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The Fun New Workout Trends Set To Get Us Fit This Year

Every year we learn more about how to get fit and healthy, and are promised a whole host of new ways to lose a few pounds and tone up - and this year there are some exciting innovations in the world of fitness

If you're desperate to lose some weight or get fit you've got to love the start of a new year. No one's dragging you down the pub, everyone else seems to being doing Dry January too, and a tonne of inspirational books, apps and DVDs are out to help you on your way.

But best of all is all the new trends that put everything fitness experts learnt last year into practise to make this health kick the one that actually works. We spoke to gym chain Fitness First to find out what's going to sort out our health this year.

Yay fitness! (REX)
Yay fitness! (REX)

Strength Training Gets Exciting

Last year the mantra 'fit not thin' came into its own, and we celebrated strong, healthy and muscular women, and that idea's here to stay.

Strength training - which works with resistance such as weights, bands or even your own body weight - is vital to strengthen bones and boost endurance, as well as giving you the muscles your body needs to boots its metabolism and burn more calories.

But that doesn't have to mean the same old weighted squats and arm raises. Instead we're talking about:

Calisthenics - This is where your own body weight comes in. You'll need a gym that has a metal frame that includes pull up bars, squat racks monkey bars. The aim is to implement 'human flag training'.

This is when you use the frame work to lift your body upwards and balance in a horizontal or vertical ‘flag’ position. It requires a huge amount of core strength and can be prepared for by using monkey bars as well as resistance machines, pull-ups, shoulder presses and crunches on the gym floor.

If the human flag sounds out of reach, how about working it like an Olympic gymnast?

Olympic gymnastics rings are great to perform pull ups, ring dips, press ups, chest flies and, as you progress, perform more advanced movements like the ironcross and muscle ups - seriously effective exercises if you’re keen on building

upper body stength. And you get to swing around in between pull ups.

Have fun on the Olympic rings to build upper body strength (REX)
Have fun on the Olympic rings to build upper body strength (REX)

Freestyle HIIT

2014 was all about HIIT. And it worked. For many of us with limited time available for working out it was a godsend, and research showed it was just as beneficial - if not even more so - than slaving away at the gym for hours.

This year, it's all about mixing it up. Instead of boring one minute on, one minute off crosstraining or sprints, Fitness First is encouraging us to integrate different exercises, including dynamic and plyometric movements such as explosive jumps, press ups and burpees, with power movements using heavy resistance for full body conditioning.

It has introduced new classes - Freestyle Group Training (FGT) HIIT and FGT Power to get us started.

Fitness First's MOVE studio
Fitness First's MOVE studio

Virtual Training

This sounds encouraging for the reluctant exercisers amongst us but it doesn't mean sitting on your sofa and training remotely.

Instead it means embracing the latest technology including studios that move with you, giving you an emersive workout experience, interactive cardio walls that are programmed with light-activated games that give you a full workout by tapping the changing pads, and heart-rate based classes that feedback how hard you are working and let you compare to other members of the class.

Away from the gym, we're seeing this as a big trend too with apps and fitness measurement wristbands looking set to take over from flesh-and-blood personal trainers.

Will 2015 be your year? Let's do this!

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