How To Make Any Workout Way More Fun
Time flies when you're dancing, but when you're banging out pushups or pumping iron? Time moves like a Friday afternoon. To boost the fun (and calorie burn) of any workout, all you need are a few easy distraction techniques. Women's Health's Next Fitness Star Selena Watkins, the woman behind the boredom-beating High-Intensity Dance Cardio DVD, has some ideas:
Strategize your playlist.
For total-body sessions, Selena likes to keep things fresh by picking a particular area to concentrate on for one full song. So, say it's triceps. You can choose one move or a few, but either way, you keep doing reps until the track is over. Knowing that you have only three-ish minutes until you're done with that muscle group for the day can help you push through anything.
RELATED: Even People Who Hate the Gym Will Love This Dance-Inspired Workout
Have fun with the tempo.
Even Selena's strength workouts move to a beat. "I love playing with an exercise you know inside and out by altering how long you'll spend going up or down the range of motion," she says. "It changes which muscles spend the most time under tension and turns any exercise into a dancelike sequence." Try a song with at least 150 beats per minute (like The Chainsmokers' "Don't Let Me Down") for your lunges. "Keep your rep rhythm tied to the song—it will pick up during the chorus and slow down for the verses, changing the challenge."
Spice up your squats with these dance-inspired iterations:
Add your own flair.
You'll never find Selena just standing during her workouts. When she's taking a rest, she's bouncing her legs. When she's pivoting with her feet, her arms are twirling with her. "The more you move, the higher you'll keep your heart rate and energy," she says. If you're new to dance workouts, try them at home to bust self-consciousness. "It doesn't matter what you look like; just let yourself shine."
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