these sessions.
You do want to make sure that you aren’t working out too hard too often. On the days following your hard workouts, give your body a rest by participating in a low-intensity exercise. The increased range of motion during these easy days will help your sore muscles recover more quickly and you will still increase your calorie burn for the day without taxing your body too much which can result in burn out or injury.
Fill in the rest of your workout week with moderate intensity sessions. Challenge yourself by making these sessions longer. The calorie-burning benefits from these moderate workouts come from the duration of the session, not necessarily from the intensity.
Last but not least…
Lastly, remember that if you work out to lose weight, you need to watch your diet as well. Make sure you eat the right amount of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fat to fuel your workouts. Be mindful of your eating habits, measure your exercise intensity, and record the data in a weight loss journal to track your progress. These will all help improve results.
Active Zone is a women only kickboxing gym, where apart from active kickboxing fitness classes, we also offer other classes. We are an ever-growing family that is made up of strong and motivated women from every walk of life.
Active Kickboxing Fitness Class
Active Kickboxing Fitness Class is designed to workout all your various muscle groups not just to tone up but also build up your fitness stamina and improve your motor skills.
we teach non-combative kickboxing, with a mix of different fitness routines. Our aim is to curate a full body workout for our clients.
For our kickboxing, it is necessary for one to join our trial class, regardless of your experience level as we will be introducing different movements that you may not have attempted before.
Why Active Zone focuses on Active Kickboxing Fitness.
Increase Muscular Endurance
Many of the moves in kickboxing are repetitive and at a quick pace. Speed punches mixed in with power punches and speed roundhouse kicks are what our trainers at Active Zone crave. The muscles don’t get recovery time as often as you might wish! This trains your muscles to work longer, thus building endurance.
Improves Coordination
Over time, the lagging side learns and becomes better coordinated. This creates balance in the body. A typical class is well-designed to ensure you work your left side as much as your right side. You’ll soon notice that some movements are easier to do on one side versus the other.
Tone Whole Body
side from the punching and kicking, there are all sorts of calisthenics mixed in like squats, pop squats, push ups, burpees as well as exercises involving dumbbells or bands.
Improve Mental Health
Punches and kicks are often expressed along with a strong exhale and sound to increase intensity. After class you feel so much better than when you walked in.
Gym Group Class – Active Circuit Training System (ACTS)
A vast number of individuals feel intimidated at the thought of joining a gym. Walking into a space with a variety of machines is tough and what makes it even tougher, is the members seemingly in tip top condition and know exactly what they’re doing. It’s no surprise to see why many people think they cannot fit in.
The good news is that there are many choices for where and how you workout and each gym offers a different type of atmosphere. The trick? Find one that feels welcoming to you.
Why do we do Circuit Training at Active Zone?
Gets You Lean and Toned
The combination of intense strength components, which build lean muscle, and calorie burning cardio can’t be beat when it comes to developing a toned and lean body.
Can Help with Disease Prevention
Because circuits are short, varied, but intense, they can help those new to training, or those coming back from illness or injury improve their fitness and overall health quickly. Circuits can also easily be adjusted or adapted for different fitness levels, making them a perfect entry-level exercise program, or they can be ramped up to challenge serious athletes.
It Can Help You Lose Fat
Put together the high-intensity, aerobic, and strength benefits of circuit training, and fat and weight loss are natural byproducts.Circuit training keeps your metabolism elevated for much longer after you work out resulting in burning more total calories, and losing more fat.
In just 45 minutes, we can get you sweating buckets. It’s easy and quick, so what are you waiting for, contact us to book your slot now!
MetCon Class – Metabolic Conditioning Class
Lastly, we have the 45 minutes Metabolic Conditioning class. The movements are curated with short bouts of higher-intensity training designed to increase metabolic demand and increase energy usage.
Benefits of MetCon
Improves your cardiovascular capacity
Being a high intensity circuit class, MetCon can increase your aerobic capacity and improve your overall fitness in general.
Improves your hormonal profile
The hormones that promote fat loss actually increase resulting from the high intensity training.
Allows maximum calorie burn
Metabolic Conditioning burns a ton of calories, which can be up to 500 calories in 30 min.* (Results vary from person to person)
Not just that, but your metabolic rate can increase from 10%-20% up to 48 hours after the exercise is done!
Want to give it a try? Contact us!
Our 8 different group classes each have their own focus to target specific areas that you may wish to work on for yourself. One of them is bound to work for you!
Feel free to ask us for a non-obligatory tour of our facilities.
Contact us to find out more about our classes, schedule or to arrange for a trial class!
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Contact
For more information on our group classes, contact us at:
At Active Zone, our trainers curate routines that has kickboxing movements, in addition to body weight exercises. When conducted efficiently and effectively, one will be challenged by our high-energy workouts, making the most out of one’s 45 mins with us.
Active Kickboxing Fitness Class
Kickboxing is not just a full-contact sport, it is also used in self defence and general fitness for the ladies in the gym. Kickboxing in general can help to improve a large variety of aspects, ranging from hand-eye coordination, core control, weight loss et cetera.
What do we usually do?
Our classes usually will have a combination of upper and lower kickboxing body movements, also adding in body-conditioning movements within the same class!
Why do we want to introduce Kickboxing to women?
Increase Muscular Endurance
Improves Coordination
Tone Whole Body
Improves Mental Health
Through our Active Kickboxing Fitness Class, one can build confidence, improve their stamina and coordination. Our classes also incorporate a warmup and cool down. Every class, there is a brief segment specifically for different body parts. Our classes run for about 45 minutes.
Kickboxing on its own can be rather intimidating but at Active Zone, we conduct non-combative kickboxing fitness.
Our workouts are intense yet engaging, ensuring that our clients walk away feeling pumped.
With our workouts, one’s elevated heart rate moves into an intense zone in which cardiovascular conditioning takes place. This creates a positive impact on one’s heart.
Cardio conditioning can help you have a daily calorie deficit, allowing for fat loss. Excess fats have been associated with a higher risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer, and diabetes.
Contact us!
For more information on our female friendly group classes, contact us at:
Exercise is a vital component of any child’s development—laying the foundations for a healthy life.
Benefits of exercise:
There are many benefits of why children should exercise daily, your child won’t just notice the benefits and changes but you will too.
Improves balance, flexibility, coordination and strength. Balance and coordination skills are necessary for everyday life. Improved muscle strength and flexibility improves a child’s overall health and physical fitness.
Improves posture. Poor posture in children can result in fatigue, back and neck pain and headaches. Children who have spines that are out of alignment or deformed due to chronic slouching are less developed in physical coordination and as a result cognitive coordination.
Improves concentration and thinking skills. Studies have shown that exercising improves a child’s academic achievement. Exercise encourages your brain to work at maximum capacity by causing nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage.
Improves cardiovascular health. The heart is the most important muscle that gets exercised during physical activity. Regular exercise helps to reduce risk factors of cardiovascular disease such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Assists in the development of gross and fine motor skills. Fine motor skills involve the refined use of the muscles in the hand, fingers and thumb important in writing, feeding oneself and buttoning a shirt.
To get your kids moving, limit the amount of time they spend watching tv, playing computer or video games or doing other sedentary activities.
Types of exercise:
Play-based activities
Play-based activities are important for children of all ages but especially in kids under the age of 5. A game with a ball, dancing to music, playing at the park and games that stimulate a child’s imagination are good examples. These forms of exercise can allow adults to get involved, are spontaneous and fun for kids and don’t cost a thing.
Structured exercise
Exercise in the form of a class or team sport is what is referred to as a structured form of exercise. It can allow a child to develop specific skills such as gymnastics, soccer or swimming. Team sports can help to boost confidence and develop social skills, while learning to be a team player.
Participating in regular physical activity (also combined with a healthy diet) is the key to a healthy lifestyle. Endurance, strength, and flexibility are a part of fun physical activities. To have this in you and your child’s life:
Find a regular schedule for physical activity.
Incorporate activity into daily routines
Help your kids participate in a variety of age-appropriate activities, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
Embrace a healthier lifestyle yourself, so you’ll be a positive role model for your family.
Keep it fun, so you can count on your kids to come back for more.
Kids who are physically active are more likely to be academically motivated and alert in school. Teaching children to exercise when they are young will heighten the probability for them to continue exercising. They will keep moving, and the rest of their lives will be more enjoyable. They develop habits that last a lifetime.
Does eating after a workout mean that you’ve wasted your effort at the gym?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!
We’re told over and over again that we’re not allowed to “wreck” our workouts with high-calorie food. However, if you go and think about it, that concept makes little to no sense.
We all know that physical activity requires a lot of energy. But did you know that it is difficult for the body to recover if energy levels are low? Hence it is extremely important for us to fuel our bodies within 15 to 30 minutes of finishing our workout.
Getting the right nutritional balance after exercise restores energy levels and reduces fatigue, helping the body to repair muscles and build strength for future workouts.
Proteins, carbohydrates and healthful fats are all essential for the body’s recovery.
Post-Workout Meal
Here is a list of recommended food items that you should consume post-workout:
Dairy Protein
Dairy Products rich in protein include: Milk, Greek Yogurt, Ricotta Cheese, Cottage Cheese and Kefir etc.
These proteins can repair new cells, especially those in the muscles. They also contain all of the essential amino acids, which are only available through the diet.
2. EGGS
Nutrients in the yolk tend to stimulate muscles more effectively, so do consume whole eggs instead of just the egg whites.
3. OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS
The main source for this is fatty fish, including salmon. Tuna is also a good alternative.
These fatty acids boost the synthesis of muscle proteins and increase the size of muscle cells in healthy young and middle-aged adults. There is also evidence that they help to reduce muscle soreness after resistance training.
4. CARBOHYDRATES
There are many available options for healthful carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, grains, fruits, as well as quinoa.
Consuming carbohydrate-rich foods is the best way to reduce the decreases in immunity that can occur after exercise. They also help to promote glycogen storage.
5. WATER
The body loses water and electrolytes while sweating so drinking actually helps to promote performance as well as recovery. Hence, it is important to drink before, during and after exercise.
For your exercise to be more effective, do remember to consume your proteins, carbohydrates and healthful fats post-workout!
Happy working out 🙂
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Not sure where to look for such foods?
Not only does Active Zone provide classes for you to workout, but we also provide delicious meals for you to consume after you’re done!
Check them out now
Active Zone Group ClassesHealthy Food available at Active Zone
Contact us to find out more about our classes, schedule or to arrange for a trial class!
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Contact
For more information on our group classes, contact us at:
Active Zone is an all female gym that offers a variety of group classes, ranging from kickboxing, to functional training and even high intensity interval training (HIIT) to cater to your own personal fitness goals!
Check out what one of our clients has to say about her journey with us here at Active Zone!
Active Zone Client, Patricia’s Testimonial
In fact, we have 8 different group classes available that targets different aspects of your fitness – and some are even packed into 30min that you can slot into your busy schedule. But don’t be mistaken, they might leave you aching for more!
Feel free to ask us for a non-obligatory tour of our facilities!
Contact us to find out more about our classes, schedule or to arrange for a trial class!
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Contact
For more information on our group classes, contact us at:
Our client today is Francesca, who joined us a month ago in 2020 through her boss, Jen-Lin. (Jen-Lin is also our personal training client since 2018) 😮
Francesca decided to look for a gym where she felt comfortable with to continue her functional training as well as to try something new.
She tried our Active Kickboxing Introductory Class and felt it was lots of fun and decided to join us!
Click on the picture to hear what she has to say about her experience here at Active Zone!
Apart from the Active Kickboxing Fitness class, she also mentioned out Metcon and 10 rounds 30min group classes that are perfect for a woman on the go!
Check out our 8 different group classes below to find your perfect fit!
Interested in becoming part of our community? Get started with our Active Kickboxing Introductory class just like Francesca!
Feel free to ask us for a non-obligatory tour of our facilities.
Contact us to find out more about our classes, schedule or to arrange for a trial class!
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Contact
For more information on our group classes, contact us at:
Our Active Trainers, Valencia and Nazimah, recently went for the SWF NCAP Level 1 Weightlifting Certification course from 6 – 7 January 2018!
Active Red Trainers – Weightlifting Certified (Nazimah, Coach Wu and Valencia)
After 2 days of intensive Theory lessons and Technical training, our 2 Active Trainers have successfully graduated from the course!
Testimonial from Valencia
“The NCAP Level 1 Weightlifting Course was great!
It was a very valuable and enriching experience. Coach Wu is really knowledgeable and I have learnt a lot from him👍🏻
In addition, I have also re-learnt many things (techniques especially) which used to be my (wrong) foundation prior to this course.
The course gave me significant insights into how weightlifting is essential across all sports, and the how weightlifting sets the basic strength foundation which can be used as a powerful stepping stone across various (if not all) sports.”
With such a great and insightful experience gained from this SWF NCAP Weightlifting Course, you can be sure that our Active Trainers (Valencia and Nazimah) will be using it across our 2 awesome gym group classes;
Featuring the Certificates for our Amazing Graduates!
Certificate of Achievement – Valencia Yip (Senior Active Trainer)
Certificate of Achievement – Nazimah (Active Trainer)
Benefits of Weightlifting for WOMEN (That every woman should know)
1. Lose Body Fat
Weight training builds muscle, as lean muscle increases so does metabolism. A higher metabolism means that you will burn more calories all day long. Studies found that the the average woman who strength trains two to three times a week for two months will gain nearly two pounds of muscle and will lose 3.5 pounds of fat. For each pound of muscle you gain, you’ll burn 35 to 50 more calories per day. That can really add up over the long term; for example, 4 extra pounds of muscle can burn up to 10 extra pounders per year!
2. Gain Strength Without Bulking
One of the most common reasons women avoid weight training is because they are afraid of “bulking.” This is a misconception as it physically can not happen. Women simply don’t have the testosterone to build muscle like men. Women have 10 to 30 times less testosterone than men and have a much harder time gaining size from strength training. Insead women develop muscle definition and strength without the size.
3. Decrease Risk of Osteoporosis
Weight training not only strengthens muscles, it strengthens your bones. Weight training increases bone density, which reduces the risk of fractures and broken bones. Research has also shown weight training can increase spinal bone density to create a strong and healthy spine.
4. Reduce Risk of Injury
Weight training also increases strength in connective tissues and joints. Strong joints, ligaments, and tendons are important to prevent injury and can relieve pain from osteoarthritis. Strengthening muscles and connective tissue will make injury from daily tasks and routine exercise less likely, and can even improve sports performance.
5. Burn More Calories
Weight training has been proven to raise your metabolism for up to 24 hours after a workout. The more intense the workout the more calories are burned. After an intense workout there is more Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or EPOC, meaning there is an increase in oxygen consumption, helping break down fat stores in the body.
6. Improve Posture and Reduce Back Pain
Weight-training will strengthen your back, shoulders, and core, helping to correct bad posture so that you can stand taller, with shoulders back and spine straight. A stronger back and core will also prevent lower back pain
7. Enhance Mood and Reduce Stress
Exercise and weight-training release endorphins. Endorphins are neurotransmitters that prevent pain, improve mood, and fight depression. An increased in endorphins naturally reduces stress and anxiety. Endorphins also stimulate the mind, improving alertness and boosting energy. Weight-training can brighten your entire day or help you combat a bad one.
Active Red 