Wednesday, 28 October 2009
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Exercise Less, Lose More
It may sound too good to be true, but you can exercise less and loss more weight with interval training. Professional trainers frequently employ this technique to help their clients see better results more quickly. In fact, a recent study found that women that cycled for twenty minutes three times a week using the interval training, lost 6 pounds of fat after 15 weeks. On the other hand, women who cycled for 40 minutes three times a week at a steady pace, lost no pounds of fat in that same time. How do you do it?
Interval training is about alternating high-intensity bursts of activity with less intensive periods: think of those high school track workouts where you would jog the curve, sprint the straight away. You can do interval training with any type of cardio you normally enjoy. Trainers recommend that you keep an interval workout to about 30-40 minutes total, 2-3 times per week. Experts interviewed for Glamour magazine recommend the following program:
For the first 10 minutes:
Alternate between thirty seconds of intense exercise and sixty seconds of moderate exercise. On a scale of 1-10, your intense bursts should be about a 7-8 effort, your recovery about a 4-5. You want to keep your heart rate up the whole time, so don’t go to slow!
For the next 10 minutes:
Alternate between 60 seconds of intense exercise and 60 seconds of moderate exercise.
For the last 10 minutes:
Alternate between 90 seconds of intense cardio and 60 seconds of moderate cardio.
Make sure to do your normal warm-up, cool down, and stretching routine. I’m going to start incorporating intervals by changing one of my short runs to an interval run.
Do you workout with interval training? Have you seen better results using this method?
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About the Author
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- From: lindsaya
- Name: lindsaya
- About Me: I am a teacher/writer who lives in New York city and I am always on the go. In between my various jobs, obligations, and activities, I try to make time to lead a healthy and balanced life. I love to run, swim, do yoga, and try new activities. I am also a long-time vegetarian who is constantly struggling between my desire to eat healthy foods and my love of all things made out of bread or covered in cheese!
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Comments (13)
hmmm, does working hard one day (i.e. weights) then doing plyometrics/running the next count? that's what i usually do.
I don't interval, but I used to. I'll start again, now, for sure.
this sounds somewhat wrong to me. Long workouts will let you lose weight if you eat right as well.
I'd rather have a healthy fit body than just focus on the weight loss. It is advised that 'young people/adults' exercise 40min per day.
My workouts are usually between 1-2 hours & a weights routine in addition.
I did this when I was 16. I lost 24 lbs that way.
@npr32486@xanga - you probably lose weight even faster that way b/c lift weighting causes you to build muscle, and those muscles need more calories to keep them running.
I don't do interval, but I know it works. It's not conducive to what I need to do personally, and doesn't align with my fitness/ competitive goals.
Actually no, I take that back. I still do intervals on my mountain run/ sprints. I just don't do it as a regular part of training.
yeah this is like common knowledge to me. I remember when I di track in highschool thats all out workouts were. every single freeeakin day. I hated it. When the coach would tell us to hit the track my face would just drop. it was like torture....cause we'd just sprint non stop for an hour.
so I lost maddd weight during trackk....but now that I am no longer doing the interval training my body fat percentage has def gone up. And i notice with just me doing steady pace of cardio there isnt much difference in my weight.....Im starting to interval train again tho.
As with all exercising, make sure to cycle between High Intensity Interval Training (what is mentioned in this post) and lower intensity training. Adaptation will occur plus over stimulation of the Central Nervous System... etc. But H.I.I.T. training is great for raising the metabolism since the heart rate sky rockets. Maybe try half HIIT and half low intensity cardio for a one-two punch! It's all about mixing it up and keeping your body guessing! Circuit training is awesome too!
It never is about how much you do.
It's about what you do and how you do it... simple!
http://tinyurl.com/build-muscle-exercise
Weight loss is a simple mathematical formula. Expend more calories than you consume. You do not lose just "fat" as the OP states in her piece. Weight training is very effective in overall weight reduction, because it stimulates the muscles to build more muscle (muscle tissue consumes more energy) thereby increasing your resting caloric consumption. Interval training is very effective, as is aerobics daily (change what you do) and weight training daily (work upper one day, lower the next, always abs. Alternate light weights high reps one day with heavy weights low reps the next. Take at least one day a week off to rest. Lots of water. If you are just starting, an aspirin (provided you can medically take them) taken before your workout will result in less soreness afterwards. They help remove lactic acid from your cells as they rebuild.
Get out from in front of the computer, put on your sweats and take a hike. ;)
@Ulma@xanga - i think long workouts are geared more towards MAINTAINING weight, instead of losing weight. i'm sure they are as good at keeping you healthy as interval workouts. i think what the blogger is saying is that if you are given the same amount of time (i.e. 30 minutes), and you had a choice between long and interval workouts, the latter would be more efficient at actual weight loss. just my thought!
yes and yes! must do more often. kinda hard not to go overboard especially when i've already got a triathlon training schedule set.
Just found this blog... cool stuff!
My understanding is that high-intensity interval training increases secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which specifically targets fat cell metabolism, and also inhibits lipid uptake by fat cells. That is, HGH makes you specifically "burn" fat cells, AND it prevents you from adding lipids to existing fat cells. So sprints increase HGH, and HGH makes your body burn more fat... ah, the sprints are good. The protein metabolism associated with HGH is muscle-building (i.e. the Incredible Hulk had oodles of HGH). So high-intensity intervals go beyond just the aerobic/cardio notion of a workout, and work for you on an endocrine level to make lean muscle. Hot.
Learn more here and here.