Tell the truth….do you do ‘cardio’?
Before my kids, I did a few physique shows. I fared pretty well ending up at the National level here in Canada despite the fact that training for fat loss was different than it is now. Back in the day, I did a lot of traditional steady state cardio to help me get lean. It meant HOURS of pedaling a stationary bike and pumping the stair climber. This was just how it was done – I wasn’t alone in how I trained.
I wish I would have known then what I know now. It would have saved me a ton of time and I’d have gotten MUCH leaner. Take a look at this 2008 study:
If you wedge a 30-60 second burst of intense cardio between your sets of weight training you can achieve nearly TENFOLD greater fat loss.
Here’s proof:
Research from W. Jackson Davis and colleagues at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of California at Berkley, looked at this issue in a September 2008 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
They compared the results of 28 women divided into two groups:
Group #1 worked out with weights followed by cardiovascular exercise on a treadmill.
Group #2 did an equal volume of weight training and equal amounts of cardiovascular exercise… only this time they wedged the cardiovascular exercise in-between their sets of resistance training.
After 11 weeks, group #2 outperformed group #1 with significantly MORE progress in all areas:
– 82% greater improvement in muscle gains
– 35% greater improvement in lower body strength
– 52% greater improvement in lower body endurance
– 143% greater improvement in upper body flexibility
– 28% greater improvement in lower body flexibility
– 991% greater loss in fat mass
Pretty incredible: nearly a ten-fold greater loss.
It IS possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time so your workouts don’t have to be marathon long. I look at my physique now and see that I can maintain a level of body fat with virtually NO cardio, certainly NO steady state cardio and my workouts are easily done in 30 minutes (or less!).
Reality: lack of time is the #1 objection most folks have for not training. Do you ever just not have time to fit in a workout? Imagine if you could get your workout DONE in less than 30 minutes?
Sometimes you just don’t have access to equipment as well. I used to think I needed a full on gym to workout. Not so…
Below you’ll find a few examples of the kind of workout you can do anywhere to drop fat and gain muscle. These are my ‘go-to’ style workouts that I do a few times a week, no matter if I’m on holiday or if it’s my normal work-a-day life. They incorporate principles from the study above, what I like to call M2A training – Muscle Metabolism Acceleration.
Now M2A is all about the ‘after burn’. That is, creating a metabolic fire during your workout that stays with you so that you burn MORE calories long after your workout is done. When you train with this sort of intensity, you get the results you’re after.
Get Er Done Anywhere
10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 reps of:
- Burpees
- Pull ups (alternatives: hanging leg raise or wall sit stick up)
- Squats
- Spider crawls
- Push ups
Do It Dock Workout
45 seconds of work/10 seconds recovery
- Jump rope
- Push ups
- Prisoner Squat
- Burpee
- Plank
5 rounds
(Un) Lucky 7 AMRAP
Do 7 of each exercise for 15-20 min
- Jacks
- Prisoner squats
- Burpees
- Alt side lunges (per side)
- Push ups
- Skaters (per side)
- Spider crawl (per side)
Hella Hills
(Find a good hill) Sprint up hill, walk/jog return – 10 rounds
*I did 10 pull ups on the edge of a walkway at the bottom between hill sprints, but you can do anything – a 30 sec plank, 10 push ups, whatever your space allows or your heart desires ?
Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to get to some ‘magical’ target heart rate, or ‘put in time’ doing cardio to get lean. In fact, you’ll be surprised at how LITTLE time it takes to lose your belly fat when you’re doing the right workouts.
I’d love to help you.
I can train right beside you HERE. These are follow along workouts that use the M2A principle. You’ll find workouts and a lot more so that you’ll invest LESS THAN 30 MINUTES per day and get MORE of the results you’re looking for. ===>
Now, if all you want to do is BODYWEIGHT workouts, like the ones in this post, I put together a special bundle just for you.
I know that sometimes ALL you have is your bodyweight and a bit of space so I have you covered with this Challenge Workout Bodyweight Bundle where you’ll get 29 bodyweight workouts from various programs that I pulled together just for you. You’ll get workouts from my Fat Loss Challenge (with BONUS vide
o follow alongs), a bodyweight Challenge Complex plan, 10 bodyweight Challenge Burpee workouts and 7 more ‘No Excuses’ bodyweight Challenge Workouts to top it off.
<====This is a no fluff plan for no fluff workouts – just you, your body and a lotta sweat 🙂
Grab the Challenge Workouts Bodyweight Bundle for only $12 (available for a limited time)