INTERVAL TRAINING: 

Short on time long on calories!

 

 “I don’t have time” and “I’m too tired” are the most common excuses for lack of exercise.  Exercise combats stress, anxiety and invigorates your body! So why doesn’t everyone take advantage of this powerful tool? Most often, people think that exercise must be done for hours to gain benefits. This is not always true!

 

10 Minutes

Most likely you can find 10 minutes twice a day or 20 minutes once a day to recharge yourself with exercise! One hour to complete cardio and weight training 3-4 times per week is optimal.  However, each bit of exercise counts! When time is of the essence, interval training maximizes calories burned! Intervals can be employed with cardiovascular (aerobic) training, weight (anaerobic) training or both.  The key is to keep your intensity high! 

 

Pace

For cardio work, this can be done with machines or walking to your car.  Do a moderate pace for 10 seconds or more, then a fast pace for the same and keep alternating in this fashion for 10 minutes.  The intensity can be adjusted for every fitness level, just lengthen the interval time and/or pace.  Alternating a cardiovascular exercise with weight training exercise is another interval method that will keep your heart rate up and burn calories! 

 

Time Efficient

In 10 minutes you can work  several body parts with weight training. Weight training alone increases the metabolism and promotes fatloss. Whether combined with cardio training and intervals, or done on its own, weight training  is an excellent way to stay in shape when you are short on time! Be  sure to include it as part of your exercise routine!   A professional private trainer can show you how to maximize your time with weights!

 

Remind yourself how great you feel, after even a short exercise session, and you will find exercise does fit into your schedule!

Weight Training For Faster Fat Loss!

 

Weight training (anaerobic exercise) is the key to better, faster, more permanent weightloss.  New research from Colorado State University proves that anaerobic exercise burns 5 times more calories than aerobic exercise, and can burn up to 10 times more fat! ¹  If you want to lose weight faster and keep it off include anaerobic exercise as part of a your exercise routine.

 

Muscle for fatloss

Diet alone will force the body to save fat and burn muscle ², the exact opposite of what you want!  Without anaerobic exercise, the body perceives muscle as nonessential and will burn it for energy while saving fat for future needs.  Anaerobic exercise preserves muscle by telling the body that muscle is a priority forcing the body to burn excess fat at a very high rate. This is why anaerobic exercise burns 100% fat for body energy!   One hour of anaerobic exercise is worth more than 5 hours of aerobic exercise to burn calories and fat! ³  Weight training is the only way to create lean, tone muscles.  It is a myth that weight training builds bulky muscles in women ⁴, so women should have no fear of weight training.  Muscle weighs more than fat so you must judge your body by measurements not the scale!  Because of this fact, women can reduce size, and create a tone look without much change in the scale. 

 

Do nothing and burn calories!

Muscle burns calories.  Every pound of muscle burns about 35 calories per day.  This is why it is so important to retain and develop muscle during weightloss.  Weight training increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR) through increase in muscle so you burn more calories at rest!  While aerobic exercise temporally raises the RMR for a few hours, weight training elevates the RMR permanently.   Another way you can burn calories without effort is the rebuilding process. Weight training causes muscle and bones to rebuild and become stronger by inducing fatigue and breaking down.  This process requires the body to expend a substantial amount of calories.  An example of this is children in the growth stage.  Children can consume large amounts of calories since they are constantly building new muscle, bone and organs. The production of lean muscle  through weight training and rebuilding enables the body to act as a furnace for fat burning.

 

No age limit

There is no age limit to the benefits of weight training.  A Tufts study showed that nursing home patients in their 80s and 90s increased their strength by 175% and many of them no longer had to use their walkers!  According to a Tufts study, by the age of 50, the average woman is nearly 50% body fat and has lost 20% of her bone mass. Weight training increases lean body mass at any age and most important for older adults to combat this loss of lean body mass. Strength training can improve osteoporosis and arthritis, two conditions which severely affect the quality of life in older adults.   It is never to late to start a strength training regime and enjoy its benefits as long as a program  is designed with your health considerations and

current fitness level in mind.

 

Additional benefits

Weight training also revitalizes the organs. Muscle and bone building require the organs to produce extra performance which revitalizes the organs and produce youth related hormones. The mind also benefits from anaerobic exercise. According to scientific studies, people who engage in anaerobic exercise have better mental performance. 

 

Proper anaerobic exercise.

To gain the benefits of weight training, anaerobic exercise must be done properly.  Exercise form, exercise order, sets, repetitions, resistance and tempo are but a few of the variables to consider.  A properly designed exercise program produces results in strength, fatloss and muscle tone quickly. However, a poorly designed routine can produce minimal results a best and injury at worst.  Consult a

professional fitness trainer for proper instruction and guidance with a weight training program.

 

 

Reference

1,3 .  Melby, C. “Effect of acute resistance exercise on post-exercise energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate.”Dept. of food science and human nutrition. Colorado state university.

2.  Walberg, JL. “Aerobic exercise and resistance weight-training during weight reduction.  Implications for obese persons and athletes.” Sports Medicine  (Jun 1989); 7(6):343-56.

4.  Ebben, W.P. and Jensen, R.L. “Strength Training for Women: Debunking Myths that Block Opportunity.” The Physician and Sportsmedicine (May 1998); vol. 26-no.