Sweating The Details-The Basics Of Working Out.
The game of fitness is a physically demanding form of art. Where else in this world do you have the joy of showing off your art to everyone you meet day in and day out? Most artistes would die for this kind of exposure! Just like any master of the arts though, in order for you to fully express yourself through this beautiful art form, you first have to know how to use your tools!
The tools of the fitness artist are subtle but potent. Each small flick of the wrist, turn of the dumbbell and shaving of seconds can have a profound effect on your masterpiece. Here are a list of the most basic tools you’ll have to familiarize yourself with in order to become the Michael Angelo of fitness.
o Sets and reps
o Rest between sets
o Cardio Guidelines
Sets consist of a number of reps done in a row. A rest of a minute or two usually follows a set. To do a set you must first know what a rep is. The “rep” is short for repetition or how many times you raise and lower the weight in a row. So pick up a weight and put it down 12 times in a row and you have one set of 12 reps!
In order to keep track of your workouts in a journal (you do this right?) it is written like so. The number of sets comes first and then the number of reps. If you were reading a copy of a workout and they wanted you to do three sets of twelve reps it would look like this, (3x12). Sometimes you may see this 3x10, 8, 6. Don’t panic! This means you do three sets in total with one set of 10 reps, the next set at 8 reps and the last set at 6 reps. All sets are spaced out by the determined rest period that matches your goals. Now if you know you are doing 3x12 when you record it into your journal you must include the weight so that you can remember it for the next time and improve upon it. Because of the first article in this series we all know the importance of progressive resistance right? Put the set number first and then weight in front of the reps like so:
1. 100x12
2. 90x12
3. 80x12
Now you know how sets and reps work, lets get onto how to how long you should rest between sets.
How long you rest between sets depends largely on the reason you are training. The general rule of thumb for all round fitness is to rest 1 minute between sets or until your breathing returns to almost normal. This allows most of your power to regenerate while still keeping up the pace of the workout to burn calories and keep the “training effect” going. If strength gains are your priority than 2-5 minutes is best for full recovery of energy systems. If pure fitness and fat loss is your goal, a challenging workout consisting of rest periods in the 30-45 second range or even super setting (sets done back to back of different exercises) will serve you best.
If you are new to fitness take 220, minus your age and multiply it by 60%. That’s the recommended place to start. What this tells you is 60% of your maximum heart rate. Let’s say your 40 years of age. 220-40= 180 (your max heart rate). 180x 60%=108. So there you are on the bike pedaling away, take your pulse for thirty seconds (or use the sensors on newer machines), and multiply it by two. If you came up with 115 slow it down a little and vice versa.
Once you are sure that your body is up to speed and the 60% mark no longer poses a challenge, use the same calculation at a higher percentage to incrementally increase your intensity. Use 65% then 70% and so on.
For steady state cardio when fat loss is the goal “most” of the science states that 70-75% is a great target range to stay in for 30 to 60 minutes. Higher percentages are useful when athletic performance and improvements in cardiac function are the goal.
An excellent way to mix the best of both steady state cardio and higher percentages
of heart rate is to do interval training. This involves a warm-up of 5 minutes
and then “sprinting” hard for 30 seconds to a minute and then resting for the
same. Twenty to thirty minutes of interval training can be quite intense, so
make sure your ready for it! The up side is that you will burn a ton of calories
and in half the time, so its perfect if you’re running out of minutes in the day!
If you would like to learn more about high intensity interval training you can
find it on my web site here:
INTERVAL TRAINING
Should your cardio be done before or after training? It takes approximately 16 minutes for your body to burn through your sugars while doing cardio before you hit fat burning mode. Since weight training is largely fueled by glycogen or sugars it would make sense to do your weight training first, fueled by your bodies preferred source of fuel and do your cardio after so you can go straight into fat burning mode. However, here is an article by Tom Venuto authour of “Burn the Fat” that you will find interesting on the efficiency of morning cardio.
When is the best time of day to do your cardio? The answer is any time! The most important thing is that you just do it. Continuous cardiovascular exercise, such as walking, jogging, stairclimbing, or cycling, sustained for at least 30 minutes, will burn body fat no matter when you do it. However, if you want to get the maximum benefits possible from every minute you invest in your workouts, then you should consider getting up early and doing cardio before you eat your first meal - even if you're not a "morning person." Early morning cardio on an empty stomach has three major advantages over exercising later in the day:
Early morning before you eat, your levels of muscle and liver glycogen (stored carbohydrate) are low. If you eat dinner at 7 p.m and you eat breakfast at 7 a.m., that's 12 hours without food. During this 12-hour overnight fast, your levels of glycogen slowly decline to provide glucose for various bodily functions that go on even while you sleep. As a result, you wake up in the morning with depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar - the optimum environment for burning fat instead of carbohydrate. How much more fat you'll burn is uncertain, but some studies have suggested that up to 300% more fat is burned when cardio is done in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state.
So how exactly does this work? It's quite simple, really. Carbohydrate (glycogen) is your body's primary and preferred energy source. When your primary fuel source is in short supply, this forces your body to tap into its secondary or reserve energy source; body fat. If you do cardio immediately after eating a meal, you'll still burn fat, but you'll burn less of it because you'll be burning off the carbohydrates you ate first. You always burn a combination of fat and carbohydrate for fuel, but depending on when you exercise, you can burn a greater proportion of fat relative to carbohydrate. If doing cardio first thing in the morning is not an option for you, then the second best time to do it would be immediately after weight training. Lifting weights is anaerobic (carbohydrate-burning) by nature, and therefore depletes muscle glycogen. That's why a post lifting cardio session has a similar effect as morning cardio on an empty stomach.
The second benefit you'll get from early morning cardio sessions is what I call the "afterburn" effect. When you do a cardio session in the morning, you not only burn fat during the session, but you also continue to burn fat at an accelerated rate after the workout. Why? Because an intense session of cardiovascular exercise can keep your metabolism elevated for hours after the session is over. If you do cardio at night, you will still burn fat during the session, so you definitely benefit from it. However, nighttime cardio fails to take advantage of the "afterburn" effect because your metabolism drops like a ton of bricks as soon as you go to sleep. While you sleep, your metabolic rate is slower than any other time of the day.
Burning more fat isn't the only reason you should do morning cardio. The third benefit of morning cardio is the "rush" and feeling of accomplishment that stays with you all day long after an invigorating workout. Exercise can become a pleasant and enjoyable experience, but the more difficult or challenging it is for you, the more important it is to get it out of the way early. When you put off any task you consider unpleasant, it hangs over you all day long, leaving you with a feeling of guilt, stress and incompleteness (not to mention that you are more likely to "blow off" an evening workout if you are tired from a long day at work or if your pals try to persuade you to join them at the pub for happy hour.)
You might find it hard to wake up early in the morning and get motivated to workout. But think back for a moment to a time in your life when you tackled a difficult task and you finished it. Didn't you feel great afterwards? Completing any task, especially a physically challenging one, gives you a "buzz." When the task is exercise, the buzz is physiological and psychological. Physiologically, exercise releases endorphins in your body. Endorphins are opiate-like hormones hundreds of times more powerful than the strongest morphine. Endorphins create a natural "high" that makes you feel positively euphoric! Endorphins reduce stress, improve your mood, increase circulation and relieve pain. The "high" is partly psychological too. Getting up early and successfully achieving a small goal kick starts your day and gives you feelings of completion, satisfaction and accomplishment. For the rest of the day you feel happy and you feel less stress knowing that the most difficult part of the day is behind you.
So, you say you're not a morning person? Take heart; neither am I. I can
sleep in like you wouldn't believe! But I get up anyway because I know the
effort is worth the results. When I have a bodybuilding goal that I am clearly
focused on, such as reaching 4% or 5% body fat for a competition, I'm on my
Stairmaster for 45 minutes every morning at the crack of dawn without fail.
Sure it's a challenge at first, but you know what? After a few short weeks,
It's no longer a chore and I'm "in the groove" - and you will be too. Just
try it. Make a commitment to yourself to do it for just 21 days. Once those
21 days have gone by, you'll already be leaner and you'll be on your way to
making morning workouts a habit that's as natural as brushing your teeth or
taking a shower. Once you start getting used to feeling that buzz, you'll
become "positively addicted" to it. The more you do it, the more you'll want
to do it. Before you know it, early morning cardio will your new habit; you'll
be leaner, your metabolism will be faster and you'll feel fantastic all day
long!
If you like this kind of info check out Toms Book "Burn The Fat"
Learn to use your tools to the best of your abilities and go create a masterpiece!
Now onto the next topic,“Eating for Women”