This article has been provided by guest author Kyle Wood known as one of the best among up and coming Melbourne personal trainers. Kyle has a keen interest in new and more effective training for himself and his clients and he believes exercise should contribute to your life and make it more fruitful rather than detract from it. He currently runs a blog in his spare time called Kyle’s Fitness Facts so take a look there if you want to know more...
Exercise for Fat Loss
Diet is very important when losing weight. The best training system in the world cannot out do a terrible diet filled with junk food, irregular meals and no veggies. However, as you reduce your caloric intake your body adapts to that caloric intake and the weight loss will plateau. This is where a lot of people will give up, however for those who continue, more calories must be cut and so on. This reaches a point where the calories are cut so low that you begin to starve your body.
A better solution to making that second cut in calories (or even the first) is to add exercise. If you are already exercising regularly then I suggest adding more intense workouts to your training schedule. Here are some great ideas (that can all be done without a gym membership):
Sprint Intervals
Find your local track or oval (soccer pitches work excellent). Start off by doing one or two laps to warm up and then follow this cycle:
- Jog 50m
- Sprint 50m
- Walk 50m
Repeat this 4 times. Each week add an additional cycle until you reach 10 cycles. When you can do that move onto something new.
Note: A full size soccer pitch is 50m wide and 100m long so you can complete 2 cycles in one lap.
Circuit Training:
I’m not talking about walking around in a circuit on weight machines for 30 minutes, I’m talking all out circuits that will get your heart pumping through your chest and your fat cells dropping like flies. For these circuits you will need a railing or play equipment bar about 1.2m (4 feet) off the ground and a low bench or steps.
Circuit 1:
- Feet elevated push up x12 (on knees if unable to do on toes)
- Bodyweight squat x12
- Crunches x 12
- Butt Kick Jumps x12
Repeat 2 times before moving onto circuit two
Circuit 2:
- Burpees x10
- Inverted row (on railing) x10
- Forward Walking Lunges x5
- Reverse Walking Lunges x5
- Pushups x10
Repeat 2 times. Each week add an extra circuit to one of the circuits until you reach a total of 10 circuits.
Hill Sprints
Find a small hill. Sprint to the top, walk back down, rinse, repeat. You will be amazed at how awesome this simple activity is for cardiovascular fitness and fat shedding. Do this 5 times and then add an extra sprint each week.
Remember to warm up thoroughly beforehand and then warm down and stretch afterwards. This applies when doing any exercise.
You want more?
If you work your way up to doing all of that in a week then you can add low intensity recovery cardiovascular work to your off days. This kind of exercise is excellent at promoting blood to muscles to aid in recovery from your previous workouts. Good ideas are swimming, bike riding or brisk walks with your partner/family/dog.
Give these high intensity techniques a go. Stick to them for at least 6 weeks before you truly give them your analysis. I believe by then you will be addicted to high intensity training. Not only will they help you lose weight faster but you will also have more energy and feel more alert. Before I go, some great fun facts:
- Muscle requires more energy to exist, so the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism.
- 20-30 minutes high intensity training burns more total energy (calories) over 24 hours than 60 minutes of low-moderate total training.
- Recent studies are continuing to show that the lactic acid system (shorter bursts of energy like sprinting and circuits) is a far greater channel for fat oxidizing (fat burning) than the aerobic study (longer low intensity training) which might explain why sprinters are so ripped.
