Top 10 Fitness Trends for 2013

Health has always been a great deal for most people. When it comes to fitness, they have tried different ways, techniques, equipment, and technology just to be fit and healthy. Here are the ten fitness trends that are likely to lead on the fitness society:

1. Fitness Professionals

People are becoming more concerned about their health and body figure. As the number of health-conscious individuals increase, the number of employed fitness workers tend to rise faster than other occupations according to the U.S. Labor Department. Experienced and certified fitness professionals ranked as the top fitness trend for 2013.

2. Strength Training

Most people, especially men, tend to incorporate physical exercise to improve muscle strength and lose weight as well. Strength training has always been a trend with gym goers and body builders. It helps maintain both body figure and resistance. It has taken the number two spot in the 2013 fitness trend.

3. Body-Weight Training

Next to strength training is body-weight training, which is probably the most natural way to be fit and healthy. Such training uses minimal training equipment and includes traditional workout like push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, squats, and planks. There are still people who believe that natural way of exercising is still the best choice to lose weight and be healthy.

4. Fitness Programs for Elders

Fitness clubs for older adults are popping up one by one giving appropriate exercises with consideration of the individual's age and capacity to workout. As older people become interested with health and fitness, more fitness clubs are capitalizing on older clients.

5. Back to Basics

Some fitness experts still believe that nothing can beat the basics. There may have been different high-tech equipment and gadgets to be healthy, but getting back to basic is still more effective than any other newly invented techniques. Daily rounds of walking and running in the neighborhood still beat those slimming pills and steroids. It may not be the quickest way, but it's the safest.

6. Functional Training

Functional training is an exercise that improves the body for daily activities. It involves the use of strength training to improve balance, body coordination, power and endurance.

7. Core Training

Researchers believe that exercising core muscles improves the body's stability for daily activities and sports performance. Core training involves the use of balance balls and wobble boards to stabilize midsection muscles. Such fitness trend is good to workout abs and core muscles.

8. Mind Workouts

Mind workouts also ranked as one of the fitness trends for 2013. Many have been incorporating in yoga sessions to fight stress and find serenity. It does not only benefit the mind but also the body. Yoga also improves health and lifestyle.

9. Group Training

Many budget-conscious individuals resort to group training for discount and social purposes. There are fitness professionals that provide workout services to groups of people. Such trend gives individuals a chance to receive support from other people. Group training does not only improve health but also develop social lives.

10. Buddy System

One of the newest trend in fitness is the man-beast buddy system that instead of having a personal trainer, people have been working out with their pets. Many boot camps that provide health and wellness both for pets and people are popping up around. The role of pets in helping humans get fit and healthy is indeed supported by a medical study.

Fitness is really starting to build a new culture. New fitness trends have indeed changed and influenced the understanding of people about health. Traditional or high-tech, slow or fast-paced, fitness has taken a position in the lives of many people.

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Study: Black Women Lose Less Weight Than White Women on Same Diet

Black women will lose less weight than white women even if they follow the exact same exercise and diet regimen, researchers report.

The reason behind this finding is that black women's metabolisms run more slowly, which decreases their daily energy burn, said study author James DeLany, an associate professor in the division of endocrinology and metabolism at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"African-American women have a lower energy expenditure. They're going to have to eat fewer calories than they would if they were Caucasian, and/or increase their physical activity more," said DeLany. His report is published in the Dec. 20 issue of the International Journal of Obesity.

DeLany and his colleagues reached this conclusion during a weight-loss study involving severely obese white and black women.

Previous studies have shown that black women lose less weight, and the researchers set out to verify those findings, DeLany said.

The research included 66 white and 69 black women, who were placed on the same calorie-restricted diet of an average of 1,800 calories a day for six months. They also were assigned the same exercise schedule.

The black women lost about 8 pounds less, on average, than the white women, the researchers found.

The explanation can't be that black women didn't adhere to the diet and exercise plan, DeLany said. The researchers closely tracked the calories each woman ate and the calories they burned through exercise, and found that black and white women stuck to the program equally.

"We found the African-American women and the Caucasian women were both eating nearly identical amounts of calories," DeLany said. "They were as adherent in physical activity as well."

That leaves variations in biology and metabolism to explain the difference in weight-loss success, the study authors said.

"The African-American women are [equally] as adherent to the behavioral intervention," DeLany said. "It's just that the weight-loss prescription is wrong because it's based on the assumption that the requirements are the same."

The difference in weight-loss success between black and white women has been known for some time, said Dr. Mitch Roslin, chief of bariatric surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"There are racial and genetic differences in obesity," Roslin said. "These things are real."

"However, this study advances our understanding by ruling out other explanations," Roslin said. "It's not just related to socioeconomic class or access to care or environmental situations."

One reason for the difference might be that European foods prevail in America, and form the basis of the modern diet, Roslin said. These foods might not burn as efficiently in the descendants of people from Africa, Asia and other parts of the world.

"People of Western European or Eastern European descent have evolved greater mechanisms to withstand the pressures of the modern diet," Roslin said. He said studies have found that Asians subjected to a Western diet are more likely to develop metabolic syndrome and diabetes at a much lower body-mass index (BMI) than whites. BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

Weight-loss doctors will need to keep these biological differences in mind when prescribing diet and exercise regimens for black women, DeLany said.

"They can't just base caloric restriction on body weight," he said. "They have to take into consideration [people's] lower energy requirements."

DeLany said it's not clear whether these findings apply to black men, since much less data is available for them. But in a diabetes intervention trial, he said, black men lost about as much weight as white men following the same diet and exercise plan.

More information

For more information on weight control, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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