Les Mills is one of the most famous brands in the fitness industry, with its special focus on designing workouts that combine the best music, the best moves, and the best instructors. An increasing number of gyms across the US (such as Club Fitness in Missouri and Illinois) offer a wide range of Les Mills workouts. These include BodyAttack, BodyCombat, Core, RPM, Sprint, and Tone.
And then there’s also BodyPump. This is one of the more popular workouts in the whole Les Mills lineup.
What is BodyPump?
Like most Les Mills workouts, BodyPump combines proven moves backed by science, with great music and inspiring instructors. It uses barbells to get you toned, lean, and fit, using the Rep Effect formula. The idea is that you focus on your muscles using only light weights, but with much more repetitions to develop lean muscle.
How Many Calories Can a BodyPump Workout Burn?
In the short term, a single workout that lasts less than an hour can burn as many as 400 calories per session. But its long-term benefits are actually more impressive. The workouts help you develop lean muscle mass, and these muscles basically increase your standing metabolism. In other works, the extra muscles boost the ability of your body to effectively calories even while you’re not doing anything strenuous.
How Frequently Should You Do a BodyPump Workout?
It’s best to restrict the BodyPump workout to just 2 workouts per week. Perhaps you can do 3 workouts power week, at the very most. And you have to make sure you rest for a day between your BodyPump workouts.
You cannot do these workouts too often, because these workouts challenge all your major muscle groups. You need refrain from overtraining, and give your muscles time to recuperate.
Then it’s also a good idea to add maybe 2 or 3 cardio workouts during the week as well. That combination should really shape your body nicely.
How Does a BodyPump Workout Session Go?
It lasts maybe 55 minutes, and it uses 10 carefully chosen music tracks as your motivating soundtrack for the session. Each track lasts long enough while your exercises focus on a particular muscle group. So, that means you’re focusing on 10 different muscle groups for the whole workout.
Common exercises for the workout include bicep curls, lunges, clean and presses, deadlifts, and squats. The workouts also often get in some pushups, crunches, overhead presses, and chest presses as well.
Just How Effective is BodyPump, Really?
This is arguably among the best workouts that combine resistance training with calorie-burning. Studies have indicated that compared to a similar cardio workout that burns as many calories, BodyPump is much more effective in generating a long-term calorie-burning effect.
The research studies confirm that the fast-tempo resistance training involved in BodyPump burns off more energy that when you lift heavier weights at a slower pace. It’s also been discovered that a workout with low loads but with high repetition rates also boost bone density, and even reduces the chances of osteoporosis.
So, Exactly How Much Weight Are You Supposed to Lift with BodyPump?
As has been already mentioned, the whole idea is to go with light weights, but with high reps. So, there’s really no absolute need to go with heavier weights.
Still, a key principle in all effective strength training workouts is that you need to progress regularly. The BodyPump workout is designed to get you sweaty, and if you’re not tired at the end of each track, you’re probably lifting loads that aren’t as heavy as you need them to be.
If you feel that it’s too easy, then just an extra plate to your bar. Just make sure that you keep on maintaining your proper form. If your technique suffers due to the extra weight, stop for a few reps, and then reset. Or you can just go to a slightly lighter weight.