Burst to Blast Fat!
If there was a drug that could make you look and feel 10 years younger, boost your mood and your metabolism, improve your sleep, enhance sexual performance, aid detoxification, reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers and osteoporosis and turn your body into a better fat burner, would you take it? Well, that drug is exercise, and like any drug, exercise can be therapeutic or destructive, depending on the dose.
You may be saying to yourself, "I would exercise, but I don't have any TIME!" Incidentally, you have a lot of company as this is the number one reason people don't exercise.
Really, I should have asked, what is the number one EXCUSE people use for not exercising, because we make time for things that matter to us, don't we? Somebody is feeding the cat, taking the kids to school, showing up for work, etc. I will show you how to get fit in minutes a day, I repeat MINUTES a day.
Myth Busting!
Over the past several decades the fitness industry has boomed and its central focus has been pushing aerobic exercise, especially for weight loss. The "theory" is that you need to do aerobic exercise to burn fat. Recently, the research actually shows just the opposite. Moderate intensity endurance (30 minutes or more several times a week) aerobic exercisers have less muscle mass and are poorer fat burners compared to high intensity exercisers. And the good news is, since intensity is relative to your fitness level, you can do this type of higher intensity exercise that I am going to teach you, no matter what shape you are in.
Burst to Blast Fat!
Burst training is SHORT intense intervals of exercise done for 20-60 seconds. The key is that you have to do it hard enough that you couldn't go a second longer. Remember back in grade school when somebody was chasing you and you ran so hard your legs and lungs felt like they were on fire.
Well, that feeling is due to something called lactic acid. It is a waste product that is created when you have to use a lot of energy in a short amount of time. When you raise this lactic acid you also raise Human Growth Hormone. We like that! This hormone is known as the 'hormone of youth' as it is highest when we are young and helps keep us young as we age by helping to maintain muscle mass, keep skin supple and burn off body fat.
This type of exercise also requires more work for your body to recover from so it boosts your metabolism for longer than a moderate intensity aerobic session.
Four minutes of Burst Training have been found to be equivalent to 20 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise but with a bigger fat burning effect. The studies are clear that the fuel that you use after exercise has to do with the intensity of the exercise, i.e. if you work hard and intense during exercise you will burn off more fat afterwards than if you work moderately.
It is not how much fat you burn during exercise that changes your body; it is the ability of your body to burn off stored fat all day long that is most important.
Initially, your goal is to accumulate 4 minutes of Burst Training every other day. You will do the bursting in 30 second intervals with a 1 minute rest break to recover in between sets.
Monitor your exertion during bursting by how you feel not by your actual heart rate. On a scale of 1-10 you should be at a 9-10 of perceived exertion when you quit. You should feel like you can't go a second longer when you get to the final few seconds.
You can do your bursting with just about any piece of aerobic equipment and just about anywhere. As you get stronger be sure to increase your intensity,
not the duration of the bursting sets. You will never burst more than 60 seconds at a time so you will continue to increase the intensity as you become stronger and more fit.
You will be amazed at how quickly this happens and how much it affects the rest of your life. Everything else you do from household chores to your energy levels throughout the day will improve dramatically and quickly.
Here are some ideas to start you bursting:
• Sprint/walk - Note that intensity is relative. For you a sprint may equal a really fast walk at first! If you live in a hilly area incorporate the hills into your workout as well for more variety and increased intensity.
• Stationary cycling - Go at level 0-1 @ 70 rpm and then push up the level as high as possible keeping the rpm's over 100. To take it to the next level, stand up and cycle during your bursts.
• Stairs - Walk or run as many as you can in 30 seconds then walk down and repeat. For variety, switch to taking 2 steps at a time.
• Jump rope - Jump as fast as you can for 30 seconds then walk around to recover.
NOTE: If you are already doing moderate aerobic exercise then decrease the time to 20 minutes and add in 8 or more 30 seconds sets of bursting. Start the bursting after the first 3 minutes of moderate intensity and do another 3 minutes of moderate intensity at the end to incorporate your warm up and
cool down.
Be sure to reduce your intensity significantly for a minute in between bursting sets while continuing to move to allow yourself to recover. You can accumulate up to 12 minutes total of bursting sets within your workout but if you are truly doing it with intensity you shouldn't be able to last that long!
©2009 JJ Virgin & Associates, Inc.