Gravity Fx Fitness

Is walking a good way to lose fat?

With the warmer weather I have seen many people out walking, enjoying being outdoors and probably trying to shed some Winter accumulation of pounds.

The question is, are these people getting any results or is there something else they should be doing.  Walking is healthy and a nice way to burn some extra calories, but depending on how fit you are, it may qualify more as activity than exercise.

If you are more than 30 pounds over weight or haven’t exercised in several months, walking is a good way to get moving again and you might lose a few pounds in the process.

Start out slowly and gradually build up the amount of time you spend walking.  GRADUALLY placing more demands on your body is one of the fundamentals of progressive exercise – do a little more each time as your body adapts to the stresses.

While walking is simple and easy to do, you have to do a LOT of walking to lose weight and most people can’t keep their weight under control just by walking.  So what you would have to do is gradually increase the intensity – walk faster.

Most people I see are just casually strolling and this doesn’t burn that many calories.  Plus, once you stop walking your metabolism goes right back to where it was in a matter of minutes.  If you want to burn more calories you need to walk fast or go up and down hills.

So once you understand that more intensity is required, it might be more efficient to do something like cardio strength training.  Work your muscles against some resistance while raising your heart rate at the same time – combine cardiovascular exercise and strength training into a single time-efficient workout.

Do this two or three times a week and then do some lighter work on the other days, like walking or bike riding.  These easier movements will help you recover from the more intense workouts, getting some blood flow to the muscles and keeping your joints well lubricated.

Now, you can obviously do some more intense cycling and get a great calorie burn.  I like to do an hour bike ride about once a week in the Summer months.  I pedal fast at times and then back off and pedal moderately, before going fast again, somewhat similar to an indoor spinning class.

Generally speaking, the riders that are pedaling more intensely are fairly lean, compared to some who pedal at a pretty moderate pace.  I frequently see an older guy riding an older style bike with his big belly hanging out.  He pedals pretty slowly and he is still getting some health benefits but he’s not burning a lot of calories.

In societies where walking or biking is the primary or only means of transportation, the overall volume of activity throughout the day or week adds up.  Its rare to see an overweight mail carrier for those who walk to deliver the mail.

Keep this in mind if you can’t or won’t exercise intensely.  It will take a lot of volume (time) to get the weight loss results and you will have to be very strict with your eating.

Several research studies have shown very minimal or moderate fat losses with moderate intensity aerobic exercise, compared to greater fat loss with interval training of a more intense nature.

A leisurely walk can be a great way to unwind or spend quality time with friends or family, but if fat loss is your primary goal, pick up the pace or better yet, do some resistance training to build lean muscle tissue and increase your metabolism, then add in some type of aerobic exercise on your “off” days.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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If you’re not training for competition, you don’t need to train like a competitive athlete….

you don’t need to follow the training program of an endurance athlete or bodybuilder, if that’s not your goal.  Instead of spending more time walking on the treadmill,  kick it up a notch or two with the intensity.

Cardio strength training is a great way to lose more fat in the least amount of time.  Swinging ropes, lifting sandbags or doing bodyweight exercises on the TRX suspension trainer uses multiple muscles.

When you challenge your large muscles against some type of resistance and keep your heart rate elevated, you burn lots of calories – during the exercise session and AFTER (afterburn effect).

Here are Vicki and Julie pulling a weighted tire, elevating their metabolisms in the process.  Get more work done in a shorter amount of time.

If you are training for an endurance event, this type of training is a great way to supplement your other training.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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Do you want to lose weight and keep it off long-term? Than going on a diet and not exercising is a BAD idea.

Today at my studio is “cardio Monday,” with total body exercises designed to keep your HR up and elevate your metabolism.  I was talking to my client Deandra after the session and she wasn’t fully aware of the connection between muscle and metabolism.

When you go on a diet and lose 15 pounds without exercising, some of that lost weight will be fat, some will be water weight and some will be lean muscle tissue.

This is not a good idea because you will likely put that weight back on over the course of a year, BUT….. you won’t put back the lean muscle tissue.

notice how lean and muscle tissue goes together?

Say you do this yo-yo dieting for 10 years or more, as some people do, and you may have lost 10-15 pounds of lean muscle tissue.

This has two effects:

1 – the loss of muscle tissue means a slower metabolism.

2 – you lost muscle tissue and replaced it with fat, so now you have a less appealing shape than you used to.

Muscle is more dense than fat, taking up less space. So instead of losing weight you should be concentrating on losing fat – there is a difference!

Meaning, don’t worry so much about the scale and instead, try to lose inches and see if your clothes start to fit a little looser.  This is what most people should be worried about.  Having lean muscle tissue is healthy, while having too much fat is not.

Trying to keep weight off long term without exercise is a losing battle for most everyone.  So you should be exercising but also make sure to do some resistance training to keep your metabolism elevated after you are done exercising.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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Two recent fat loss studies looked at the value of doing high intensity circuit workouts. Typically, this might have you alternating from one exercise to another with a short rest period and then repeating, as opposed to doing a resistance exercise like a lat pulldown, resting and then completing 3 sets before moving on to the next exercise.

Study 1 had one group doing this standard 3 sets of an exercise with rest in between, while the second group switched back and forth between exercises.  The second group burned more calories per minute.  The researchers concluded that if your workout time is limited, this superset training may be superior.

Study 2 looked at 3 groups:  a low intensity circuit, an endurance (cardio) training only, and a high intensity circuit training group involving strength training.  The high intensity group had the greatest reduction in weight, bodyfat, and waistline, while increasing their strength levels at the same time.

If you are trying to lose fat then your weight room workouts should include plenty of circuits instead of doing one body part at a time before moving to the next exercise.  If you have limited time to exercise than you would be better off doing some type of intense interval or circuit training to burn more fat and elevate your metabolism.

This is the type of training we do at my studio and it definitely works!  One client this morning talked about not knowing what exactly the workout is going to be that day.  Changing things up keeps the body guessing and keeps both your body and mind fresh – constantly moving forward.

If you have the time, than do some walking, biking, hiking or whatever you enjoy.  Make sure to do some intense interval strength training two or three days a week and reduce the processed foods in your diet.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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According to an Australian researcher, increasing adrenaline is the key to losing belly fat! Professor Steve Boutcher was one of the researchers involved in a study that compared intense interval training vs. long cardio for fat loss.

The study (published in 2007) separated 45 obese women into 2 training groups -

Group A did three 20 minute interval training sessions a week.  They pedaled intensely for 8 seconds, followed by 12 seconds of light pedaling on a stationary bike, repeating this for the 20 minute session.

Group B did 40 minutes of slow, steady pace cardio for 3 sessions per week, exercising for twice as much time as the first group.

No changes were made to the diet of either group.  Its been said that you can’t make up for bad eating habits with exercise, so the results of this study are very interesting.

Group A saw significant fat loss, with one participant losing 17.6 pounds in 15 weeks.  Group B didn’t lose fat and one woman actually gained two pounds!

Professor Boutcher believes the results from the interval group was due to the adrenaline increase that occurs with that type of training – the release of these hormones speeds up fat burning.

Adrenaline is also known as epinephrine in the science world and is released into the blood in response to stress – your “fight or flight” hormones.

The 8 seconds of sprinting came about after different studies determined that 20 seconds was too difficult for most people and 2 to 3 seconds wasn’t enough.  He advises to gradually build up to the 20 minutes exercise time and recommends a spinning bike, rower, or cross trainer (Airdyne bike).

He has found that most anyone can exercise in this manner when taking the gradual approach.  Obviously, you should check with your doctor first if you have any health concerns in regards to exercise.

Once again, the lack of time excuse is busted!  This information was borrowed from Turbulence Training.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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If you want to lose weight without spending hours on the treadmill, burst training is the way to go!

Did you know that several studies have shown that you can burn fat in sessions lasting 30 minutes or less?  The key for weight loss in minimal time is intensity – turn up the flame.

When you go into oxygen debt with your workouts, you increase fat burning when the training session is over.  In one study, a group of women performed a short, intense workout and the other group did a moderate intensity aerobic session.

Both groups burned the same amount of calories (300) with their workouts, but the interval group lost more bodyfat, with the shorter workouts.  Another study saw the group doing short bursts of exercise keep their metabolism elevated for 24 hours after they stopped exercising.

Their workouts were 15 minutes shorter than the aerobic group.  Intense training puts you in oxygen debt, which leads to fat burning after the workout has ended.  If short on time, crank up the intensity for best results.

Interval (burst) training increases the production of testosterone and growth hormone in your body.  These hormones build lean muscle tissue to keep your metabolism elevated.  They also assist in fat burning.

Ropes Gone Wild are one way to speed up the fat loss, sprint training is another.  Vibration platforms have been shown to increase positive hormone production while decreasing cortisol, a stress hormone that is associated with endurance training.

I like to combine whole body vibration with sandbags, suspension training, resistance bands and ropes.  Besides giving you a great workout in 30 minutes or less, it gives you plenty of different exercises to choose from.

Besides being very time-efficient, it reduces the chance of boredom, which is why so many people give up their New Year’s resolution 3 months later.  For best results over the long haul, add in some leisurely activities here and there – long walks or hikes, bike rides, or paddling a canoe or kayak.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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Yesterday was the “official” start of my own personal fat loss journey.  It was also the first workout with my new HR monitor.

After being in decent shape for a 40-something, I’ve decided to reduce my bodyfat level to the lowest its been in over twenty years.  I’m going to do it without going to the gym and I’ll be using tools like sandbags, ropes, resistance bands, and a few kettlebells.

Another interesting note, almost all the workouts will be 30-60 minutes, with an “occasional” bike ride that goes longer than an hour.  I want to make a couple points through my progress – A, it doesn’t take long workouts to lose fat and B, intensity is key to getting the best results.

After some frustrating business and financial situations, I’m not currently working with anyone in person and want to use this transformation to help inspire others to get in shape, as well as get me back in the position of helping people.

So I used my new HR monitor to keep my intensity levels high yesterday.  The workout was short and fairly simple.  The actual training lasted 23 minutes, with a total of about 30 minutes including  warmup and cooldown.

If that seems short, you should know that at one point my heart rate was at 99% of my maximum!  and the average HR for the 23 minutes was about 93%.  The monitor (Polar F6) said that I burned 442 calories in that brief, but intense session.

Now, you definitely don’t want to start out that intense, but I have been exercising regularly and am used to these kinds of sessions.  I switched back and forth between sandbag exercises and rope training, obviously, keeping my rest periods very short.

I did some military presses, walking lunges, and explosive lifts with a medium sandbag and did some grappler’s throws and front waves with the rope.  Several times my heart rate got to 97 or 98% of its max (theoretical).

So in 30 minutes I got my cardio and strength endurance work done at the same time, getting a lot of core work in, too.  Doing full body workouts are the way to go if you have limited time to exercise.  The previous two days I did some walking to enjoy the weather and burn a few calories, though definitely not 442!

So if interested, stay with me as I blog about getting my abs back as Summer fast approaches.

Get moving!

Brian

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What is the best training program out there?  The one that gets the optimal results in the least amount of time, while avoiding or reducing the risk of injury!

…..or, to borrow from bodybuilding and fat loss guru Tom Venuto – the best routine is the one that gets you the results you want and the one that you are passionate about.

So if you want to be a better runner you would obviously spend most of your time running.  But if you are the “average joe” who just wants to lose weight and look better, and has minimal time to spend exercising, you don’t have to follow the routine of a competitive bodybuilder or endurance athlete.

In fact, you will probably fall short of your goals as this type of training is very time consuming and energy demanding.

If you are married and have kids, the amount of time you have to commit to exercising is probably minimal, as you are likely occupied with their athletic and school activities, leaving little time for anything else after doing maintenance on your house and lawn.

With so many people starting exercise plans this time of year, many will give up precisely due to the lack of time required, and/or boredom starts to creep in as that walk/jog on the treadmill or constant pedaling in place becomes a little too repetitive for your taste.

So what’s the solution?  Simple, you need a time-efficient workout program that combines cardio and strength training into 1 session – a session that lasts only 30-60 minutes total.  Then, you go home and get on with your busy life.

…..or, you can do this kind of training at home with very little investment in equipment.  For someone working 60 hours or more and possibly doing some traveling with their job, the typical healthclub routine just takes too long.

You CAN get results without spending hours and hours to do so, IF you use an intense workout that keeps your metabolism elevated for several hours, afterwards.  This can be interval training on a stationary bike or interval resistance training where you go from one exercise to another with little or no rest in between.

So those runners, cyclists or bodybuilders, I’m not taking issue with your training program.  By all means, keep doing what you love.  For those who are not currently exercising for whatever reason – you are the ones that I’m addressing!

Also, those who are frustrated or bored with your current exercise routine, there is a better way.  If short on time, you want a program that elevates your metabolism for several hours afterwards, creating some “turbulence” or a large after-burn effect.

This occurs when you use multi-joint exercises involving your large muscle groups, instead of doing bodybuilding routines that isolate different body parts.

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So you’re wondering how exactly vibration training can help you lose fat?

Simple, the vibrations create reflexive muscle contractions of about 30 contractions per second.  That’s a whole lot of contractions! You also use exercise positions that involve several muscles at the same time, allowing you to work almost all of your muscles in a single session.

This allows you to get more work done in a shorter amount of time – which is the secret to getting fit for those who have busy lives and not a lot of time to exercise.

In most all strength (resistance) training, you are exercising your muscles  (using dumbbells, weight machines, bodyweight exercises) against the resistance of gravity, the exception is when using elastic resistance bands.

Whole body vibration platforms such as the Power Plate, increases the force of gravity through your body while your muscles are contracting.  This stimulates your metabolism, increases bone density, and increases the circulation of testosterone and natural growth hormone, which plays a large part in maintaining lean muscle tissue.

Lean muscle tissue usually decreases with age, if you don’t do some type of resistance training.  Less muscle = slower metabolism!  So obviously you need to do some resistance training to keep from gaining weight.

I like to combine vibration training with different dumbbell exercises, sandbags, and flex band resistance bands.  So I will do a circuit, alternating from one upper body exercise to another, going from a pushing exercise to a pulling exercise.

I may do these in a circuit with lower body exercises to work all my muscles in one session, creating a fast, efficient workout that keeps my heart rate elevated the entire time.

This type of workout is the key to losing weight if you don’t have a lot of time to exercise.  Intense resistance training can boost your metabolism for up to 24 hours after you are done exercising!

Get moving!

Brian

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