Entries Tagged 'Interval Training' ↓

Recently, I was in Tampa, Florida, at a seminar. Between sessions, a physician from Georgia stopped me in the hall and said, “Hey Craig, you were right about those crosstrainer machines. I’ve had your program for a few months now and I’m getting better results with the bodyweight circuits.”

It’s always great to meet clients, and I was curious to find out how he heard of me. Turns out, he found me through Google, landing on an article I wrote about “how elliptical machines (crosstrainers) suck for fat loss”.

That’s right, I think those machines are almost a complete waste of time.

“I was using one of those machines for a long time and was wondering why I wasn’t getting any results,” the physician continued, “I’m so glad I found your program and now I’m using the bodyweight circuits from the Dumbell-Bodyweight Fusion Workout”, he added.

I told him how I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’ve never personally known anyone to get great results with one of those crosstrainer machines. Now I’ve watched really lean people use them, but they didn’t get lean with those machines.

I know some people will be angry with what I have to say because they like exercising on the crosstrainer, but the truth is that they just don’t work as well as harder forms of interval training.

And hey, any time you are traveling or want a break from regular interval training workouts, you can use one of the 4 bodyweight circuits from the TT DB-BW Fusion Fat Loss program that you get as a bonus when you order the Turbulence Training fat burning workout routine.

Click here to get Turbulence Training

“I used to think you needed to spend hours in the gym everyday in order to see results. With the help of CB and TURBULENCE TRAINING, I have reduced my workouts from 2 hours per day, everyday, to 50 minutes every other day. All the while I have trimmed over 60 lbs. of body fat off my now lean and muscular body. Thanks CB!!!”
Rob Vickers

“Craig’s workouts were fun and challenging – I didn’t dread going to the gym and I wasn’t overly sore after our sessions. Much like my trainer in LA, Craig’s workouts were always different: the exercises, the supersets, the weights…the combination of elements always varied and, therefore, I never got bored or felt like I was in a workout rut. And my co-stars couldn’t believe how great my arms looked, thanks to Craig helping me do my first chin-up. Thanks Craig!”
Rachel Nichols, Actress, Model

Click here to get the Turbulence Training program and bonuses.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website.

At this time of year, we can use every last tip to help avoid holiday weight gain.

So here are 5 more fat loss tips for beginner & advanced readers.

1) No liquid calories (with the exception of a post-workout drink).

Get rid of all the juices, the sodas, and the sports drinks. Liquid sugar is the last thing you need when you are trying to lose fat.

You must also limit your alcohol intake – especially if you are adding mix to drinks…that is a double calorie bomb! A single “Jackand Coke” is over 200 calories (100 calories from booze and 100 calories from mix).

2) No fast food.

Do not eat at fast food restaurants. Even if you choose what you think is healthy, remember this:

Fast food restaurants are all about profit.

And in order to profit while giving you cheap, quick, and easy to prepare foods, the quality of the food ingredients will be poor – especially the protein.

Now you might have read that you can still make healthy choices at fast food restaurants. But you know what, that’s just politically-correct opinion. If it’s fast food, it’s poor food.

Walking into a burger joint and grabbing a chicken breast on a white bread bun with a piece of old lettuce and a half-green, half-pink tomato is “barely” healthy eating.

The politically-incorrect truth is that it’s going to take time and effort to eat properly. You will have to plan, shop, and prepare healthy meals. You will have to spend time cleaning, cutting, and cooking your food. That’s the truth.

But believe me, it will taste so much better than fast food, and healthy eating will make you more alert. Eating fast food will make you feel terrible, and will make you want to have an afternoon nap at your desk.

Make one small improvement to your nutrition everyday for the rest of your life.

3) Eat more fruits and vegetables.

If you are eating 2 servings per day, then go up to 4 servings per day by the end of the week. And even if you think you are doing great by having 5 servings per day, you still need to double that (take 2-3 weeks to work your way up to 10 servings per day).

Stick with fiber-rich fruits and vegetables – organic if possible.

4) Eat 1oz of almonds or walnuts per day (1/2 oz in the AM, and the other half in the afternoon).

Most nuts are roasted in oils (possible source of trans fats), so stick to natural or dry-roasted nuts.

Don’t panic…this small amount of nuts won’t make you fat, but will fill you up and help you lose weight.

5) Be consistent with your workouts.

And make sure the workouts are efficient and effective. To make it easy for you to follow, stick with the Turbulence Training fat burning workout system.

It doesn’t matter if you train in the morning before or after breakfast, or at night before or after dinner, or at 1pm on days when the moon is in line with Saturn…don’t worry about the details, just train consistently.

Click here to get Turbulence Training.

6) BONUS TIP: Go for a walk after lunch or dinner (or anytime you eat a big meal). Research shows this will help you control your cholesterol and triglycerides, plus any movement is better than sitting around watching the TV and snacking.

Improve your lifestyle everyday,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

PS – Change your workouts to beat a fat loss plateau.

“The constant shakeup is amazing. I look forward to my workouts. I feel so much better than I did 6 weeks ago. I had almost given up on fitness as I was becoming very frustrated with my plateaus. I started out at 233 lbs and am already heading for 225 in only a few short weeks. Thank you for developing this truly amazing program and for sharing with the rest of us. It’s very refreshing to enjoy working out again!”
Dave Heffernan

“Turbulence Training is AWESOME! I started working out in 2004 first time in gym at 39 yrs. Then I discovered T.T. in 2006 and started receiving unbelievable info on xercises/nutrition. Immediately I started incorporating T.T. in my busy schedule which is improving my strength, definition, flexibility and nutrition. Craig is quick to reply to questions and supportive. My confidence and strength has definitely improved. If I only knew of Turbulence Training in 2004. The gym crowd is really checking me out now.”
Kimmie Clark

“I lost 14 pounds this month and the weight is just falling off me. My wife says I now look like when we first met and I still have more to go. I can fit into my old jeans again which is a big deal or me. I just cut back on starches and bread and do your routine 2-3 times a week. I never thought in a million years that just 10-20 minutes of weight training followed by some cardio would get me such steady results. I even cheat a bit on the weekends.”
Billy Williams

Turn your health around with Turbulence Training.
About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website.

The #1 reason for not working out is a lack of time.

If you get up at 5:30am to drive an hour to work, only to get home at 6pm and then have to launch right into carting the kids around, who can blame you for not working out? Not when it takes 45 minutes to do cardio, and another 30-45 minutes for isolation bodybuilding workouts.

If that’s the way you have to exercise to lose fat, then practically no normal person is going to be able to pull that off.

But when you look at the science, you’ll see that you can get more results in less time. You just have to increase the intensity of the workout, but at the same time, you can cut your workout time in half (or more!).

I am convinced that an effective fat loss workout can be done in 45 minutes or less, and that long, slow, excruciatingly boring cardio is not necessary for you to get the body you want. Please, read on…

In last week’s newsletter, I spoke about the 3 biggest training mistakes as well as my top 3 training tips to help you get more results in less time. Here I go into detail on the superiority of interval training when compared to traditional aerobic exercise:

Q: What is the role of interval training vs. steady state aerobics in a fat loss program?

Answer:
Interval training is more important than cardio. First of all, it gets more results in less time. And with “lack of time” being the number one reason most people do not participate in a training program at all, clearly intervals are the winner here.

Now let’s just assume that lack of time is not a problem. Well, interval training is still more effective because it applies more “turbulence” to the muscle. Or in scientific terms, interval training results in a greater metabolic stress on the muscle.

And that causes more calories to be burned in the important 23.5 hours per day when you are not exercising.

From there, the muscle must work to recover, repair, and replenish the energy that was used in the training. It is much more metabolic work for the muscle to recover from interval training (and strength training) than it is to recover from aerobic training.

Therefore, in the post-exercise period, interval training results in more calories burned.

In fact, I just read a new study from Australia that shows interval training is superior to slow cardio for fat loss.

The researchers, Trapp & Boutcher put WOMEN through a 15 week study where one group was a control, one group did intervals (20 minutes of alternating sprints and recovery), and one group did 40 minutes of slow cardio.

The interval group lost 2.5kg of fat in 15 weeks on average (with one subject losing 7.7kg of fat), while the slow cardio group lost only 0.4kg of fat over 15 weeks on average.

The results speak for themselves.

So don’t get hung up on how many calories are burned during a training session with aerobic training. That is not nearly as important as how many total calories your body burns over the course of the day – and you will burn more with interval training.

And for those that subscribe to the fat burning zone as being important, again, you aren’t looking at the big picture (the 24-hour calorie burning period). Instead, those that believe in the importance of the fat-burning zone have a myopic view of how the body works.

The same message applies to those people that live and die by the cardio on an empty stomach method. You’re “nickel and dime-ing” the fat loss process, when really it’s a much bigger budget to balance.

Look at the big picture. Get your nutrition in order, then focus your workouts on brief, intense strength and interval training workouts that increase your metabolism for the next 24 hours.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website

Are you frustrated by a lack of results?

Are you spending too much time in the gym?

It drives me crazy to hear about people working really hard but getting no results.

But I see people in the gym everyday that are doing the same workout and getting nowhere.

You can see the look of frustration and the dread of even doing the workout in their eyes.

I hope this doesn’t describe you and your fat loss situation. If it does, let’s take a look at some of the best fat loss tips and workout solutions to get you back on the fat loss track.

1. CB’s Top 3 Training Tips for Fat Loss

i) Train with intensity. Yes it takes a lot of effort to do 45 minutes of cardio, but that is low-intensity exercise (since you can do it for 45 minutes straight). Instead, you have to increase the intensity of your efforts.

That means the following…

ii) Don’t rely on slow, steady, long workouts of cardio. Use intervals instead.

iii) Don’t use high reps for fat loss. Use low reps instead.

You want to increase the intensity of your training to put “metabolic turbulence” on your muscles.

So you need to use moderately heavy weights or advanced bodyweight exercises and interval training to apply this metabolic disturbance and elicit a significant increase in post-exercise energy expenditure.

However, no matter how well you adhere to these training tips, you will not succeed without getting serious about your nutrition. Of course, that’s why I had Dr. Chris Mohr design the Turbulence Training Fat Loss Nutrition Guide to go along with my workout.

With the right training intensity and nutrition, you will “get your hormones in order”. Eating poorly can decrease testosterone (in males) and increase insulin in both men and women. This will cause fat storage. At the same time, too much cardio and stress can increase cortisol.

If you have high cortisol levels, increased insulin, and lower than normal testosterone, you are in big trouble when it comes to having a good body.

You need to improve your hormone levels to stimulate fat loss. In fact, I think that even Pilates & Yoga can help you lose fat when combined with good nutrition – because these exercise techniques may be able to reduce stress and could bring those hormone levels back to normal.

But for the fastest, guaranteed methods of fat loss, my weapon of choice is the more intense interval training and resistance training in the Turbulence Training program.

Bottom line: While cardio is focused on breaking down the body, strength training, yoga, and Pilates all focus on building the body. Stick with body-builders.

2. The 3 Biggest Fat Loss Workout Mistakes

i) Using only long slow cardio.
There is definitely mixed research support for long, slow cardio. Most studies will show you two things:

a) Doing only aerobic training (without proper nutrition) will get you only a small amount of weight loss – even over very long periods of time.

b) Proper nutrition plus cardio will help you lose weight, but you will also lose lean body mass – and you won’t end up with the body you want (or deserve).

Plus, long, slow cardio just takes too much time up from your schedule. Stick to interval training instead. You will get better results in half the time.

ii) The second mistake is sticking with the same program too long.

In most gyms, everyday is Groundhog Day (just like the movie).

You’ll see the same men and women doing the exact workout that they did 2 days. I see men and women using the exact same weight circuit as they did literally the day before, using the same weight, the same crappy form, and showing the same lack of interest.

These people are much better off doing fewer workouts following a structured plan of increased intensity. Don’t trade quality for quantity.

iii) The 3rd mistake…Doing high rep-low weight isolation exercises.

Exercises such as triceps kickbacks, concentration curls, side raises, and ab crunches are almost a complete waste of time.

The men and women that use isolation exercises will not make any improvements. Unfortunately, this is the approach taken by a lot of people in the gym.

Next time, we’ll review the superiority of interval training and the best ways to weight train for fat loss.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

You know who is your worst enemy in the fight against fat?

Well-meaning fitness professionals that don’t want to make you feel bad for being lazy and eating crap. That’s who.

They write articles about how “diets are bad”, how you can lift soup cans and get fitness model arms, and how you should exercise in the nice and easy “fat burning zone” to get results. Basically, they give you what want to hear – plenty of excuses for avoiding hard exercise and strict nutrition (the real keys to fat loss).

But I don’t. You’ll get no such excuses from me.

Here’s the real deal on fat loss. You have to work hard in your workouts and even harder on your nutrition if you want results. Or you can take the politically-correct easy way out and have the same body in 3, 6, and even 12 months from now.

Love me or hate me, I promise you results. Let’s take a look at why the PC-solutions don’t work…

Q: I’ve been told to exercise in my “fat burning zone“. What’s the best cardio method for weight loss?

Answer:
Cardio is not the only solution.

Clearly it adds to the energy deficit and overall calorie balance that favors fat loss.

BUT it’s not the “be all & end all” of fat loss success – and that is anecdotally supported by the number of overweight distance runners.

I almost never recommend long, slow cardio…simply because no one I train or consult with has the time for this, and it doesn’t work any better than shorter, less frequent, more intense interval training sessions.

Five or six days of 45-minute cardio sessions in my fat-burning zone? Yeah right, like anyone has time for that.

If I told you that you could get the same results (or better, as recent research suggests) in three 20-minute interval sessions each week as you could from three or five 45-minute slower cardio sessions each week, which would you choose?

Yes, intervals feel about 10x’s harder than regular, slow, boring cardio. And yes, you won’t be able to read your people magazine when doing intervals. And you might breath a little heavy. So if you’re worried about sweating, than maybe fat loss isn’t for you.

But if you don’t mind going against the crowd, intervals are worth every second for the superior results.

Q: Should men and women train differently for fat loss?

Answer:
Nope. Next question.

Seriously, the answer is no, but just to add to that, men and women don’t have that many differences when it comes to fat loss, so they both do well with the Turbulence Training style workouts.

Now here’s one reason why TT may actually work better for women than men…

More women tend to start Turbulence Training after having spent months or years using slow cardio and light (if any) weights. And selfishly, I could not be any happier – because when these dedicated women start using the shorter, more intense strength and interval sessions they make rapid progress and make me look like a genius.

The accolades come pouring in…I have dozens of testimonials from women thanking me for saving them TIME while helping them finally breakthrough stubborn fat loss plateaus (and eliminating the pain from their overuse injuries that occurred due to high volumes of cardio). Their words make me feel like a million bucks because the TT workouts are making these women feel like a million bucks.

That being said, I sometimes make small changes in TT workouts to adapt to a woman’s pre-conceived notions about strength training. Some women are very hesitant to lift weights. But you and I know that is necessary for bodysculpting, fat loss, and health benefits such as building bones.

So what I do is sub a few (not all!) of the weight exercises out and replace them with equal intensity bodyweight exercises. Some bodyweight exercises can be classified as traditional strength exercises (i.e. for a woman that can only do 5 full pushups, the pushup exercise is almost a max strength exercise). But women “mentally” deal with this type of strength training better than putting a dumbbell in their hands.

On the other hand, some bodyweight exercises provide more of an interval training effect (i.e. bodyweight squats). Either way, bodyweight exercises can put turbulence (i.e. “stress”) on the muscle and boost metabolism and help female clients get the results they want and deserve.

Q: What differentiates Turbulence Training from other programs?

Answer:
That’s a tough question to answer, as there are other systems out there that give impressive results in an acceptable time frame.

I will say this however, I am extremely dedicated to Turbulence Training and the entire “fat loss” cause.

One of the factors behind my dedication is that I find the general concept of fat loss to be so simple, and yet millions and millions of people around the world have an incredibly difficult time achieving their goals.

I want to give them every possible resource available to them to elp them succeed.

So I am constantly tinkering with new workouts, exercises, and interval methods, and interviewing other trainers and nutritional experts for every single little fat burning advantage I can find. And that comes through in what I offer to the readers of my newsletters and clients that use my programs.

I said in a past newsletter that “Fat loss is easy, once you realize how hard it is.” You have to respect that it’s not something you put on “auto-pilot”. Taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator, parking 100 extra feet away from the door, and subbing 1% milk for 2% milk is not going to help you lose 13 pounds of fat in a year like the politically correct articles suggest.

You need a politically-incorrect plan to eat right 90% of the time (i.e. saying “no” when an office-mate brings in doughnuts) and you have to have the best workout plan available to you if you want to get the most results in the least amount of time.

And then you still have to have a plan to help you stick to those plans – and that should involve a social support group. There are many tricks and tips to success, so you always have to keep learning and trying to improve. And that’s what I help with in my programs and newsletters.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training website.

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training for Fat Loss

While the mainstream fitness media still insists that aerobic exercise is a great way to lose weight, Turbulence Training users know that interval training is the better way to burn body fat.

Still not convinced?

A recent study published by the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, subjects aged 40 to 75 were instructed to do 60 minutes of aerobic exercise per day for 6 days per week for an entire year.

Given the amount of exercise, you’d expect weight losses of 20, 30 pounds, or more, right?

Well, the surprise findings showed the average fat loss for female subjects was only 4 pounds for the entire year, while men lost 6.6 pounds of fat over the year. That’s over 300 hours of aerobic exercise just to lose a measly 6 pounds of blubber. Not time well spent, in my opinion.

So what’s the better way? Stick with Turbulence Training, using interval training and strength training to get better bodysculpting results. With intervals, you’ll achieve more fat burning results in less workout time.

The next time you are out exercising, perform a session of interval training. If you are walking or running outside, find an incline that can challenge you for 60 seconds, then walk down for 60-120 seconds, and repeat up to 6 times.

If you walk or run on a treadmill, adjust the incline or speed to safely increase the challenge for 60 seconds, then return to the normal pace for 60-120 seconds, and repeat up to 6 times.

You can also use a rowing machine, bicycle or stationary bike, or even an elliptical machine to do intervals.

But whatever you do, stay away from boring, ineffective cardio exercise workouts and stick with Turbulence Training for your fat burning program.

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training for Fat Loss