One thing that really interests me is the psychology towards exercise, and how peoples’ mind-set is changing in today’s world. The culture here is very different than the culture abroad – people wouldn’t use their lunch breaks to go for workouts like they do abroad. I feel like people need to find or make time for workouts, and that’s why I think the burpee is the perfect exercise (or rather, variation of exercises) for busy people. It involves cardio, strength and core workout; however, it’s not for someone who has never exercised before or for people who are above a certain weight. But most people can do a modified version till they build the strength to do it properly. A burpee incorporates a lot of different exercises - you do 10 burpees and your heart rate is through the roof. High-intensity exercise is all about taking your heart rate to crazy levels, bringing it down, taking it up, bringing it back down and so on. I think it’s something that you could do every day, even if you can’t do many to start with. The idea is to slowly start doing as many as you can and squeezing them in.

I recently met a highly qualified trainer in London and he’s doing some research with his own clients on working out before every meal. So there’s this thing called a 7 minute workout, which constitutes of jumping jacks, squats, crunches, planks, push-ups, dips, rotating planks, side planks etc. The idea is to do all these different exercises for 30 seconds, which makes up 7 minutes. So this guy, he makes people do this workout before breakfast, lunch and dinner, and so far he’s seen amazing results. By the time you eat, your metabolism is already elevated and you end up digesting food much faster, and burning fat better. But for this kind of regime you need to make sure your calorie intake is high.

Now, let’s talk about suryanamaskars. If you do a suryanamaskar slowly, there’s not much of cardio component involved. But there is lot of breathing and pranayama. As compared to a burpee, which entails a lot of explosive strength, a suryanamaskar is all about bending and stretching your body. Burpees, on the other hand, entail bringing in a lot of explosive strength. Even so, the suryanamaskar can be the greatest full body workout if done properly. However, it’s a very technical exercise and everyone should not be doing it without supervision, but it’s amazing to open up the body and for strengthening. It incorporates a lot of stability and of course, a lot of breathing technique as well. I’ve incorporated the suryanamaskar into cricketers’ workouts, as I really believe in dynamic workouts. The suryanamaskar is great for your internal systems as well – your nervous system, circulatory system, your lungs etc all benefit from this exercise.

But like I mentioned, a Suryanamaskar is not as cardio-intensive as the burpee. Ideally, I’d recommend you start with a suryanamaskar and end with a burpee – you’d be getting the best of both worlds.

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