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Year-Round Fitness Trends to Help You Keep Your Healthy Resolution

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Year-Round Fitness Trends to Help You Keep Your Healthy Resolution

Getting fit and healthy ranks among the top five resolutions made every year. Unfortunately, only about eight percent of people who make a New Year’s Resolution will keep it through the end of the year and most people will give up by the time February 1 rolls around, but don’t let that discourage you.

Every year, like New Year’s Resolutions, we can expect to see certain trends in health and fitness rise to the top and this year is no different. As you work toward reaching your New Year’s Resolution to be more fit and healthy, take some of these health and fitness trends into consideration.

1. Body Weight Training
According to the American Academy of Sports Medicine’s 9th annual health and fitness trends assessment, body weight training takes the number one spot for fitness trends in 2015. Body weight training is the “idea of strengthening your body in ways that maximize gravity, repetitions, and balance so that you can easily translate that strength into ‘real life,’” explains Meridan Zerner, MS, RDN, CSSD, LD, Group Exercise Instructor at Cooper Fitness Center and Registered Dietitian Nutritionist at Cooper Clinic. “Typical body weight training programs use minimal equipment, which makes it a very inexpensive way to exercise effectively. Most people think of body weight training as being limited to push-ups and pull-ups, but it can be much more than that.”

2. Fitness for Senior Adults
“The concern for the health of aging adults has been consistently at the top of this survey and this year is no different,” said Zerner. More and more viable fitness programming options, such as the Cooper Classics classes, are being offered for senior adults, providing age-appropriate and safe exercise programs for the aging sector of the population.
 
“The highly-active older adult can be targeted by commercial and community-based organizations to participate in more rigorous exercise programs, including strength training and team sports,” said Zerner. “Even the frail elderly can improve their balance and ability to perform activities of daily living when provided appropriate functional fitness activities.”

3. Weight Wellness
According to the New Nutrition Business 2015 nutrition trends, what is being called “weight wellness” takes the number three spot in nutrition trends. “We can look forward to programs and philosophies that support using educational tools and "everyday" real foods with an emphasis in overall well-being as opposed to just diet, diet, diet,” Zerner said. “Drivers of the weight wellness trend are the science-supported rise of adequate, lean protein for weight management and an increased understanding of how quality carbohydrates are necessary for health and weight management, but the key is quality and quantity (portion-size).”
 
4. Sugar as the Top Dietary Concern
No longer does fat top the list as the biggest dietary concern. Sugar now sits atop that list, but Zerner cautions that our concern should be more about cutting sugar intake from sodas (number one source of sugar in the national diet), and processed foods, rather than healthy, real foods. “We are missing the big picture if we are worried about an apple,” said Zerner.
 
Oftentimes New Year’s Resolutions are about trying something new—a diet you’ve never tried or changing things up in your fitness routine. Before you set out to try something new, Zerner suggests asking yourself “is this plan/effort sustainable?” If the plan is so radical that you can't stay on it then it is likely too extreme, may not be the healthiest choice for you, and may lead to early failure and a return to square one again. Instead, “start 2015 out with a better-crafted, sustainable plan to prevent that return to square one!”

For more information about services at Cooper Clinic, call 866.906.2667 (COOP) or click here.

Article provided by Cooper Aerobics Marketing and Communications.