For example, it is more difficult to balance the weights, and to coordinate muscles when performing free-weight exercises.
Are you looking for that “jump start” to rev your
metabolism and get you bathing suit ready? The following ten tips will
improve your workouts and ignite your metabolism. Try some or all of
these tips, but beware, the result may be a number of admiring second
glances and stares when you don that bikini or pair of trunks.
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1. The majority of your workouts should be composed of free-weight or cable exercises.
Compared to machines, free-weight and cable movements often require
more skill, create muscular balance, and have a greater metabolic cost.
For example, it is more difficult to balance the weights, and to
coordinate muscles when performing free-weight exercises. Although this
may sound like a disadvantage, it is actually a benefit. By balancing
and stabilizing free-weights or cables you are working more muscles
through a greater range of motion resulting in more muscles developed
and more calories burned.
2. Use mostly compound (multi-joint and multi-muscle) exercises.
When focusing on improving body composition, you can’t worry about
“detail” exercises, so you should use exercises that’ll get you the
biggest bang for your buck. Isolation exercises can be used at the end
of a workout to work on a specific weakness, but only do the bare
minimum.
Virtually every savvy fitness professional is privy to the fact that
compound exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body
part.
If you seek lean muscle and the increase in metabolism that comes
with it, you must choose exercises that allow for the greatest load. One
of the main reasons why squats are superior to leg extensions for
quadriceps development relates to the fact that the load you can expose
the quadriceps to is much greater with squats. That’s why presses and
dips will give you great triceps development, while triceps kickbacks
will do little for triceps development and even less for the metabolism.
A good rule of thumb is to use lifts that will allow you to use the
most weight. These will have a systemic effect on your body that’ll help
maintain or increase your muscle mass, and in turn ignite your
metabolism.
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3. Super-set or group exercises.
Perform either non-competing muscle group training or antagonist
training. Non-competing muscle group training would involve doing a set
of a lower body exercise, and following it up with an upper body
exercise Antagonist training is executed by alternating exercises that
target opposing muscle groups (e.g. chest and back). The list of
benefits includes: quicker recovery, greater strength levels and shorter
workout times.
This design can be a huge advantage in your mission to burn fat. If
you alternate exercises for opposing or non-competing muscle groups,
you’ll be able to keep your heart rate elevated and burn calories like a
blast furnace!
4. Keep rep ranges, in general, between 8 and 12.
Through research, it has been determined that the best range for
hypertrophy (muscle gain) is roughly between 8-12 reps. Since the main
focus of your resistance training efforts is to gain lean body mass and
stimulate your metabolism, this rep range fills the bill perfectly.
“High reps for tone and fat loss” is the “big kahuna” of all training
myths! Somehow the aerobics, yoga and Pilate’s community have convinced
us that when we perform bodyweight exercises or light resistance
training for high reps, our muscles magically take on a beautiful shape
without growing or bulging. On the other hand, if you challenge yourself
with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on a bulky,
unflattering appearance. If you believe this, you probably still believe
in the Tooth Fairy!
5. Rest only 30 to 60 seconds between sets.
When you keep the rest periods under one minute, it’s easier to stay
focused on the task at hand and keeps your heart rate elevated. In
addition, it forces your muscles to recover more quickly between sets,
along with keeping your nervous system revved up.
If your first movement in an upper/lower body superset is squats, you
might want to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement.
However, if your first exercise is a fairly “easy” exercise, like lat
pull downs, you might only wish to wait 30 seconds before doing the
second part of the superset.
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6. Every session should consist of approximately six to eight exercises. Why? Because empirical evidence has shown that normal trainees can consistently maintain six to eight exercises per session without burning out.
It’s imperative to base your exercise selection around compound,
multi-joint exercises. Seventy-five percent (75%) of your exercises for
each session must be compound exercises. Six single-joint isolation
exercises are not going do the trick. Sure, you can perform a few
isolation exercises, but the majority of your exercise choices should be
multi-joint.
7. Perform Total Body Workouts
First and foremost, you must drop the notion that a muscle group can
only be trained once or twice a week. Fitness enthusiasts from the past
didn’t train that way and you shouldn’t either. The more frequent muscle
producing / fat burning sessions you can have, the better.
8. Cardio is not the cure-all for Obesity
Cardiovascular exercise aids in the creation of a caloric deficit,
but the caloric expenditure during cardio is temporary. Strength
training addresses the core of the problem by permanently increasing the
rate at which the body burns calories by adding muscle. The best
programs will include both strength training and cardiovascular
training, but the core or the programs effectiveness is resistance
training.
9. When you do cardio, do it first thing in the morning.
Do your cardiovascular training first thing in the morning on an
empty stomach. You’ve gone 8 or more hours without eating, so your blood
sugar levels are at their lowest when you first wake up. After about
10-15 minutes of cardio training on an empty stomach, you’ll have burned
up all your remaining blood sugar.
Once your blood sugar is used up, the only remaining source of fuel
your body has to continue with your cardio exercise is your stored body
fat.
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10. Vary your pace during your cardio training sessions.
Don’t maintain a constant steady pace while you’re on the treadmill
or elliptical machine. Numerous studies have shown you’ll burn more
calories and more fat if you train in intervals.
Start out by going for 1 minute at your normal walking pace. Then,
for the next 30 seconds, speed it up to a run. After the 30 seconds at
an increased pace, slow back down to your original pace for 1 more
minute. This is known as an interval. Repeat this interval style cardio
for 10-20 minutes.
Performing your cardio in this “interval” fashion will allow you to
burn more fat and calories in less time than just keeping a nice steady
pace. This will increase the results you see while reducing your time on
the treadmill, stationary bike, or whatever form of cardiovascular
training you do.
