HOUSTON – If getting in shape and losing weight tops your list of New Year's resolutions, you're not alone. In fact, according to the usa.gov website, losing weight was the No. 1 resolution of 2014, and 2015 is expected be no different.
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, the top five fitness trends of 2015 are:
Local 2's Lauren Freeman caught up with a couple of Houston's top fitness professionals to test out some of the hottest fitness trends of 2015 that promise to help you firm, tone, and most importantly, shed the weight.
Antwan Richardson, a certified fitness trainer and owner of Bodystyles in Northwest Houston, said everyone is looking for the same thing when they seek out his services at the start of a new year.
"They're tired of gorging themselves over the holidays and everybody's looking to lose that five to 10 pounds they put on through the holidays," said Richardson.
Richardson also broke down and explained four of the top five fitness trends.
Body weight training is exactly what it sounds like, according to Richardson.
"You are using your own body for resistance," Richardson said. "It's getting down to the basics where you have situps, pushups, pullups and burpees."
Jumping jacks are even considered a body weight exercise.
Richardson explained strength training and body weight training can complement one another as part of a complete workout plan since they both use the body's weight for resistance.
"Traditionally, strength training is where you can use resistance via free weights or machines by adding more weight than your body will allow, and fighting the resistance of going up and down or across and things of that nature," Richardson said.
For the trends that included educated, certified and experienced fitness professionals and personal training, Richardson suggested doing your research to make sure your potential fitness professional is educated, experienced and most importantly, certified.
Richardson said you want to make sure you can develop a good rapport with the fitness professional you decide on, so one good question you should ask yourself before hiring them is:
- Do they care about you?
- Do they care about your goals, versus a paycheck?
For our final trend, Local 2 headed over to Sculpt Studio, where the trainers have taken High intensity interval training, or HIIT, to a new level with an extreme treadmill boot camp that says bye-bye to the old-fashioned and boring treadmill workouts of the past, and the pounds. By cranking the treadmill workout into overdrive, the folks at Sculpt said you can burn as many as 900 calories in an hour.
"It's a really fun-filled hour of jumping on the treadmill and coming off and playing with TRXs, some free weights, equalizers and kettle bells," said Jessica Zamer, a manager and fitness instructor at Sculpt Studio. "(It's) just a lot of interval training, so you're getting that heart rate up and you're moving around."
And best of all, Zamer said the classes offer such an intense workout that students will continue to burn calories long after they've hopped off the treadmill.
"You get that metabolism up and metabolism is going to keep burning after you leave class -- up to about eight hours afterwards," she said.
But if you don't have time for the gym, or if a personal trainer isn't in your budget, the new trend in virtual workouts may be a great option for you to still get in shape. The workouts can be done anywhere and at any time with just a few clicks from your phone or computer.
There are Facebook, Instagram and even Pinterest workouts that range from basic food and lists of exercise moves to more elaborate workout demonstrations and videos.
A couple of Lauren Freeman's favorites on Instagram are "Skinny Mom" and "Workout_N_Fitness."
No matter what fitness trend you adopt to help get you in shape, Richardson said you should most definitely be prepared to feel the burn.
"It's going to hurt," Richardsone said. "It's definitely going to hurt, so be prepared to be sore after day one. Day two is probably going be a bit worse."
Richardson also suggested managing your expectations. Results will not happen overnight. Although it may have been easy to pack on five to 10 pounds over the holidays, it may take 30 days or more of dedicated workouts before you see results. But Richardson said you will see results if you stick with your fitness plan.
"You'll start to see a lot of muscle tone develop within your legs because they are the largest muscle group."
Best of all, Richardson said pretty quickly others will notice your results as well.
"People will say, 'Hey, have you been working out?'" Richardson said.
Besides being consistent with your new exercise regimen, Richardson also suggests making modifications to your diet, as well as combining a cleanse to help reboot your body and get your digestive system back on track.