20 Minute Fitness

This week we're turning the 20 Minute Fitness podcast into a fight club and aim to improve your punches. While boxing traditionally might have been seen as a "two-men" sport, today we look at it as an amazing workout for everyone. No matter if you're in for the weight loss or want to get stronger, boxing can take you there.

Listen to this week's episode to learn more about the tech that can improve your uppercut and knock out your virtual target!

Three Things You Will Learn

1) Track Your Punches With These Gadgets

The very first step towards not just becoming a pro boxer, but getting a good boxing workout in is mastering your punches. There are a number of factors that you should look at from technique to speed and force. And all of these can easily be tracked by tiny little sensors that you can hide underneath your gloves.

The first one of these sensors is the PIQ ROBOT - a collaboration between PIQ and Everlast. This gadget is "more than just a sensor". It is an AI-powered system that delivers actionable information that will allow you to improve your punches. Get an insight on how your punch speed and your G force are improving and learn about your strengths and weaknesses that you should work on!

Another similar innovation is the Hykso punch tracker that tracks your hand movement at 1000 times/second. The 6000 data points you get will detect the number, type and velocity of your punches and provide you with all this information at real time. This will give you a great basis for becoming a better fighter. But if you still need an extra boost of motivation, you can compare yourself to elite level boxers and try to catch up to them.

Finally the StrikeTec Sensors are the tiniest of all, but will give you the highest number of data points. With StrikeTec, you won't just know how fast and powerful your jabs are, but also see whether you throw that punch accurately enough.
Press play to learn more about the ins & outs of all three sensors and to find out which one is the one for you!

2) Transform Your Home Into A Boxing Studio

Going a step further than tracking, you may also want to start taking classes from professional instructors. So you should sign up at a gym that offers boxing, right? Absolutely not. FightCamp can turn your own living room into a boxing studio in a matter of a second.

With the FightCamp Gym, you'll get all the equipment you need for a proper boxing session. And that includes guided workouts as well. FightCamp has an extensive library of on-demand classes led by the best boxing trainers in the US.
All workouts will vary based on your proficiency level, but they are all built on a 3-min round - 1-min rest format. And if you're just starting out, they have a 10-week program for newbies that will start from scratch and help with learning all the basic boxing moves. Listen on to hear what's included in the FightCamp package and how your virtual trainer will motivate you to hit that punching bag harder!

3) The Boxing System For Pros

If you're a gym owner or someone who's very into boxing, the BotBoxer could definitely be something exciting for you. This system is a comprehensive robotic boxing stimulator that will challenge even pro boxers.
With its high speed computer vision and motion recognition, the BotBoxer will also train your boxing tactics and ensure that your opponent won't get out of your punches' way.

Tracking the force, velocity and the directions of your punches is just the beginning here. The real deal comes when you turn your BotBoxer into fight mode. This will result in the stimulation of a real human and turn your fights into the closest it can get to reality. Tune in to learn more about the BotBoxer's features and human characteristics!

On this episode of 20 Minute Fitness Charlie takes a look at a number of hormones and their effects on our body’s health and fitness. Hormones play a part in a number of physiological reactions in the body including energy metabolism, tissue growth, and hydration levels, so we can begin to see how important they really are.

So sit back, relax and enjoy this deep dive into hormones.

Three Things You Will Learn

1.) Deciphering The Difference of Hormones

We first discuss the 3 major classifications of hormones, those being steroids, peptides, and amines before moving onto looking at a few hormones in more depth.

2.) Cracking The Code Of Testosterone

Testosterone is most frequently associated with men and many “gym bros” will tell you that the more testosterone you have the more muscle you can gain. Although it is true that testosterone is responsible for muscle protein resynthesis and the repair of damaged muscle tissue as seen in the study Effect of testosterone on muscle mass and muscle protein synthesis, it is not the full story.

Charles R Drew published a study of the effects of testosterone on healthy young men. They found higher testosterone levels did lead to increased muscle mass but not nearly as much as one might expect. In fact, a statistically significant increase in muscle growth was not actually seen until testosterone levels were 20-30% above the normal range.

3.) Hacking Your Adrenaline

We also take a look at adrenaline and how this hormone when secreted into the bloodstream can heighten our abilities by expanding our blood vessels. This then allows more blood to run to the brain increasing alertness. Finally, we discuss cortisol, human growth hormone (HGH) and Oestrogen ad we look at the various effects these hormones have on our health and fitness.

More on 20minutes.fitness!

This week on the 20 Minute Fitness podcast's ‘Why I Built This’ show, we are honored to introduce you to someone with an extremely inspiring and empowering story: Michael Kuech, the Co-Founder of Your Super. Once an aspiring pro tennis player, Michael’s life took a dramatic turn when he was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately, he managed to recover and one of his secret weapons turned out to be a daily dosage of superfoods, "prescribed" to him by his partner Kristel De Groot. Eventually, all of this inspired the two of them to found Your Super, a direct-to-consumer nutritional supplements company.

If you would like to learn about the full story of how superfoods actually helped Michael through his hard times and why Your Super is very different from your typical nutrition supplement company, then you should definitely stay tuned!

Three Things You Will Learn

1) Superfoods At Your Super
Even though superfoods only got hyped in Western societies a couple of years ago, they go a long way in the Eastern world. These ancient veggies and fruits are extremely high in nutrients and have been used for decades as alternative medicine by different cultures.

Maximizing their benefits and making them easily consumable, Michael and Kristel decided to combine various superfoods and create 7 different powder mixes. Each of them is a functional powerful mix that brings different health benefits to the consumer. With only one spoon a day, you can get all essential fruits & veggies in your diet.

Their Forever Beautiful Mix is, for instance, supercharged with anti-oxidants and aims to nourish your skin. While their Power Matcha Mix is a great alternative for coffee as it will boost your energy. Listen on to hear about the other superfood mixes they have for you!

2) The Your Super Ingredients

At Your Super, we only meet with superfoods in powder form, which might make you wonder whether they give you the same amount of nutrients as fresh fruits and vegetables? The answer is that superfoods don't just give you the same amount, but actually a lot more.
As superfoods are dried and shredded, which count as very minimal processing, they don't lose from their nutrient content. On the other hand, fresh fruits and vegetables lose nutrients as soon as they leave the ground and you also never really know whether the 'fresh' label in the supermarket really means something.

Taking it a step further, all the Your Super ingredients are strictly organic, non-GMO and come from the highest quality sources. Michael and Kristel make sure of this by actually visiting every single farm where they source their ingredients from and by running lab tests on everything they put in their mixes.

Press play to hear why the Your Super founders put such a high emphasis on sourcing from the right places and why they'd like to educate people to read the labels before buying anything in a grocery store!

3) Outlook On Our Future Health Trends

According to Michael, it's not a surprise that people are becoming more and more receptive to superfoods. He sees that while in the past everything revolved around convenience, today we are simply not willing to make a choice between convenience and quality. People have become more health-conscious and "force" brands to create products that excel on both ends.

As brands recognize that trends move in a healthier direction, they offer a greater variety of high-quality options. Which in turn further pushes people towards a healthier lifestyle. And Your Super is ready to stand at the forefront of these changes by sharing knowledge and educating people about the benefits of a more plant-based diet.

Tune in to hear more about how Michael sees the future of our nation's health and in what ways Your Super will educate people to eat more plants!

This week on the podcast we're back with the 5th episode of Martin's transformation series. After he successfully hit his weight loss goals, Martin has changed gears in terms of fitness directions. However, before focusing on his Q3 objectives in more detail, we wanted to discuss a very important topic, which is body composition tracking.

In today's episode you can learn more about why body composition tracking is important, which metrics are the most useful to track and in what unique ways can ShapeScale help you along the way!