Body2Envy - Get the Body People Envy

There is a way for you to lose weight fast on a treadmill. It’s called HIIT. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. The great thing about HIIT is that your workouts are shorter, but the weight falls off faster. HIIT is also fun to do on a treadmill because it’s interesting and you can change up your workout routine.

The news of HIIT started circulating among treadmill owners over a decade ago after a study came out reporting how much weight, or fat, could be lost doing HIIT. Once treadmill owners saw the results themselves, HIIT began spreading like wildfire. The study was done over a five month period of time involving two groups of people. The first group did normal steady cardio for 45 minutes. This group began their study exercising at 60% of their maximum heart rate and worked up to 85% before the study was concluded.

Group two would start their routine by elevating their heart rates to 70% of their maximum heart rate. They would then follow this up with ten seconds of less intense exercise that decreased their heart rates, and then a 90 second burst of intense exercise that increased their heart rate, again. This was followed up with an interval of exercise that brought their heart rate back down. This HIIT routine was done over and over throughout their workout.

Conclusions of the study found that the participants doing the HIIT, group two, spent less time and energy working out, but they lost three times more body fat than group one. Another important finding was the fat that group two lost was primarily subcutaneous fat, or the fat that lies directly beneath the skin.

What makes HIIT so great for weight loss is your body goes into EPOC, or Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. In a nutshell, your body requires more oxygen to get back to its resting state which means you continue to burn calories even hours after you have completed a HIIT routine. In fact, a 2002 study showed the resting metabolic rate of participants was still elevated 48 hours later. This is great news for someone who wants to lose weight and get their metabolism boosted.

Treadmill owners love doing HIIT because it works for so many of them. The added bonus is doing HIIT on a treadmill lets people have a fun workout quickly. HIIT routines are intense, but they should last no more than 20 to 30 minutes. Start your workout warming up to your maximum heart rate range, then cycle in and out of lower heart rate zones and then raise your heart rate back up to it maximum rate, again. Repeat this throughout your workout doing as many, or as few, intervals as you like.

The results you see doing HIIT may make you want to do it every day. But, it is recommended that you don’t. HIIT should only be done two or three times per week because it is intense and it does put the body under stress. Experts recommend putting a day or two in between your HIIT routines so your body has time to adjust. Yet, you can relax knowing that while you may not be doing HIIT every day, you are still burning extra fat and calories!

There are many tools you can use for your fitness routine. Elliptical trainers and weight loss fit well together because of the positive results this machine provides. This trainer is very efficient and provides an excellent core building workout. Below is a list of elliptical trainer facts and benefits.

*The small size of most trainers makes storage and mobility a snap if you have a cramped workout space.

*The low impact effect gives older fitness buffs an opportunity to get a great cardio workout while still building a solid core. Even if you suffer from a strain or injury these easy going machines will help the recovery process.

*New innovation that you can run or walk on using a stair climbing motion. The pedals create a circular motion that can be moved either frontward or backward.

*Another term used for these machines are cross trainers. They reduce joint pressure and risk of injury. Simulating walking or running make them an easy way to burn calories naturally.

*Excellent equipment that will help you increase strength, cardio fitness and muscle tone. Perfect for anyone who can’t use other equipment such as treadmills, stair climbers and stationary bikes.

*Elliptical Trainers simulate cross country skiing, as your arms move poles and feet glide back and forth. Any level of fitness can be attained from walking, stepping and running. Front drive versus rear drive is one difference with these machines.

*Perfect for any room in the home while providing a super workout. One of the best fitness machines on the market at a very affordable price.

*Cheaper elliptical trainers resistance is adjusted manually, these fitness machines tend to be made of lower quality materials. This means that inexpensive machines will probably wobble, changing the quality of your workout.

*Features such as resistance levels and pre-programmed routines keep the fires burning. A good machine needs less maintenance with years of dependability.

Using an elliptical trainer gives you a more varied workout compared to using other exercise machines. One of the obstacles to exercising regularly is to maintain a level of motivation and not to get bored with your exercise routine. With Elliptical trainer and weight loss routines you will experience greater results that suits any level.

by Andre Botelho

Here, let me share with you some of the effective soccer exercises that can help your players learn the skills to kick harder and run faster so that they could utilize every single opportunity coming their way to win the match. Explosive running speed and powerful kicks are something that you must help your team players acquire.

In soccer, if you want to make your contribution in the game, you need to get the ball and do something with it. This is where your running speed and powerful kicking skills come very handy. No one but a soccer coach can help the players sprint faster and kick harder and farther.

It is not the strength of the muscles but the fact that how fast they are that determine how harder you can kick and how faster you can run. Running long distances or training for longer periods are some of the effective ways to make the muscles of your players faster. Some coaches train their players by instructing them to lift weights. Well, you must understand that lifting weights can make the muscles stronger, not faster.

This is something most coaches do not pay heed to. It is very important to organize specific training sessions where the players could only focus on making their muscles faster. One of the best ways to develop muscle speed is to use a program of isometric exercises with resistance bands. When you teach isometrics using the resistant band, it can develop blazing speed and quickness in your team players.

* Normal sit-ups also make an ideal exercise. Keeping your abdomen fit and in good shape is very important and it will help the players run faster and kick the ball with more power. While the players are doing the normal sit-ups, make sure that they keep their chin off their chest.

* Another good abdominal exercise is to alternate elbows to knees. But, you have to count reps on one side only.

* Alternating hand to foot is another good abdominal exercise. In this exercise also, you have to count reps on one side only.

Along with the above exercise, you can also have your players do straightforward cardiovascular training in the form of running, rowing and stepper’s. However, when you are running the training sessions for soccer exercises, you must keep in mind that it is important to give the body a chance to rest and recover for key matches.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andre Botelho is a recognized authority on the subject of soccer coaching.
His web site, Youth Soccer Drills: www.SoccerDrillsTips.com, provides a wealth
of informative soccer articles and resources for soccer coaches, parents and players.

The Importance of Physical Variability in Cardio Exercise

By Mike Geary – CPT, Founder - Truth About Abs

Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that “cardio” is the best way to get in shape and lose body fat. I’m going to show you with this article why I disagree!

It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors, and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something like this:

“Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level”

Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your training.

This tendency can be seen throughout nature as all animals demonstrate stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical activities. Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery. To examine an example of the different effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, while the typical dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which would you rather resemble?

Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases.

On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss). Furthermore, steady state endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate range and doesn’t train it to respond to various every day stressors. On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of demands making it less likely to fail when you need it. Think about it this way……Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease will make your heart more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heart rate to increase rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance training does not train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart rate or blood pressure.

The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio exercise is the recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus. Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.

To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, increased muscularity (versus decreased muscularity with endurance training), increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s every day stressors.

There are many ways you can reap the benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. Most competitive sports such as football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. One of the absolute most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints. In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval training (varying between high and low intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is yet another training method that utilizes exertion and recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look something like this:

Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog

• Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

• Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

• Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

• Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.

The take-away message from this article is to try to train your body at highly variable intensity rates for the majority of your workouts to get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss, and muscle maintenance.

Full-body strategically-designed resistance training programs along with high intensity cardiovascular training programs guaranteed to strip off body fat when combined with a healthy diet are included in my book The Truth About Six Pack Abs. If you’re serious about getting lean for good, this book is a must.