“I wanted to lose weight in a way that felt good, not as a punishment,” confides the woman who invented this gentle method.
It’s difficult to take up sport when you don’t like it. Many of us “force” ourselves to practice physical activity without pleasure and ultimately end up becoming disgusted with sport and giving up the effort. “Society puts so much pressure on women to look a certain way, and because of this, many of them have made exercise a punishment or a way to burn off only their calories.“, explains Hope Zuckerbrow, fitness influencer with 1 million subscribers on TikTok who has developed an effective sports method (she lost 4 jean sizes) focused on softness and well-being.
This famous method is called “cozy” cardio, “comfortable cardio” or “cozy cardio” and is part of the trend of hygge, the Danish art of living which consists of taking your time, slowing down and enjoying your home. Concretely, this method – which allows you to “heal your own relationship with sport” – offers gentle cardio sessions, with lower impact and lower intensity in a cozy environment such as your living room or bedroom, away from the gaze of others. others. All done in a super comfortable outfit or even in pajamas, at any time of the day (morning, evening, midday when working from home, etc.) and to the sound of your favorite playlist. “Because it’s flexible and can be done at home, it’s especially good for new parents, bosses with busy work schedules, students [….] people who do not want to be in a crowd or those sensitive to overstimulation (lights, sounds, smells, etc.)“, underlines Meghan McFerran, fitness expert and yoga teacher, to the magazine Shape. Through gentle fitness exercises, this method allows you to gradually increase your heart rate to strengthen your heart without trauma, unlike high-intensity cardio exercise which tends to increase the level of cortisol (stress hormone) in the body. In a cozy cardio routine, you can find:
- Yoga postures (hatha yoga for example which combines asanas (physical postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises))
- Brisk walking on a treadmill
- Pilates stretches
- Soft dance
- An exercise bike
- Gentle cardio (knee raises, squats, step touch heel buttocks, etc.)
The principle of cozy cardio is to follow exercises at a non-fatiguing pace and not to exceed heart rate zone 2, i.e. 60 to 70% of your maximum heart rate (HR Max). This interval allows you to move gently, maintain your fitness level, improve endurance work and therefore draw in fat. In practice, you are at comfortable physical exertion and you can speak without severe shortness of breath. To find out your maximum heart rate, it is possible to carry out an exercise test with a sports doctor or cardiologist, or to do a so-called “field” test (carry out the most intense physical exercise possible to increase your heart rate). heart rate) supervised by a sports professional. A theoretical formula allows you to roughly estimate your Max HR: 220 – your age (if you are 35 years old, your Max HR is around 185). Once you know it, you can set your smartwatch and know where your heart is in real time.
If you want to get started with cozy cardio, fitness professionals suggest starting with 3 sessions of 30 minutes per week broken down like this: 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of stretching, 10 minutes of brisk walking or dancing, this Who “will already give you a good level of confidence, a feeling of accomplishment and joy“.