Playing sports outdoors, you can lose weight much faster than in the gym. Fats are fuel, our activity is fire, and in order for fire to burn well, it needs fresh oxygen. Daria Goikhman, a trainer at the Moscow outdoor fitness project Sportules, which organizes year-round outdoor trainings, spoke in more detail about the benefits of outdoor workouts.
In nature, a person actively manifests a desire to run, move, breathe and generally enjoy life. In addition, when exercising outdoors, the number of muscles involved increases. The body is influenced by both wind resistance and unevenness of the road - nothing like a gym can give. Accordingly, the more muscles we use, the more substrates we need to supply the body with energy. As a result, we spend more calories and, accordingly, lose weight faster.
Fresh air - craving for sports
People who regularly walk in the fresh air are much more likely to start constantly playing sports. In general, a long stay in nature helps to strengthen mental health - you want to go out more often and more often. As a result, training becomes regular, as a result - more energy is consumed for muscle work, which means that the process of fat burning is faster.
Trainer Daria Goikhman Walking, not running
It is important to note that the process of fat burning occurs during aerobic exercise. This can be either jogging (called wellness, slow) or brisk walking. Running fast will not work - it will stress the heart, joints, shortness of breath and rapid fatigue. Therefore, Nordic walking is ideal. During it, 90% of the muscles of the body work, but it is not enough to pick up sticks - you need to walk correctly, so it is better to practice under the guidance of a trainer. In training, you need an external observer who will monitor your mistakes - then the lesson will have an effect. Under the guidance of a professional mentor, it is necessary to learn the basic movements, since it will be much more difficult to relearn later.
We follow the pulse
It is very important to control the pulse, which should be in the aerobic zone. There is a formula: (220 - age) multiplied by 0, 6 or 0, 8. In this case, 0, 6 is the lower limit of the heart rate, and 0, 8 is the upper one. Thus, at 30 years of age, the pulse should be in the zone from 114 to 152 beats. Ideally - 130. You can also control yourself by uttering phrases: if you manage to say a five-word sentence while walking and not catch your breath, everything is fine. If it doesn't work, then the voltage is too high, you need to slow down.
Fats do not burn quickly
The process of fat burning, that is, using fats from fat depots as an energy source, does not start immediately, but only after half an hour or forty minutes of an aerobic training. The fact is that the body in the first minutes begins to consume glycogen - a complex carbohydrate that accumulates in the muscles. Actually, it is enough for half an hour of muscle work, and then only fats are connected as fuel. But there is one caveat: trained athletes have more glycogen in their muscles than beginners, so it will take longer to spend.
Who should I feed those extra calories to?
As a result of active physical activity, pulmonary ventilation is enhanced, because in order to start aerobic mechanisms of energy supply, during which fat burning occurs, the body needs more and more oxygen.
When we are outside, we breathe fresh air, which contains more oxygen compared to a hall even with the most advanced air conditioning and ventilation system. This allows not only to lose weight, subject to regular exercise, but also to strengthen the processes that ensure the removal of carbon dioxide and other metabolic products from the body, for example, lactic acid, due to which we feel muscle pain after exercise. The development of capillary blood circulation is also stimulated, the rate of redox processes is increased. And all this increases the efficiency of the mitochondrial apparatus of muscle cells.
What does it mean? When the body receives energy from substrates - proteins, fats, carbohydrates, it breaks them down. And this process takes place in mitochondria - a kind of energy stations in our body. And, accordingly, the more of these mitochondria are in cells, the more efficient their work and the more energy the body can squeeze out of the substrates of nutrition, and the faster it does it. It turns out a circle: the more oxygen enters the body when exercising in the fresh air, the more efficiently mitochondria work, energy supply becomes better, and calories from food or from fat depots are spent more actively.
Balance in the stomach
Exercising outdoors affects another aspect of body activity that can help you lose weight. Outdoor activities contribute to the normalization of acid-base balance, and this leads to the improvement of all functional systems. We stop overeating and lose weight comfortably and safely.
