Our approach to fitness and wellness shouldn’t be in a form of "an event”, it should be a lifestyle. A lifestyle is part of your everyday life, it’s seldom weather dependent. Phindi Gule tackles a Q&A session with a few interested health advocates.

Instead of mowing the lawn in the middle of the day when it's 35 degrees, try doing it early morning or later in the day. Sports teams take this advice; many of them practice early in the day rather than in the middle of the day, when temperatures are highest. Some people, like construction workers or traffic officers, have no choice as to when they work. If you're exercising or working in the heat, modify your work-to-rest ratio depending on the environmental conditions.

There are two kinds of heat stroke: exertional, which is associated with vigorous physical activity, and non-exertional which can be caused by too much sun exposure (without being active).

Heat Stroke Symptoms

Whether heat stroke strikes while you're doing physical labor in the heat or simply sitting in the sun on an unusually hot day - the symptoms are mostly the same. These symptoms include a high body temperature, nausea, vomiting, rapid breathing, flushed skin, headache, a racing heart rate, confusion, agitation, slurred speech and irritability. Heat stroke can also lead to seizures and a coma.

What to Do for Heat Stroke?

Immediate heat stroke treatment involves cooling the victim's body as soon as he or she shows signs of distress. Dousing the person with cold water from a hose or putting him or her in a cold shower can be effective. Wrapping a heat stroke victim in cold towels is also a good measure. Cooling the body of a heat stroke victim is crucial to reduce damage to the person's brain and vital organs.

Whether you main choice of exercise is running, cycling, swimming triathlon strength training or beyond - you need cross training in your life. Cross training is training in more than one sport or form of exercise in order to improve fitness in your main sport and help prevent injury.

By performing a variety of exercises from different disciplines, you are asking more of your body than with a traditional, straightforward approach. Increased workload and variety lead to increased capability. In other words, by doing more with your body, your athletic and fitness levels have no choice but to grow.

Cross-training workouts aren’t tailored to a single goal, such as gaining strength or getting faster, but cater to these needs simultaneously. With cross-training, it’s possible to gain muscle, lose fat, increase cardio-aerobic capacity and quicken your feet - all in a single workout. This comprehensive style of fitness training is called CONDITIONING, and it’s one of the benefits of cross-training. Here’s how Cross Training can benefit you.

Often when we get injured in the gym, on the court, or on the field, it’s because they’re over doing a single activity. Whether it be running, squatting, cutting, or jumping, your body is easily worn down. Joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons throughout your body are under a tremendous amount of stress though repeated movement, and it’s important to give them the occasional break.

Active recovery is the practice of using an alternative type of training to recover from your primary training method. For instance, many professional athletes do swimming workouts and pool resistance exercises to actively recover from their on-field practices and traditional weight room training. In addition to the conditioning and injury preventing benefits of active recovery, it has been show to actually speed up recovery by increasing blood flow and the delivery of nutrients to stressed or damaged muscle tissue.

Try this sample cross-training workout to kick-start your new routine or break through a fitness or athletic plateau (cycle through the listed exercises in order 3 times and try to complete the workout with as little rest as possible):

• 10 pushups
• 25 jumping jacks
• 8 pull-ups
• 30 seconds jump rope
• 10 squats with 70% of your body weight
• 60 seconds plank hold (prone-bridge)
• 20 box jumps on 25-inch platform
• 100 meter sprint (or 15 seconds of fast paced running)

Fact: Weight loss is not about sweating. It’s about burning calories.

What matters most about losing weight is that at the end of each day you’ve burned more calories than you’ve eaten. You want more calories (energy) “going out” than “going in.”

Sure, if you sweat up a storm, you’ll lose a kg's or two in water, but it’s temporary. Those kg's go right back on. That’s because sweat has little to do with calories burned. Sweat happens simply because your body’s storing heat, whether while exercising or sunbathing, and you need to cool off.

So if running – and profuse sweating – isn’t your thing, that’s fine. Walk if you prefer. What is associated with calories burned is the total number of steps you take each day. An effective goal for most people is about 10,000 steps (7 - 8km's) every day.

Fact: Using weighted items during aerobic exercise could actually ruin your best efforts to burn calories.

Using weights while walking or jogging can alter your normal gait and body mechanics, placing strain on ligaments, tendons, and joints. “The strain exposes you to a heightened risk of injury, which means you might end up on the couch, in pain, and burning no calories.

Weights can be a great part of your fitness routine when used for your strength training sessions – separate from your aerobic sessions.

In other words, no pain no weight loss - WRONG!!!!

Moderate intensity physical activity makes you breath harder and may make it more difficult to talk, but you should be able to carry on a conversation while exercising. This is unlike vigorous physical activity, which will make you completely out of breath and will make you sweat profusely regardless of the weather condition.

Fact: Gimmicks like the Ab Blaster look too good to be true… and they are.

There’s no such thing as “spot reduction” – except in media hype. It is physiologically impossible to lose fat in one specific area. Losing fat in the belly, hips, butt, and everywhere else does happen, but only because you’ve created an energy deficit, that, is, you’re burning more calories than you’re eating. The best – and only scientifically proven – way to do that is with lifelong healthy habits – a fiber-rich, low-calorie-dense eating plan and regular (ideally, daily) exercise.

So hang in there, dedicate time every day for aerobic workouts in your training heart rate zone. And two to three times weekly, target all your major muscle groups with some strength training exercises for that strong core. Equally important, eat well – lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains every day. You will lose excess fat, wherever it is on your body.

During a hard workout, muscles go through numerous contractions which leave them in a miss-shaped and shortened state, which is why you will feel stiffness and soreness if you don’t try and rectify the state by stretching.

Your body produces lactic acid which makes your muscles tired and sore, stretching helps to eliminate the lactic acid.

Endorphins are released after a workout once your body starts to cool down, stretching helps slow the cooling process ensuring you feel energised after your workout.

Stretching helps the blood flow back into your muscles at a more regulated pace, allowing your heart rate to come back to normal, your muscles feed on oxygen and nutrients brought in by the blood

The most common complaint amongst active people is the lower back area. Nine times out of ten stretching the hamstrings and hip flexors, muscles that are attached to the pelvis, will relieve that pain.

General posture is improved, people tend to stand up straighter particularly if you focus on stretching backs, shoulders and chests

General tension and anxiety lead to tension in your muscles, whether that’s stiff necks or tight shoulders. Releasing and stretching those muscles often leads to an overall feeling of stress relief.

Increased flexibility, which will happen the more you stretch, will enable you to exercise more effectively.

Stretching over time will give your muscles tone and your body will look more slim. You only need to look at the bodies of those that practice Yoga on a regular basis.

Last but by no means least you reduce the risk of injury as you will have an improved range of motion, which in turn decreases resistance on your muscles.

Foam rolling is a great addition to your stretching routine, especially if you have a part of your body that is particularly tight, it also increases circulation and helps to lower your heart rate.

Think of stretching as a way of resetting and gaining equilibrium after putting your body through stress. Rather than seeing it as an optional part of your workout, look at stretching as part of your session, you will be maximising the benefits off all the hard work you’ve put in.