Feel the burn...The After-burn, that is!

I am completely, totally, and thoroughly in love with my new gym.   Seriously, if you live in south-central Pennsylvania, Over-Achieve Fitness is the place to be.  The atmosphere here is a billion times better than any corporate gym (I’m looking at you Planet Fitness!) and the members work about three billion times harder.  I've worked out at a lot of different gyms and I've never seen the encouragement and camaraderie that exist at OAF, nor have I ever seen a group of people work harder than they do here.  Everyone truly just leaves their baggage at the door and gives it their all for the 1+ hour that we’re there.  And the owner/trainer Mike is completely fantastic.  His passion is beyond inspiring, and he really believes in his members and wants the best for them.  I won’t lie; I totally go all fan girl whenever he compliments me or tags me in a post on Facebook.  Last night he put a ‘Happy Birthday’ post on my wall and I was so excited that I saved a screenshot.

Last night’s workout was pretty brutal. I’m not sure that I've ever been that sweaty or out of breath. I burned 830 calories in the hour that I was there.  Because of a glorious thing called EPOC, I was over 1100 calories an hour later; by the time I took my HRM off to shower (about 1.5 hours after class), my calorie burn was almost 1250. Incredible!!  I thought about putting my HRM back on after my shower and sleeping with it just to see what the continued burn was, but I felt a bit silly doing that.

EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) is a pretty amazing thing.  Basically, working out at a high intensity forces your body to work harder to build its oxygen stores back up for a period of anywhere from 16-24 hours post-workout.  This means your body is continuing to work hard for that time period and continuing to burn calories. Eventually, high-intensity workouts will increase your body’s VO2 max, which is the body’s ability to use oxygen for energy.  This means better endurance and the ability to sustain more work for a longer period of time.  (Source)  I’m really hoping that this helps my running, since I have a half marathon coming up in roughly a month.  I feel obligated to note that you shouldn't do this kind of high intensity training daily; be sure to allow your body to recover. But don’t mistake recovery as an excuse to be a couch potato! Do yoga, stretch, or some light jogging to keep the circulation going and aid in releasing your tense muscles.  Now, enough internets.   Get out there and work!  Get those heart rates going.

“Small daily improvements are the key to staggering long-term results”