By Krista Madden
We don’t really believe in ‘Blue Monday’ here at Beauty and the Dirt, it’s just another day for us, but for those looking to get a bit of a mood boost, we recommend getting in a workout and making your thoughts turn to happy, vibrant red.
Fitness First have just the thing to motivate you into getting a workout at the start of the week. They’ve joined forces with health and fitness Instagrammers, Zanna Van Dijk, Bradley Simmonds and Clean Eating Alice to encourage the nation to get their head into moving and sweating more, as a special treat have opened up their gyms to everyone for free, all 58 clubs and running classes. If you’re based in London, you can join the online gurus in a SHRED class in one of three central locations.
But what if I can’t pop into one of the gyms today you say? Don’t you worry we thought that too but Fitness First will be adding their SHRED class to their menu from now on so you can always pop in and try this intense, fat burning class another time. I did it today and it was a killer, but lots of fun.
To give you an idea of how the class works to get your endorphins flowing – they’ve combined compound lifting with High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which in non-workout terms basically means you’ll be working on calorie burn, bone and muscle strength and flexibility.
Lee Mathews, Fitness First’s Fitness and Marketing Director tells us this workout is the one to try right now, he says: “SHRED offers our members an effective workout in terms of calorie burn as well as improving strength and conditioning and cardiovascular fitness. HIIT training and compound lifting are two exercise disciplines which have really grown in popularity over the years and, whilst always popular with men, compound lifting has now seen an increase in uptake with women.
This is mainly down to the rewards and benefits of this type of training as compound lifts are resistance based movements which engage large muscle groups and joint movements at a time. By using large muscle groups to create a movement, you maximise the efficiency of the workout and will achieve better results”