One of the questions I am constantly being asked by clients is how do they know when they are in the fat burning zone and why it seems that the intensity is really low.

When training my clients at Fitness First in Manchester who want to lose weight I am not particularly interested in “Fat Burning” (well not totally). It is actually calorie burning that I concentrate on during my personal training sessions. While much has been made about the existence of a magical all consuming “fat burning zone,” it is actually one of the greatest myths when it comes to exercising and trying to lose weight.

The myth comes from the fact that when you are participating in lower intensity exercise, you are actually burning a higher percentage of calories from fat than from blood glucose (carbs). In theory this sounds great, but as most things that sound too good to be true there is usually a catch.

The first gap in the fat burning zone theory is that your body does not care how you burn the calories or what fuel was used in burning them. Your body gains or loses weight depending on whether or not you take in more calories than you burn or less calories than you burn. In other words, in order to lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than you use, because at the end of the day food is just fuel and body fat is just stored fuel that has not been burned.

Therefore, what we need to ask ourselves is:

Is it possible that we can burn more calories by deliberately reducing our intensity in the gym to make sure we stay in this magical “fat burning zone”?

The obvious answer to this is no, but how many people do we see in the gym walking, or on an exercise bike reading a book.  The simple truth is that you burn more calories by exercising for longer and at a higher intensity, not by slowing down.

The trick is to exercise at an intensity pace that challenges our bodies and, over time, increase the intensity as your fitness increases.

This will allow us to work harder over time and as a result burn more calories withing the same time frame in the gym. So getting fitter means you can work harder and you will lose more weight  faster.

The second problem with the fat burning zone theory is that even if it was true that it was more important to burn fat calories than total calories, the “fat burning zone” supporters would still be way off the mark.

Generally how this works is that when you reduce the intensity down to burn more fat you might burn 50% of your total calories from fat as opposed to maybe only 30% if you exercise at a higher intensity.

However, you also burn less calories in total; therefore you burn 50% of a lower amount of total calories!

To understand this a bit better take a look at the below figures for 30 min of cardio exercise for a person weighing 95kg:

Low intensity exercise 50% Fat burned
Total calories burned 120
Fat calories burned 60

High intensity exercise 30 %
Fat burned 30
Total calories burned 200
Fat calories burned 60

You can see that the higherintensity exercise wins on all counts,  both calories burned and the amount of calories from fat.

Tags: bodyfat, exercise, fat burning, personal training, Weight Loss
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Timed Volume Training is a simple but highly effective way of training can be a great way to stimulate your muscles into growth especially if you have hit a plateau, even if you are just using basic kit or body weight exercises only.

Rather than focusing on the number of reps and sets you complete, this workout stipulates that you do chunks of a particular exercise with very little rest between each sets.

Basically, if you are doing chin ups or pull ups, you would perform sets of 3 reps for 15 minutes, with only a 10 seconds rest between each set.  As you start to grow tired and your muscle fatigue, you will require longer rest between sets. At this point increase the rest time to 20 seconds between sets and 30 seconds and so on until the 15 minutes has elapsed.

On Day 1 you should try do 15 minutes of a chest exercise, such as press ups, which are excellent for doing in this program and once you have finished that continue working out by performing 15 minutes of pull ups for your back.

Next you shoudl do 10 minutes of calves (calf raises) and abs (crunches), making sure you alternate between the two and then finish with ten minutes of biceps work such as bicep curls.

On the Day 2 you will start the routine by performing 15 minutes of quads work by doing squats or leg press for example.  After this perform 10 minutes of hamstring curls, ten minutes of shoulder presses and 10 minutes of tricep extensions.

You should aim to finish each session in around 45 minutes or less. Make sure you perform each workout two days per week, then increase to three and add a fourth session only when you fell yourself getting stronger and are finding it easier and also making sure you keep switching the exercises and increasing the weights if you need to.

Alternate between these two workouts, taking a day off after each cycle for the best results.

Tags: build muscle, hypertrophy, personal training
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This is for those of you who feel that you are getting out of shape and think you are unable to find the time to fit in a workout due to your very demanding lives.

Circuit Training Workouts

Circuit training can yield big results in very little time and is very good for general fitness and keeping in shape.

Circuit training basically is a continuous workout routine where you exercise the major muscles of his body and perform the cardiovascular exercises, without stopping to rest in between sets.

So how can this sort of workout be beneficial to me?

Well by not resting in between sets, the circuit training exercise routine is completed pretty quickly and the lack of rest prevents the intensity levels from dropping and keeps the heart rate up working hard. By performing the workout quickly, you can perform at a very high intensity and yet finish the workout very quickly.

One of the greatest benefits from a circuit training session is that you can complete a full body high intensity workout in around 30 minutes or less. This makes it perfect if you are time constrained, like most people are today due to the demands of work and family life.

Additionally within the 30 minute workout routine you are undertaking both cardiovascular and strength training exercises. This gives you a full body workout in very little time. If you feel that you need to do to train each muscle harder, then you can chose to split the circuit training workout routines over 2/3 days.

One of the downsides to performing only circuit training though is that while a short circuit workout routine will help improve your basic fitness levels, general body shape and keep levels of body fat low, it may not be good enough for those who normally use a bodybuilding workout and are looking to build muscle.

Example Circuit Training Workout Routines

You can follow the workout routines below which  are suitable for both males and females alike. 

Circuit Training Workout Routine

Star Jumps for Warmup (2 minutes)
Pull Ups (12 reps)
Squats with no weight (12 reps)
Press Ups (20 reps)
Static Lunges (12 reps)
Dips (20 reps)
Abdominal Crunches (30 reps)
Calf Raises (12 reps)
Cool Down Walk on Treadmill (2 minutes)
Stretches for cool down

Complete one set of these exercises with no rest periods in between should take more than about 35 minutes.

Ideally if you have the time and the energy to spare, complete the set again or you could try the next workout as an added challenge (skipping out the skipping).

Circuit Training Workout Routine B

Skipping for warm up (2 minutes)
Static Lunges (12 reps)
Press Ups (20 reps)
Treadmill Running (5-10 min)
Pull Ups (12 reps)
Squats (15 reps)
Plank (2 min total)
Calf Raises (12 reps)
Cool Down walk on Treadmill
Stretches

Tags: bodyfat, circuit training, personal training, Weight Loss
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High Intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great way to improve both your endurance and fitness levels and at the same time forcing your body to burn more body fat. A High Intensity Interval Training session is best if performed innedialy following your resistance workout routine to get the greatest benefit. In addition to this, a HIIT plan can be performed outside or on a treadmill inthe gym.

If the 20 minutes feels to much, then you can start at 10 minutes and build your way up. The following program will get you fitter faster and help you to start burning up body fat as fuel faster than ever before:

Warmup 5 Minutes

•Jog at moderate intensity for 1 Minute
•Sprint at high intensity for 1 Minute
Repeat the above process (minus the warmup) 8 times

Cool Down at walking pace for 5 minutes.

If you are performing the HIIT Session on its own then you should be working out for 30 minutes. For best Fat Loss results this need to be performed at least 3 times per week.

Tags: bodyfat, High Intensity Interval Training, personal training, Weight Loss
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