The pandemic has played havoc with our fitness habits, we're moving less and sitting more, and it's not good for our health. Lack of physical activity is one of the biggest killers and more avoidable than diabetes, obesity and smoking combined.

One of the biggest complaints from people is that they've gotten out of the habit of exercising. In the past two years, 46% of people reported doing less exercise and others say they struggle to carve out the time to squeeze fitness into their daily routines. It's hard to prioritize spending hours a week exercising when you have found other things to do with your time. Still, if you were doing regular cardio workouts but then did less once Covid hit, you would have lost any health benefits you gained in the first four weeks of inactivity. 

CAROL AI-powered bike
(Photo : CAROL)

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There's an exciting solution available for people who want to get back into fitness and a healthy lifestyle that isn't time-consuming. The scientifically proven CAROL AI stationary bike gives you an 8 minute and 40-second REHIT (an advanced form of HIT) session that is proven to provide you with the same cardiorespiratory benefits of a 45-minute run, and you can do it in the comfort of your home. Each ride comprises 2 x 20 seconds of hard sprints, and the rest of the eight minutes are gentle warm-up, recovery, and warm-down sessions. It's hard to believe that you can get such great results in such a short time, but there is plenty of scientific evidence to prove that when exercising CAROL works.

The Harvard Business Review described sitting as the new smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle is said to be as bad for you as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. When you sit for extended periods, the electrical activity in the leg muscles shut off, calorie burning drops to 1 per minute, the enzymes that help break down fat drop 90%. Your good cholesterol drops 20%, which can all lead to serious problems, and that is directly tied to a 6% increased risk of heart diseases, 7% for type 2 diabetes, and 10% for breast cancer or colon cancer. Working out on CAROL is a time-efficient, effective way of exercising and getting healthy without putting strain on your body or schedule.

The team at CAROL is keen to help people make it easy to lead more active lives without eating into hours of their day. You can consciously decide to make some tiny changes that all add up to make big differences over time, and they don't involve finding extra time in your day. Other tips for making small changes include:

●     Stand up every 30 minutes and take a few steps around your office (this is a good time to check your phone) - there are some great apps for this. 

●     Invest in a standing desk or raise your laptop or get a desktop riser so you can alternate between sitting and standing.

●     Don't eat at your desk - try and get some fresh air or at least a change of scenery.

●     If you're back in the office, have walking or standing meetings, outside if the weather is good.

Working out on a CAROL bike is another easy habit to get into. It means you don't need to find hours each week to get back into the fitness habit and still have plenty of time to spare to do the things you love. In eight weeks of 3 short workouts a week on CAROL, riders see significant, measurable health benefits that will turn around the damage from a sedentary lifestyle.

"The key to changing habits is to start small and stay small. That's why working out on CAROL for less than 9 minutes three times a week is more doable than promising yourself you'll go for a 45-minute jog three times a week when you've done little or no exercise for a long time. People find it hard to stick to new habits because they have unrealistic expectations of what they should do and feel they have to push themselves all the time. With CAROL, the bike does the pushing for you, all you have to do is commit to the short ride, and before you know it, you'll see measurable results, improved fitness and better health", says Ulrich Dempfle, CEO of CAROL bike

CAROL records and measures your progress so you can see how your fitness is improving, helping to keep you motivated as you start to feel fitter after every time-saving ride.

Three short personalised cardio workouts a week on CAROL for only 26 minutes in total have been shown to offset the adverse effects of a sedentary lifestyle 20% of the time compared to traditional exercise. This includes lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes by 62% (the same as taking Metformin), lowering blood pressure by 5%, reducing triglycerides by 10%, increasing good cholesterol by 6%, improving cardiorespiratory fitness by 12%, and sessions on CAROL boosts the metabolism and lowers blood sugar by 2%. A workout on CAROL is scientifically proven to burn more calories post-exercise than other forms of cardio.

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