Are you training with short high intensity workouts or are you pounding out kilometer after kilometer on the treadmill, desperately checking the monitor to see how many calories you’ve burned?
Here’s the bad news. One hour on the treadmill, which is difficult to sustain with intensity burns off approximately one large muffin.
But are you ready for some good news?
Short High Intensity Workouts Get Results!
The Zen Fitness Fusion training workouts can help you get better results in just short sessions, with relatively higher intensity. (Depending on your time could be as short as 10 minutes, or if you want to go for longer, up to 30 minutes).
Exercise isn’t about burning off that chocolate chip muffin, and it’s not about punishing yourself repeatedly day in and day out.
Exercise is about setting off a hormonal cascade that improves your health, increases your mental alertness, and boosts your energy. And if you’re doing it right, including dialing your nutrition according to sound principles, getting enough sleep, and managing your stress, you’ll build muscle and shed fat without even thinking about calories.
Want to know my favourite bang for your buck short high intensity workout? Here’s how I get a full body workout to kick fat burning hormones into overdrive in just a few minutes.
Short Workouts = High Energy
When I was teaching hours of group fitness classes back in the day plus doing 4 day split weight training routines in the gym I looked in great shape. But I was also tired by midday feeling like a muesli bar, a bottle of fruit juice, even a chocolate bar and other fake energy pick-me-ups.
So I looked into the research to see how to get the job done in less time and still have energy to spare.
When you are over-training your body doesn’t know if it just hit the gym or got hit by a bus. Over- training throws your body into crisis mode.
So I decided to experiment on myself, and spurred on by various injuries I’d had over the years I switched up my routine from lots of cardio and long hours in the gym to burst training and I became leaner and lighter, with stacks more energy.
Variety of Intense Exercise Keeps You Enthusiastic
The abbreviated version I’ve given below can be done more frequently (if you want to) than my recommended burst training routine and it can be done anywhere.
Any high intensity exercise will do. Here’s a menu of optional high intensity exercises:
Burpies
Sprints
Hill Sprints
Bicycle Sprints
Pool sprints
Boxing or shadow boxing
Rope skipping
Choose an activity or activities that are fun for you, that make you feel great and you can switch them up on different days so you don’t get bored and don’t overuse certain movements that might put you at risk of injury.
How to do you use these exercises to Burst Train:
Again the variety is endless.
One type of intensity training involves a method called Tabata, named after a Japanese Olympic skating coach who discovered that the protocol he put together greatly enhanced his team’s performance on the ice, improving both speed and stamina.
Here’s how it works: For a super condensed workout when you are pushed for time – Warm up for one minute. Perform one of the above exercises for 20 seconds then rest for 20 seconds repeat for 8 -10 rounds. For example perform Burpies (see my description on my website under surfing warm ups) with one press up in between each, as many as you can do in good form for 20 seconds. Then rest for 10 seconds. To really crank things up, shadow box during your rest period. Repeat 8-10 times, twice per week. Warm down and stretch for one minute and you are done! If you aren’t totally smoked by the end you aren’t doing it right.
Remember – this way of training is necessarily short, and to be effective, you have to push yourself, but the secret is allowing yourself to build up your intensity over time.
To work up to this if you are new to exercise, have been away from exercise for a long time, or have some physical limitation, come and see me or consult me online for one on one step by step protocols to achieve the right exercise intensity for you to see results.
Say goodbye to hours of mind-numbing cardio and say hello to a new you!
