Join our discussion on health, fitness and diet.
The concept of interval training has been around longer than I can remember. It’s the reason Lifecycles and StairMasters had built in programs taking you up and down simulated hills during a workout. The science behind it is this; by varying the workload during a workout session you also cause a variance in heart rate resulting in both greater aerobic demand and greater calorie expenditure. The net result would be increased conditioning and more significant weight loss.
his is a basic work-out designed to yield an overall minimum level of conditioning. From here you will be prepared for a more vigorous level of sport or conditioning. As always, check first with your doctor to make sure you are healthy enough to under take a physical conditioning program.
The Program
This is a 3 times per week progressive routine. Start with 1 circuit for the first week’s workouts, 2 on the second and third weeks followed by 3 circuits from week 4+.
There are 3 numbers we must all be concerned about as we age. The numbers I am referring to can lead to heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. These numbers are blood glucose level, blood pressure, and cholesterol. The chance of occurrence goes up as we age and those numbers are growing. Take diabetes for instance, it was once referred to as adult onset diabetes because in was only seen in middle aged adults, but no longer; it is now one of the fastest growing preventable diseases among children. Fortunately, what works to get one of these numbers in order also has a positive effect on the other two.
With all the ads, articles and sponsored editorials in print and on the web it’s hard to separate the fact from the fiction when it comes to benefit claims for supplements. Since the list of available supplements claiming some miraculous benefit is huge (getting bigger almost daily), here are five to consider for better health for almost anybody.
1) Multivitamin – With our hurried life styles it’s not easy to always eat a well balanced diet. To insure your well being I recommend a multivitamin that is taken in 2 doses to achieve full potency. Take one with breakfast and one with lunch. Make sure you have some healthy fat in the meal to assure absorption or fat soluble vitamins like B complex. Also, make sure your multi has 800 mcg of Foliate (folic acid) and 400 mg of vitamin D3. Both are hard to get in sufficient quantity by diet alone particularly in vegetarian diets.
Okay, so we have all heard not all carbs are created equal. So, are there carbs we should stay away from, eat occasionally or is the hype just that, hype?
Carbohydrates make up most of the organic matter on earth. However, pertaining to diet we refer to simple carbohydrates (monosaccharides, and disaccharides) such as sucrose, fructose, and glucose, and complex carbohydrates (oligosaccharides and polysaccharides) such as vegetables and grains.
Where as losing some unwanted body fat feels like a drink from the fountain of youth, spot reducing has always been the Holy Grail. Let’s be honest, we all have that one (okay) two spots we’d like to lose while the rest is pretty much okay. Billions of dollars have been spent on such remedies as: gels, wraps, abdominal blasters, pills, potions, etc. only to find that they don’t work. Still, some people think, if it’s on T.V. it must be real, there goes more $$$.
Savvy exercise enthusiast and trainers are well aware of the error in this line of reasoning. All the crunches in the world aren’t going to make your abs flat, plastic wraps aren’t going to make your hips smaller, and oatmeal baths and deep tissue massage isn’t ridding you of cellulite just because the spa lady said it would. Lies, lies, lies.
Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I often hear people saying they are afraid to lift weights because they don’t want to gain weight or look bigger. The error is in their perception, they couldn’t be father from the truth and here’s why…
Generally when we say we want to lose weight what we really mean is we want to lose fat, the loose fleshy stuff hanging from arms and thighs or spilling over into a muffin top. Be honest can you pinch some? If not, why read on you’re already a god or goddess. For everyone else, that doughy stuff between your fingers are the glad bags of the body. That’s right, fat is essentially stored energy in the form of fatty acids that can also contain fat soluble chemicals some even toxic.
Have you ever seen a fat sprinter in the Olympics? The fact is that sprinters, whether it is a runner, swimmer or cyclist, tend to have the best muscle to fat ratio in sports. Short duration high intensity exercise not only burns fat, but also builds muscle and increases bone density.
Generally, when most people want to lose weight they cut back on calories and begin a cardio program usually in the form of prolonged low-moderate intensity exercise such as a 45 minute walk or 3 mile jog, etc. Now where this practice would improve cardiovascular health and burn a number of calories while performed, you get virtually no significant bump to metabolism after stopping. In fact without resistance exercise large amounts of cardio can actually lead to a loss of lean body mass thus lowering metabolism.
For anyone who exercises or diets and especially athletes the conversation eventually gets around to protein. How much, when to take, what type and what does it do for me?
Generally most dieticians recommend about 70 grams of protein a day from all food sources to sustain good health. For the average person this may be adequate, but lets say you are an athlete who trains intensely and therefore your body is constantly at a higher demand to recover and rebuild, or maybe you are trying to build more lean body mass. Even someone who is dieting to lose weight (body fat) will benefit from additional protein intake. A good rule of thumb and one I recommend is 1 gram of protein for every pound of weight.
Knowing how and when to stretch properly is just as important for preventing injury as well as improving performance.
Let me start with a question. Say you have a bag of rubber bands in the refrigerator for safe keeping. Would you take one of the bands and stretch it to its maximum straight out of the cold refrigerator? What do you think might happen? Will it develop some micro tears, maybe tear completely? Not of much use now is it? So, if you wouldn’t want to do this with a rubber band, you probably wouldn’t want to do this with your un-warmed-up muscles either.
As a personal trainer I often have new clients ask me what the correct heart rate training zone should be for fat loss. I have recently read message boards and forums with claims that to lose fat you should stay in the 120-135 bpm zone. The rational comes from the fact that under low level activity our physiology uses much higher percentages of fat as a fuel source. While maintaining this pace for 20-30 minutes will render benefits in weight loss and conditioning and is a good course for older participants or those with restrictions, the fact is the caloric expenditure is too small.
Not losing like you used to, strength and size gains hard in coming, there could be a good reason why. Lets talk about getting past plateaus.
Maximizing your exercise results can be accomplished by understanding and utilizing a process known as adaptive response. Simply put, whether you are toning, building-up, or losing your physiology will respond to the demands placed upon it. This can be a double edged sword however,
once your body becomes capable of completing an exercise or series of exercises it no longer needs to maintain the same level of adaptation. What once gave you great results no longer seems to do more than maintenance.
