Total Guide to Fitness: 3 Top Tips

Keeping fit is crucial to staying healthy, and TGtS can help you keep on top of your game with our regular advice column from top fitness professionals.

Exercise Won't Make you Thin:

Although many people use exercise as their sole method of weight management, many studies have shown that exercise, when not combined with dietary changes, does very little in respect to losing weight.

A study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine found that when a group of obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised cardio workouts without dieting, most did not experience any significant weight loss results. However, it is important to remember that, while it may not lead to weight loss by itself, exercise still has plenty of other health benefits.

Coffee Can Help Ward Off Depression:

We often hear about how caffeine is bad for us; however, a study from the Harvard School of Public Health has found that, for women, drinking four or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day could reduce risk of depression by 20 per cent.

An earlier study of over 80,000 women also revealed that women who drink more than two cups of coffee a day are less likely to commit suicide.

Stretching Before Running May Lower your Endurance:

Many of us have been taught to warm up before exercise, however recent studies suggest that stretching before a run may not be beneficial to your workout.

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that stretching before going for a run made a runner’s body less efficient so that they did not perform as well and were unable to run as far.