cross country skier

HIIT Exercises To Prep Your Body For Winter Sports

Alyssa Bialowas As an avid snowboarder and former competitive hockey player, winter sports have always been a significant part of my life. If you’re a big fan of winter sports too, you’re likely aware of the toll they can take on your body, not to mention how important it is to prep your body to

girl rock climbing

Children & Relative Age Effect

Alyssa Bialowas Relative Age Effect is the bias that athletes at the top level of their sport are older, and were born in months earlier in their sports relative cut-off period. For instance, a hockey player born in January of the same year as a hockey player born in December is almost a whole year

alpine skiing

Is Skiing An Effective Alternative To Indoor Cycling?

Alyssa Bialowas As the days start getting shorter and colder, physical inactivity becomes the new norm for a lot people. Ask yourself this: How many times have you walked straight home after work, bypassing the gym in favour of your warm, comfortable house? Compared to the summer months, physical activity and total daily expenditure have

couple performing box jumps

Maximize Performance With Plyometrics & HIIT

Alyssa Bialowas Plyometric exercise is described as explosive movements in which your muscles exert maximum force in the shortest period of time. Think: Squat jumps, box jumps and kickboxing kicks. These high intensity exercises burn fat and train your fast-twitch muscle fibers, beneficial for speed and power. Plyometric exercise is widely used by athletes in

athlete swimming laps

4 Alternative Activities That Mimic HIIT

Alyssa Bialowas Experts say that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) should not exceed 3-4 times per week to allow time for your muscles to recover and to prevent serious injury. Depending on the week, I am lucky if I can fit in two HIIT sessions, let alone exceed four sessions. I tend to get bored and

mature athlete jump roping

4 Tips To Keep Your HIIT Frequency In Check

Alyssa Bialowas There are countless benefits of high intensity interval training that effect a person’s overall health and mental well being, such as increasing your metabolism which in turn burns more fat, increases your aerobic endurance, zaps more calories in a workout, and increases your overall body strength and body image. We know that participating

woman eating and drinking

6 Ways To Avoid Hunger That Leads To Overeating

Alyssa Bialowas Dieting and body image in sport can lead to the development of either exceptionally healthy or unhealthy eating patterns in athletes. After an intense workout I can overeat to no bounds with little to no consequences, and when I know I’ve burned enough calories to treat myself, I always do. However, it’s important

sore muscles pin point

6 Cures for Sore Muscles After HIIT

Alyssa Bialowas What are Sore Muscles? Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is essentially your body’s response to muscle pain after a workout. This response sends a signal to your body to leave those muscle alone and results from microscopic tears in your muscle tissue. DOMS can affect anyone regardless of fitness level and tends to

man eating an apple

Should I Eat Before Or After My HIIT Workout?

Alyssa Bialowas Okay so you did it – you’re awake and you’re mentally ready to go to the gym, to the park, or even just downstairs to your living room where you’ve set up your high-intensity interval training (HIIT) circuit. Now your stomach is grumbling and you’re thinking of all those myths about eating before

Wheelchair sport

The Effects Of HIIT On Wheelchair-Sport Athletes

Alyssa Bialowas There now is widespread acceptance that disability is a social construct with roots in societal attitudes. Individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities often face discrimination in many societal institutions, such as access to education, and participation in the labor force. Sport and physical activity provide a context for the physically and intellectually disabled

woman doing yoga in the city

Maximize Results By Combining Yoga & HIIT

Alyssa Bialowas The effects of yogic exercise and its ability to increase an individual’s aerobic capacity are seldom studied.  Yoga is widely understood to confer benefits to a person’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well being, and studies that compare the effects of yoga and exercise seem to indicate that yoga is more effective than exercise

woman working out in the park

8 Ways To Turn Any Space Into A HIIT Workout

Alyssa Bialowas We all know what it feels like to be on an epic workout stretch and then face an intense week of meetings, deadlines and social obligations to ruin a perfectly good streak. For the millions of reasons in which our busy lives keep us away from getting to the gym rarely do we