Gravity Fx Fitness

To burn fat you need to turn up the heat – dial up the intensity of your workouts!  One of my clients has lost 14 pounds in a month, while spending less time exercising.

Previously, she was walking on a treadmill 5 days a week and 4 months later had lost only 6 pounds.  She’s made more progress by making dietary changes and doing burst-type training.

She is still walking, but now she alternates her pace, going back and forth with periods of higher intensity walking – kinda similar to how your car burns more gas during stop and go driving in the city.

She is doing similar exercise in the studio with dumbbells.  Multi-joint movements that involve multiple muscles to burn more calories, alternating between two exercises with little rest in between.

This causes you to release more of your body’s fat burning hormones naturally.  This gets your metabolism elevated without spending hours exercising.  She can feel the warmth in her muscles as she sweats more, helping the body get rid of toxins that can build up.

I showed her a routine that she can do at home with dumbbells and bodyweight when she isn’t working with me in person.  Its great to get results while exercising less.

Research studies have shown that walking on a treadmill without doing any resistance training doesn’t always lead to much weight loss.  If you’re like most people and short on time, interval strength training and interval cardio are the way to go.

Yeah, triathletes and marathoners are usually pretty lean, but they often spend 10 hours or more per week on their training.  Unless you are training for competition, there are more efficient ways to stay in shape.

Yesterday, I did some interval cardio using the Ropes Gone Wild training ropes.  I did 15 minutes of various diagonal, circular and vertical patterns (beatdowns) with the ropes, elevating my heart rate in a short amount of time, going into oxygen debt.

I had my HR monitor on to see what my body was doing and also to see how many calories I burned.  In the 15 minutes I burned 230 calories according to the monitor, which isn’t all that much…..until you read the rest of the story.

I turned the monitor back on as I did some kettlebell presses, before packing it in for the night, leaving the HR monitor running.  An hour and a half later I stopped it and looked at how many calories I burned.

It said 490 calories in that hour and a half after the interval rope training, for a total of 720 overall!  Got your attention now?!  Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the number is a little high.  Knock off 100 calories and that’s still a LOT of calories burned in less than half an hour of exercise.

The point should be clear – intense exercise keeps your metabolism elevated after you have stopped exercising.  So if short on time, turn up the flame to burn more total fat.  Its fine to mix in longer walks, bike rides or runs with your interval resistance training.  By the way, the monitor is a Polar F6.

If you’re looking for a simple program you can do at home, you might check out Turbulence Training.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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Since playing in a men’s basketball league recently, I’ve altered my workouts slightly to be able to compete and avoid injuries.

While my competitive days may be behind me, in my mind I still want to play my best, even if I’m 15-20 years older than many of the guys.  So today I started off with some self-massage with the Tiger Tail rolling massage tool and then some flexband stretching for my lower body.

Last week I had some tightness in my calf and want to avoid any major muscle tears.  I followed this up with more calf stretching with the Prostretch.  Next I did some interval jump rope training – 20 to 30 seconds on and then 20 to 30 seconds off for 5 minutes.

I followed this up with some bodyweight rows with the Bandit’s Loops suspension trainer, alternating with Power Plate pushup holds.  My elbow is still a little sore and this lets me maintain upper body strength without the eccentric contractions of doing the full movement.

While doing this, I picked one leg off the ground for increased core work.  By having one less contact point, it increases the stability demands on your midsection, which saves me from doing crunches and saves time as well.

Then I did some flexband squat-rows for some additional cardio work and then used the flexbands for lateral agility training.  Definitely need that for playing basketball.

I also mixed in some one arm grappler’s throws with the Ropes Gone Wild for more interval cardio work and to hit my obliques.  Doing these with one arm and the 1 ½ inch manilla rope is a great core exercise.

So all total, the warmup and workout lasted almost 45 minutes, making this workout doable by most everyone from a time perspective.  Not everyone over 40 can jump rope, but if you are still playing sports then you need to do exercises that prepare you for the sport, instead of just playing sports to try and stay in shape.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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If you’ve tried the Ropes Gone Wild before, you know they are a great training tool!  The intense workouts are great for us ADD types.  In particular I love doing the grappler’s throws.

They hit the obliques(abs) in a unique way.  They also jack your heart rate up pretty quickly, which is much of the point.  Recently, Anthony of Art of Strength unveiled a new grip training attachment for the ropes.

Since I don’t have it yet, I thought I’d show you the 1 arm version without the grip tool.

Besides working the grip very well, this exercise is good for the shoulder too, in my opinion.  It might be something that could be used in shoulder rehab, in the later stages, with a lighter rope.

If not, it might help prevent some shoulder problems – at least, provide plenty of blood flow.  Give it a try.

Get moving!

Brian Morgan

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I decided to get the Prowler sled out and do a little workout on a chilly Saturday afternoon.  I wouldn’t mind a little warmer weather than 30 degrees, but the Sun was shining, so why not spend time outdoors.

I just recently got a 50 foot, 1 and 1/2 inch rope for training and decided to combine the two.  I thought about doing a run-walk, where I would run at a higher pace, take a break by walking and then repeating the process.

But pushing the sled is easier on my joints than the running, so I decided on that instead.  I was also anxious to do some more work with the rope, since I really enjoyed the first session.

I used the vertical handles on the Prowler to focus on my glutes and hamstrings.  After a short break, I attached the rope and did some upper body work to let my legs rest a bit.

Then I grabbed the rope and walked backwards with the sled, really hitting my quads as my upper back got some stability work, while holding the rope handles in at my ribs.

After another short rest its some more rope work and then back to the sled push, repeating this circuit.  On one of the sled pulls I decided to do some back work -  I pulled the sled to me and then stepped back a few feet and pulled the sled to me again, kinda like a seated row, only standing.

Great workout!  In just over 30 minutes I worked virtually every muscle in my body, to some extent.  I don’t spend very much time lifting barbells anymore and don’t seem to miss them.  My body feels pretty good, I have decent energy and my joints are relatively healthy.

One things for sure, that workout will keep my metabolism elevated for several hours afterwards.  Hard to argue with that type of training session, as I hit my upper and lower body, core and worked on my grip all at the same time.

Get moving!

Brian

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