Today I witnessed a case in point for why traditional cardio will not get rid of belly fat. When I was just finishing up my training session a young guy came up to me and out of the blue asked, "How do you get a six pack"? I was taken aback because I didn't know his name and I've only seen him in passing. But then I began to wonder 'why me'? Has he seen me training?
I have seen this guy training on several occasions, today included. And one thing that was clear to me from his workouts is that they completely lack intensity. Today as he was training his pecs with free weight flys, he was resting 5 to 10 minutes between sets. You heard me, five to ten minutes. The weights were heavy enough and probably appropriate, but his actual lift was a mere hiccup compared to his overall gym time. And he wonders why he has belly fat.
So I asked my new friend how close he is to bringing out the sixer? And he lifted up his shirt to show me. He was not fat, but he was soft. No muscle tone, despite his dedication to training. So I started prodding a little to discover what's wrong. I asked him first about his diet. He said he's cut out fast food and cola. That's a great first start, so I moved on.
I asked him next about running. He said he'll run for an hour sometimes and burn 800 calories. Bingo. Most people would look at that and throw his hard to change body up as a genetic issue. I look at that and see wasted time. When I'm running, I rarely burn more than 500 calories at my most extreme sessions. The reason? I'm working twice as hard and finish two or three times faster.
Spending an hour on the treadmill is TOO LONG. Once acclimated to long jogging sessions, and your body will adapt and you will cease to get rid of belly fat as you did in the beginning. And despite the fact that he did an excellent job of burning calories while at the gym, my guess is that his body burned very few when he went home. And that's the key to fast weight loss. Shorter sessions of a half an hour or less that are considerably more intense will burn fewer calories at the gym, but will increase your metabolic rate and build muscle that will enable you to burn fat consistently throughout the day.
Too many people are concerned with burning calories at the gym. I'm concerned with burning fat around the clock. And naturally, the person who burns fat around the clock is going to be able to eat more freely and burn fat more quickly. Not a bad combination. But just so you don't think I'm neglecting diet and abdominal training, let's hit that really quickly.
Here is a basic formula for fat loss; consume fewer calories than your body needs daily. Done. This can be done by reducing your food intake, or increasing your metabolism through fitness training. The truth is that most of us have six pack abs, we just can't see it. Our abs are made in the kitchen more so than the gym. Working your abdominals one day a week for three to five sets of an abdominal exercise performed to failure is sufficient to bring out a six pack if you eat properly and add high intensity interval training for 3 to 5 days a week. But as always, keep the rest time to a minimum and up the intensity.
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