Fitness Centers Minneapolis MN

Slow and steady may win the race, but if reducing stress is one of your main reasons for working out, you might want to ratchet up the intensity a notch or two. Conventional wisdom has been inclined to push moderate exercise for stress-busting, says Richard Cox, a sports psychologist at the University of Columbia at Missouri. Some experts even think high intensity workouts can make a person anxious, he adds (no surprise there, to anyone who’s ever tried to push herself to the limit). But Cox’s recent study turns this thinking on its head.Cox asked 24 women to do two sessions each on a treadmill—one moderate- and one high-intensity—and to fill out before-and-after questionnaires designed to gauge their stress levels. Both workouts had calming effects, but the high-intensity one produced the steeper decline.Be careful not to overdo it, though.

If you decide to increase the intensity of your workouts, you should start out with short sessions—then add more minutes as you become more fit. And use the “chat” test to determine how hard you should be working. If you can comfortably carry on a conversation while exercising, chances are you’re probably setting too leisurely a pace. But if you can barely complete a sentence, welcome to “the zone.”

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