Hello Everyone. Today’s post comes from AnaxFitness.
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While many people are happy exercising in a tattered old cotton T-shirt, shapeless shorts or baggy track pants, wearing better designed workout gear will enhance your workouts and help you get better results. The right workout clothing can make cold and even hot-weather workouts more comfortable and also ensure you are able to perform without restrictions that might otherwise affect your workout.
Whether you are a runner, go to group exercise classes, play sports or love to pump iron in the gym, there are several items of workout wear that really should be considered essential.
Warm-Up Hoodie
For a workout to be safe and effective, it should begin with a warm-up. Warm-ups ensure your muscles and joints are ready for the exercises you are about to perform. Of course, if a warm-up is effective you’ll get warmer and that means you may need to remove items of workout wear as your body temperature rises; getting overheated can actually hamper workout performance after all.
A good warm-up jacket is ideal for the early stages of a warm-up and can easily be removed as your temperature rises. A zipped hoodie is the perfect choice as it allows for painless temperature regulation and is easy to take off once you feel you are warm enough for your workout.
Base Layer
Cold weather can have a major impact on your workout performance and also your motivation to exercise. Big, bulky jackets can help keep you warm but are also heavy and cumbersome. That’s why, if you are a serious cold-weather exerciser, you should protect yourself from inclement weather by wearing a good base layer. Base layers are designed to trap a thin layer of air next to your skin which will act as insulation – not unlike a wetsuit. Made with plenty of Lycra, base layers will move with you so your movements are not restricted.
Gym T-Shirt
Your old cotton T-shirt might be comfortable but is it the best type of clothing for your workouts? Probably not. Cotton soaks up sweat like a sponge and can become heavy and uncomfortable so it’s far from ideal for your intense workouts. In contrast, modern workout T-shirts are made from high performance materials that wick away moisture to help keep you cool and dry. They are also form-fitting and stretchy to allow you to move more freely. Ditch that old cotton T-shirt and get a performance T-shirt designed to keep you comfortable during even the toughest workouts.
Gym Vest
Wearing a training vest offers a few advantages; they allow for greater heat dissipation, are very unrestrictive, allowing free movement of your arms and shoulders, and wearing a vest can help increase motivational levels. How? Good question! Seeing your arms and shoulders work as you perform curls, presses and other gym-based exercises will allow you to see how you have progressed over the past few weeks and months and spur you to work even harder. This is not just hyperbole but a strategy used by the Austrian Oak himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went so far as to cut off the bottoms of his track pants to remind him to work on his claves more. If you train hard and heavy, a workout vest is a must-have item of clothing.
Training Shorts
Workout pants are okay for upper body training days but if you are squatting, lunging, leg pressing or deadlifting, an unrestrictive pair of gym shorts is arguably the best lower body wear you can choose. As well as providing freedom of movement, wearing shorts means you simply cannot hide your skinny legs and calves! All too many gym goers habitually skip leg training day and hide their legs in workout pants – out of sight being out of mind. However, baring your legs by wearing shorts means that you are much less likely to forget leg training and as working your legs has a knock-on effect to the rest of your body, this is nothing but good news.
While you don’t have to follow the latest gym fashions, it makes a lot of sense to make the most of modern performance fabrics to ensure you get the most from each and every workout. Workouts are tough enough without making them harder by wearing unsuitable clothing.
Ditch that old saggy t-shirt and those badly fitting track pants. Instead, get yourself some quality workout clothing that will enhance and not hinder your workout performance.
