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What You're Probably Not Doing In Your Workouts That Is Critical To Helping You Burn Fat!
- By Yuri Elkaim
- Published 05/15/2008
- Wellness, Fitness and Diet
- Unrated
Yuri Elkaim
Yuri is the owner of Total Wellness Consulting and creator of the only 12 week body shaping fitness program designed for Ipod/Mp3 players. Please visit http://www.myFitterU.com for more info
View all articles by Yuri Elkaim
If you're pressed for time, looking to lose weight, and sick and tired of workouts that are boring and useless, then grab hold and continue reading.
A critical element that many people overlook in their workouts is structure. Structure is important in all facets of life. For instance, in the English language the structure of sentences can lead to different meanings even if the words are exactly the same.
"Jack ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast." We understand this perfectly. But what if the words read "Jack ate breakfast for a bowl of cereal." This doesn't make sense and is no longer effective as a sentence.
A similar phenomenon occurs with exercise and workout structure, especially if you're looking to lose weight. When it comes to losing weight the ultimate goal is to burn lots of calories in your workouts while developing lean muscle through resistance training and boosting your immediate metabolic rate through high intensity cardio training.
But what types of exercises are you supposed to do and how are you supposed to structure them for maximum results? It's a common question and even more common mistake that many people make.
One of the reasons why my critically acclaimed fat loss program is so effective is that it is specifically structured to enable your body to burn fat (not muscle) in the least amount of time possible.
This is accomplished through 2 critical components. Short and intense followed by exhilarating interval training workouts. In all, these fat burning workouts take no more than 45 minutes to complete.
Many people feel that resistance training isn't necessary for fat burning. This is an unfortu
nate belief because at the end of the day it is lean muscle that will burn more calories than anything else you do.
If you want to shed fat, the key to getting the most out of your resistance training workouts is to set them up in a circuit training fashion. This means that you take a number of exercises (let's say 6) and complete 1 set of each exercise and then move on to the next one without much rest in between. This set up gives an incredible aerobic training effect while stimulating your muscles to become leaner and stronger.
I like to encourage my clients to use a time interval rather a number of reps for their sets. For instance, doing as many push-ups as possible in 30 seconds instead of saying just 15 reps. This makes the workout relative to your own fitness level. Using time intervals enables you to give your best possible effort during the time given. And as you get fitter you will be able to perform more work, and thus burn more calories, in the given interval or set.
Here is an example of a time efficient and fat-burning workout from my program.
Warm-up: 5 min light cardio
Circuit training workout: perform as many reps as possible in the 30-second set, rest 15 seconds, and move on to the next exercise. Rest 2 minutes after all exercises are completed once. Repeat for a 2nd set.
1. Push-ups 2. Ball squats with biceps curls 3. Side bridge 4. Lunge walks with lateral raises 5. Stability ball crunches 6. Stability ball hamstring roll-ins
Interval cardio training: any cardio machine
10 minutes total 30 seconds hard: 30 seconds easy recovery
Total workout time: 40 minutes
As you can see there is a fair amount of structure to an effective workout. But with structure comes time efficiency and results. Give this one a shot and you'll see what I mean.
A critical element that many people overlook in their workouts is structure. Structure is important in all facets of life. For instance, in the English language the structure of sentences can lead to different meanings even if the words are exactly the same.
"Jack ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast." We understand this perfectly. But what if the words read "Jack ate breakfast for a bowl of cereal." This doesn't make sense and is no longer effective as a sentence.
A similar phenomenon occurs with exercise and workout structure, especially if you're looking to lose weight. When it comes to losing weight the ultimate goal is to burn lots of calories in your workouts while developing lean muscle through resistance training and boosting your immediate metabolic rate through high intensity cardio training.
But what types of exercises are you supposed to do and how are you supposed to structure them for maximum results? It's a common question and even more common mistake that many people make.
One of the reasons why my critically acclaimed fat loss program is so effective is that it is specifically structured to enable your body to burn fat (not muscle) in the least amount of time possible.
This is accomplished through 2 critical components. Short and intense followed by exhilarating interval training workouts. In all, these fat burning workouts take no more than 45 minutes to complete.
Many people feel that resistance training isn't necessary for fat burning. This is an unfortu
If you want to shed fat, the key to getting the most out of your resistance training workouts is to set them up in a circuit training fashion. This means that you take a number of exercises (let's say 6) and complete 1 set of each exercise and then move on to the next one without much rest in between. This set up gives an incredible aerobic training effect while stimulating your muscles to become leaner and stronger.
I like to encourage my clients to use a time interval rather a number of reps for their sets. For instance, doing as many push-ups as possible in 30 seconds instead of saying just 15 reps. This makes the workout relative to your own fitness level. Using time intervals enables you to give your best possible effort during the time given. And as you get fitter you will be able to perform more work, and thus burn more calories, in the given interval or set.
Here is an example of a time efficient and fat-burning workout from my program.
Warm-up: 5 min light cardio
Circuit training workout: perform as many reps as possible in the 30-second set, rest 15 seconds, and move on to the next exercise. Rest 2 minutes after all exercises are completed once. Repeat for a 2nd set.
1. Push-ups 2. Ball squats with biceps curls 3. Side bridge 4. Lunge walks with lateral raises 5. Stability ball crunches 6. Stability ball hamstring roll-ins
Interval cardio training: any cardio machine
10 minutes total 30 seconds hard: 30 seconds easy recovery
Total workout time: 40 minutes
As you can see there is a fair amount of structure to an effective workout. But with structure comes time efficiency and results. Give this one a shot and you'll see what I mean.