Folks, we are tired. This is probably not a (yawn!) news flash. The average American gets less sleep than 20 years ago. One-third of us report sleeping less than seven hours a night. And that doesn’t include moms with young kids, for whom anything approaching seven hours sounds like nirvana. Add increasing levels of stress to chronic sleep deprivation, and you get a national fatigue nightmare. No wonder that 15 percent of women and 10 percent of men reported low energy and being “very tired or exhausted” most days of the week in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2013.
While there are numerous valid medical reasons for fatigue and exhaustion (thyroid issues, clinical depression, poor nutrition, heart conditions, and medicine side effects, to name just a few), many of us otherwise healthy Americans still feel like we’re running on fumes. So we reach for caffeine (dropping $2.24 billion on cans of Red Bull in 2016 alone), trying to prime the pump. Instead, what we really need is a tune-up.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
So often, our approach to exercise and energy is focused on one thing: burning calories and expending energy. The more, the better, right? Well, not exactly. Sometimes, you just get left behind. I’ve learned the hard way: on a 40-mile bike ride when my quads were spent and I “bonked” (as we say in cycling), which meant I couldn’t keep up with the group and faced a long, lonely, painful trek home. I was far from energized after that ride—and humiliated to boot.
The trick is to exercise your muscles and body in a way that doesn’t leave you zapped and listless, but leaves you pumped and energized. But how?
Elev8d Fitness: A Natural Energy Boost
Created by the experts at Sonima, Elev8d Fitness workouts use dynamic, multi-directional movements to align the body. When your body is aligned, your core muscle groups can fully turn on and work at 100 percent capacity, meaning you fire the larger, deeper muscles in your body, not just the smaller, surface ones.
Consider this: You sit all day at a desk with your back rounded and your shoulders slumped. After work, you head out for a long run. More likely than not, you’re running with that same rounded back and slumped shoulders. And exercising from a place of postural dysfunction means your effort is coming from the wrong muscles.
On the other hand, when you use your deeper, core muscles (for example, the hip flexors and the psoas), it requires more oxygen, which is the fuel for our muscles. And when these large, foundational muscles are oxygenated, you burn energy more efficiently and feel more energetic. Working these larger muscle groups with proper alignment actually recharges your body.
Related: Your Workouts Really Don’t Need to Be That Long
Endurance athletes such as long-distance runners and cyclists tend to overuse one or two muscle groups, and are typically lean and frequently exhausted. Studies have shown that sustained effort over long periods of time can raise cortisol (a stress hormone) to unhealthy levels. And when cortisol gets out of whack, fatigue can result. But shorter, low-intensity intervals, like the Elev8d Fitness workouts, keep cortisol in check.
So, work smarter when it comes to exercise. There is a place for building endurance and many athletes, myself included, enjoy the mental and physical benefits of a long bike ride or run. But to be more efficiently energized, engage your deep, larger muscles in shorter, more focused workouts. The goal should be to get more out of your day and your life, not just your workout.
Get more results in less time with Elev8d Fitness! Try these popular workouts and see for yourself:
8-Minute Total-Body Transformation
24-Minute Fat-Loss Workout
Boost Your Energy Workout Series
Weight-Loss Workout Series
16-Minute Challenge Workout Series
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