Have you also noticed the power of music on your energy level? The perfect playlist can motivate you to provide even more effort. Listening to music in the gym has an influence on the intensity of your practice, your good mood and your motivation.

You've probably noticed that restaurants, shops and supermarkets often put music to influence the behavior of their customers.

Music in the gym

During the group sessions, the music played corresponds to the type of training you are attending. For example, you will surely listen to soothing meditation music during your yoga class. It helps you focus more. A playlist during a fitness session can be very motivating if the songs are well chosen.

Tempo and rhythm are the most important characteristics of training music. Most people instinctively synchronize their movements with music, tapping their feet, moving their heads or even dancing. Dance, pop and rock are the most popular styles of music during workouts. But to each his tastes! The benefits of a playlist in a gym session

1. Music distracts you: gym songs make you less aware of your efforts, and happy, fast melodies help you focus more on the music instead of focusing on the pain or fatigue of strenuous exercise.
2. The rhythm determines the tempo: it stimulates your brain during the training. This is especially beneficial during weight training or running because synchronizing with the rhythm of the songs helps you use your energy in a more stable and efficient way.
3. Music increases your good mood: it's no secret! In a fitness session, people often listen to music to motivate themselves or to become aware of themselves. Listening to music in the gym allows you to be more focused, reducing negative thoughts and improving motivation.

Check out the Basic-Fit workout playlist on Spotify. You will find the music used in our GXR classes and other classes.

Going to a gym for the first time can cause some apprehension. Why use all these fitness equipment? Which are the most effective? What benefits can I derive from each of them? The answer to these questions depends of course on the results you want.

The use of gym equipment is not just for experienced athletes. In fact, as a beginner, it may be interesting to use fitness equipment rather than weights, for example. Initially, you do not have enough strength, balance and freedom of movement to lift them. Devices are therefore a safer option.

But what fitness equipment to choose? The following equipment will help you train the right muscles and develop your strength.

1. Horizontal press

To strengthen the buttocks, hamstrings and calves. This is the perfect device to train your lower body and have a good base for squats.

2. Lat Pull-Down

For muscular shoulders and back muscles. By spreading or moving your hands together, you can make this movement more intense. This exercise is perfect to start.

3. Bicep bar

To strengthen the biceps. By playing with weight, you can make better use of these exercises. With this fitness machine, no need to lift dumbbells.

4. Triceps bar

To strengthen the triceps. It also allows you to change the weight you use. To do push-ups, push-ups and have strength in the arms, it is essential to have a strong triceps.

5. Bench Press 

To train chest, biceps and triceps. This device actually simulates the movement of a thrust. If you are just starting to exercise, it is necessary to develop your chest, your biceps and even your triceps to be able to make more complex movements later.

6. Rower (cardio)

To strengthen the body in its entirety and improve endurance. By using the rower, you train both the lower and upper body and therefore, you maintain a good physical shape.

As a rule, start training by working large muscle groups, and then finish with more concrete workouts that work on the smaller muscles. For example, train the big muscles of your back with the lat pull-down, the horizontal press and the triceps bar, then finish with the bench press and the biceps bar. What fitness equipment are you trying the most?

You who regularly go to the gym. You who train as often as you can. You do not always see them but they are there, present, all around you! You've already met them, maybe even that you're like them. Small anthology of personalities shot at the gym.

 1. The Wonder Woman

Sexy, muscular, not a trace of perspiration, perfect makeup, a neon bra and a trendy leggings. No doubt, you're facing Ms. Perfect. Overall, we do not like it too much. A look at the top, a flat stomach and hair that smell of Madagascar vanilla is too much for one person. In addition, she always manages to be in your field of vision with its perfection at the nut. It is undoubtedly a trap, mistrust. Ok, maybe it's jealousy...

2. The Mr. muscle

Hard to miss! Near him, we are obliged to calculate the number of us it would take to make one alone like him. How to recognize it? Most often his arm is the size of your head, there is a good chance for him to walk in marcel (all visible veins) and he often moves very slowly. However, nobody has ever seen him speak...

3. The noisy

He can not be seen but we hear him! The whole room is aware that it raises cast iron! He is often tattooed and shrieks a little scary animals.

4. Mr. lover lover

The serious look, the deep look, the mouth in a slight bump. Here is our Mr drag, our loveur, our Don Juan of the inflator. Admittedly, he too is a little too much, but he has real goals... Hunting. His motivation? Pretty shapes! This specimen who thinks he has the body of a Greek god rolls his muscles while admiring himself in the mirror! His technique, give advice to all pretty girls.

5. The tourist

He does not always know what he's doing there. The often haggard, bewildered, lost, the poor has often been engrained by a friend to test a course, or he has planted himself by looking at the schedule. He does not always dare to use the machines because he is afraid of not being able to do so most often he observes with the same suspicious air a little freaked out as people in the tail of an attraction. Two options are available to him, discreetly go in moonwalk or stay until the end, even discovering a new passion.

6. Mr. bullshit

Sorry, gentlemen, but we're still dealing more with a cheater than a cheater, though the trend is changing. This profile is found more in the courts with a chrono type circuit training, and obviously the cheater hate to arrive last or be doubled. So he does not do the number of burpees asked or blew some tractions. Where it's funny is that he thinks we do not see him doing it. Except that when we see that he finishes a workshop after us but chained to the one before us, we allow ourselves to display it.

7. The clumsy

Missing during a box jump, falling in full kick jumped on a Body-Combat is his specialty. Visibly accustomed to bowls, he gets up without moaning because he often does not hurt himself. In addition to being clumsy, he has bad luck: a broken rope? A pierced weight? An elastic that tears in full abs? It's for his apple. Good composition he laughs and in fact is very sociable. Besides, we like to have it in class with us because it acts as a lightning rod.

8. The Talkative

While everything is quiet in the room, that everyone is focused on his exercises, a slight background noise reaches you: the pipelettes are there! And everything goes: guys, girlfriends, ex, the job, the super Vietnamese restaurant, we can not help but listen. At the same time we like the talkative, it often makes us think of something else and it changes the playlist "100% Motivation! "

9. The invisible

He, you will never see him! It's your friend who can not train because he still has knee pain (it's going to be 6 years old anyway), or your girlfriend who can not start again because she has never time! So can not wait to return to the room to observe all this beautiful people? And what category do you belong to?

I had the opportunity to test new "all connected" machines. The principle is simple: when you badge, the machine adapts by positioning your size, your amplitude, your numbers of reps. This connected everything can be very interesting to prevent injuries, to save time. However, is the "all-connected" in fitness rooms not an obstacle to building social connections? This first article will deal with the "all-connected" level of the practitioner. A second article will focus on the machine and coaching part.

Whether waking or during the day, stretching is an excellent reflex to chase aches and relieve his mind. And if you decide to do sports without stretching, be sure that aches will make you misery for several days. Stretching, you are not unaware, have many assets. We present them in this article in order to show you the importance of this step.

Stretching: why is it so important?

If you are always recommended to do stretching after a sport activity, it is for a very good reason. They have many benefits provided that they are performed correctly.

A stretching session should be short (30 minutes maximum), each movement should last, indeed, only a few seconds.

By stretching at the end of the sessions, you greatly reduce the feeling of body aches and your flexibility improves. But the opposite effect can be triggered if your stretches are done forcefully and at the wrong time.

Stretching has several benefits, including:

• Prevent certain injuries
• Optimize the efficiency of the muscles
• Relax muscles and overcome pain
• To lengthen the extensibility of the muscles
• Hinder muscle stiffness after exercise

Stretching also reduces stress. The muscles have expandable receptors that constantly communicate with your brain, in terms of the overall level of tension. When the muscles are contracted or tense, the brain receives a signal, indicating that you are under stress. By stretching, the muscles relax and a sense of well-being is created, relieving stress.

To this advantage, one can also add the improvement of the coordination of the muscular movements, the stimulation of the blood circulation and the lightening of the muscular tensions after an intense training.

But if you skip stretching, your muscles may lose their elasticity, which can sometimes damage muscle tissue.

What do you need to know before stretching?

A lot of scientific studies have said that you do not stretch out until you have physical activity. This slows athletic performance as stretching weakens muscles and increases the risk of muscle damage. The perfect moment to stretch is after a workout.

Wait 15 minutes before starting the stretching session. Stretch between 10 and 15 minutes by performing movements smoothly and slowly. Hold your stretching position for approximately 30 seconds. While breathing deeply, focus on the area that is relaxing while you are stretching it. Do not practice convulsive movements. Do them very diligently. The perfect moment to do the stretching: at the end of the sports sessions

Very often, we do not distinguish the heating of stretching. Yet these two concepts are different from each other. The warm-up takes place before the effort and the stretching afterwards.

The warm-up allows to excite, to heat the muscles and to put them in the good conditions to support the physical effort in order to avoid sprains and strains. This step is necessary before starting the sport, whatever the chosen activity and its intensity. If you stretch before the sport session, the risk of injury increases. This is why stretching is reserved at the end of the sessions.

Some stretching exercises

• The basin and wide angle extension

 Legs apart, shoulders low, perineum tight and navel tucked in, place hands on the back of the pelvis or waist. Tilt back by rounding your back and unrolling your neck. Come back and hold your ankles. With your back still straight, keep your legs straight and go back up.

• Lumbar stretching

Legs apart, turn the tips of your feet outward. Bend your knees and put your hands on your thighs. After turning your shoulders and head to the right and a little inward, reposition yourself as at the beginning keeping your back straight. 

Repeat the same exercise on the left.

• The glutes

Being on the back, put your right foot on the reverse thigh. Then pull both legs toward you, leading them near the trunk to feel the stretch of the buttocks. Release for a few seconds then repeat the exercise by placing the left leg on the right thigh.

• Abdominals

On the floor, on your stomach, put your hands close to the body, more precisely at shoulder height and lift the trunk. For this exercise, consider the natural flexibility of your back.

• The exercise of the triangle

Position yourself by spreading and lengthening your legs. Extend the arms to the side then tumble one arm up while you put the other in support on the ankle. Resume your initial position and start again on the other side. Stop the stretching session for a better muscle recovery.