Going to the gym offers many positive benefits, both physical and mental. Regular exercise can help transform your life, assisting you if you’re trying to lose weight, helping you to keep fit in general, and offering a place to socialise with other like-minded people.
Feeling fitter and healthier
Feel the positive physical effects on your body when you go to the gym. It can help with weight loss – and once you’ve lost any excess weight, it can help you to keep it off. Research has shown that inactivity is a major cause of obesity and weight gain.
Regular exercise will increase your metabolic rate, burning the calories more quickly. If you combine resistance training with aerobic exercise, this can maximise fat loss and maintain muscle mass.
Physical activities, such as weightlifting, can stimulate muscle-building, as they release hormones that help your muscles to absorb amino acids. This aids their growth and helps slow down the loss of muscle mass that people experience as they age.
Positive mind set
Taking out an hour of your day to go to the gym could help clear your mind. Exercise can improve your brain function and thinking abilities. There’s a physical reason for this – it increases the heart rate, promoting the flow of oxygen and blood to the brain and stimulating the production of hormones to boost the growth of brain cells.
Regular physical activity is particularly beneficial for older adults to combat the effects of ageing on the brain. People have said they feel better after exercise and seem to think more clearly.
Reduces stress
Working out can help to alleviate any unwanted stress. Studies have proved it can actually make you feel happier and reduce feelings of depression and anxiety. This is because it produces changes in the part of the brain that regulates anxiety and stress.
Exercise increases the production of endorphins, which reduce the perception of pain and produce positive feelings. Studies have shown that it doesn’t matter how intense the workout is, even if you take part in only light exercise, your mood can lift.
Similarly, if you haven’t exercised regularly and you’re just starting out, just a short workout at the gym will make a difference.
Cooling air conditioning
Working hard but still keeping cool can encourage you to push harder. When the temperature outside is causing a heatwave, going to the air conditioned gym can be a welcome relief and can encourage you to work out harder.
Celebrity trainer, Ranveer Allahbadia, (the man behind the physical transformation of stand-up comedian, producer and script writer Tanmay Bhat) described as “old school” the belief that people should work out without air conditioning to push themselves harder and work up a sweat.
He says the end results show that working out in a hot room doesn’t make any difference. The Mumbai-born trainer says that living in a country like India, it’s hard to work out without air conditioning. Going to a gym with no AC in such a hot climate can be “harmful”, because it heats up your body too much.
Allahbadia says extreme heat when exercising can make you breathless and affect your ability to work out properly, because your body gets very overheated.
Access to all equipment
Some exercise equipment can be too expensive to buy at home. When you go to the gym, you know you’ll be using the best-quality equipment that is properly maintained. Over the past 15 years, new legislation has been introduced in the UK to ensure customers’ safety is paramount when working out at a public gym.
Gym owners, operators and instructors and distributors of fitness equipment are governed by the legislation. By law, they must take reasonable steps to ensure their products meet the mandatory standards. While you can work out at home and buy cheaper versions of the equipment found at the gym, it’s better to use professional equipment that you know is of a high standard.
Work out with friends
Working out with friends at the gym could become a way to catch up with each other during your busy schedule – make it a social occasion, as well as a keep fit session. Health and fitness professionals promote the virtues of having a “gym buddy” – someone who will motivate you not to give up if the going gets tough.
Making going to the gym a group activity will give you the motivation you need to keep going back and honing your exercise routine. The experience will be enjoyable, as well as useful for your personal fitness.
Hire a personal trainer
Hiring a personal trainer can help motivate you to achieve your goals. Rather than working out at home, where a lack of motivation and the lure of the fridge may prove too much, exercising under the guidance of a personal trainer at the gym can reap rewards.
You can achieve faster and better results, as your personal trainer will guide you through your fitness routine to ensure you’re spending time on the proper types of exercise. This will achieve quicker fat loss and muscle gain, while reducing your chances of sustaining an injury.
You can develop a lifetime exercise habit by having a personal trainer point you in the right direction. It will also be easier to overcome plateaus, when you may feel like your exercise regime isn’t giving you the results you expect.
GREE UK‘s air conditioning services can make all the difference in a gym environment – it is imperative to have a good AC system when working out if you want to achieve maximum performance. We have more than 25 years’ expertise in manufacturing and supplying air conditioning systems. Contact us today for further information.
