Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Endurance Elite — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:55:54 GMT

Hi. This is a reply to Katee Roux.

The best way to stretch and avoid damaging your muscles, tendons and ligaments, is to repeat stretches. Naturally, your body will resist a stretch, at first. so the best way to combat that, is to go into the stretch, hold the stretch - and breath - for a few seconds, then pull out of it. Give yourself a few seconds to relax, then repeat the stretch. Your body will then be prepared and will not resist.

Hold the stretch, do not bob up and down, and breathe deeply. With each exhale, you will find your body relaxing even more, and you will be able to go further into the stretch. This is, in my opinion, the ONLY way to increase your flexibility without damaging your body.

Good luck!

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

AmberBamber — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:40:58 GMT

I've never really agreed with the long cardio training and I use to do it being a long distance runner. But think back to high school or college and the track team. Us distance runners were always super skinny but very little muscle mass. Most of us would like more muscle with being thin. Now look at the sprinters! Multiple Short bursts of energy with recovery periods mixed into their workouts. All the girl and guys sprinters had a bocy type of what I think most people are looking for. Yea, I know we were all younger then but it's a fact. Look at every marathoner on tv then look at the sprinters on tv at the Olympics. Two very different body types overall.

Also think about how we played as kids... Short burst of running and stuff while playing tag or whatever. Very few of us ran for more than 2 minutes when we were kids and most of us all had a body type we would love to have today. It's just soooo simple. Now if we all just went out and Played every day like when we were kids there would be very few weight problems. We play frisbee or throw the football around for 30 minutes and I'm stunned how good I feel and how good of a workout it feels like. Do you think all our bosses would let us have recess and go out and play at work every day??? Can you just imagine what a change in the world that would bring? Lower stress & better health the world over and all because of recess.

I may have to start a new religion. The Church of Recess : ) Amen....and.......NOT IT! : )~

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Rotobo — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:01:53 GMT

Just started the PACE program Monday. It's a little early to see any difference yet. I have asthma so I should be a good canditate for Dr. Sears program. I've been gyming for a minium of one hour each visit for three days a week since 04 including vacationing so I consider myself in fair shape AND in a rut. I did the between days with moderate walking 5 miles, three days a week during the summer, do the 30 minute eliptical and 30 minute recumbent during the winter. This is NOT what a person with Asthma should be doing by PACE standards. I couldn't do endurance exercises so maybe I didn't shrink my lungs or heart to much. One plus, I did the HIT unknowingly on the recumbent. Using the chart on the bike I would see how high I could get my HR before I lost breath(conciousness, LOL) trying to match the max for my age on the chart. and then cooling it between spurts. I did this each time trying to last longer. Very rarely could I increase the duration at the high heart rate output. I wasn't far off the amount of times comparing to PACE. The drawback was in the total time. High I and the Low I ran way over the max combined time that Dr Sears recommends to keep from burning fat. YES, quit before you start burning fat, that's the key to fat loss as stated in the PACE book. Dr. Sears mentions your HR returning to resting rate in a specific time, my HR seems to drop while in LI but it takes a little longer than what he recommends. I understand this is not good and could indicate a heart problem so I consider it a warning to have my ticker checked.

I quess I just gave a free PACE tour. For a paper back it was a little pricey so maybe we can spread it around a little.

Do count this as MY two cents worth only, I haven't used the PACE program long enough to have an opinion about success or failure. ALTHOUGH, the heart rate returning to resting rate time warning was a definite plus for me.

Rodney

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

KristenK — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:29:21 GMT

HIIT - also known in Australia as HIIE (High Intensity Intermittent Exercise) it's great stuff! Not for the faint hearted, but it works brilliantly. A recent study in Australia has shown that three HIIE sessions per week of 20 minutes total using a format of 8 seconds max effort followed by 12 seconds of relative rest resulted in a massive three times greater weight loss than three sessions of 40 minutes at 60% effort. No changes in diets were made to the subjects taking part in the study ( www.library.unsw.edu.au/.../01front.pdf). If you want to see an easier to understand version of this, paste the following link into your browser: health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx.

Spot reduction was also demonstrated in the HIIE group in all the right areas, Ladies - butt and thighs - gotta love it!

So if you only have 20 minutes, three times per week, I can personally highly recommend this format. As noted in other posts re HIIT, you'll want to build up to the 20 minute total as it's HARD, and if you haven't done any exercise for a while you'd also be wise to get your Doctor's clearance before attempting it. Start with 2 minutes and work up to the 20 - it's well worth the effort!

PS Will someone tell me how to get hyperlinks into these messages, please?

Cheers

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

C Ed Wright — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:20:29 GMT

Hmm... Ver-r-ry interesting...

At first this was a bit of a surprise, and almost seems counterintuitive. But when you think about it, prolonged periods of heavy activity are simply not natural -- what is natural in the real world outside the gym is bursts of activity alternating with rest while waiting for the next needed burst of activity. Work hard, take a break; work hard again, take a break again. Haven't we all noticed, that what's natural almost always works better than what's artificial or unnatural? In this case, the one-hour cardio workout is actually unnatural.

I wouldn't be surprised, if they tried it, to find that fifteen minutes hard work[outs] alternating with five or ten minute rest periods would work at least as well if not even better, because that's even more natural.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Cat47 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:33:16 GMT

I can attest to interval training with weight loss. A year ago I took up tennis and just recently realized that I lost 4 pounds without trying (I had been trying to lose the 5 pounds I had gained over the past few years without any success), firmed up my body (lowered my fat percentage significantly), and lowered my resting heart rate without even realizing that the changes were occuring! The only change to my diet or lifestyle was playing agressive single tennis for an hour or two almost every day! I must add that I have worked out regularly with weight training and aerobic training for the past 25 years so this newly added exercise to my daily activities is no doubt the reason why my body composition changed.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

4myhealth — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:12:00 GMT

This sounds like a really good ideal because I really get tired in between anyway.. I useally run the Treadmill for 30 min, then get on the bike, then use some weight machines and then I go do some water aerobics in the pool .Which is another way of working your body without all the impact on your body! plus it is cool and refreshing as well and when I am doing I am not as tired ! Some of U might try "Water Aerobics" usually your local gym or Ymca has water aerboics! I love them! Try them u might too!

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

samurai — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:57:40 GMT

This is similar to the article about P.A.C.E.

I love this concept. It has improved my resting heart rate. Unfortunately, for mainstream America, many think that they are "dieting" when they find an excellent exercize program such as this, and accompany it with "no trans-fat" potato chips, and a diet Pepsi.

You cannot out-train a bad diet.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Anne W — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:51:41 GMT

It would be interesing to note what intensity they were working at in the contious 60 min effort vs. the 2 X 30 minute efforts. I teach indoor cycling and I am certain that if I asked my students to maintain a susained 60 minute effort vs TWO thirty minute efforts with a 20 min break in between, that their effort level would be higher on the 30 minute sessions. Interval training (even longer ones like 30 minutes) produce more caloric expenditure and increase endurance (stroke volume) more than a solid lower intensity effort for a longer period of time.

I worry that people will read this and think that the break or rest is producing the improvement. I beieve it's higher intensity on the shorter duration interval that is doing it.

Hope that makes sense!

Anne

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

gianardo — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:04:28 GMT

I'm putting this concept into my workout as we speak, I'll let you know.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Thr3e — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:41:30 GMT

A study with a sample size of seven men? What about women or people of different ages such as seniors? I'm not disagreeing with the results, but don't think a person can put too much faith into this one small study.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

Tilapia2006 — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:57:20 GMT

I'm so glad to see Mercola.com present this. I haven't specifically searched the site on this kind of training, but I hadn't come across it here until now. I have been a fan of this sort of excersize/training since the evolution of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in the 90's. And fairly recently Dr. Al Sears developed his own version called PACE. This is the best training I've ever done. Over the past 7 years I let myself gain about 40 lbs of fat. But earlier this year I decided to make a REAL change. Watching my nutrition was a great start (goodbye grains and tubers), but then a few months ago I started doing my own version of HIIT/PACE and it has been amazing. My heart has regained it's health and I blew my Doc away on the heart stress test and my lung reserve capacity is getting better and better. No more getting out of breath carrying the groceries upstairs. BP and cholesterol are down to normal too. I still have a way to go, but I'm getting there the right way.

Throughout 2006 I did the old standard 1hr walking on the treadmill for 4 days a week while watching calories, etc ... and I basically got nowhere and only trained my body to reduce heart & lung reserve capacity for long steady exertions, simultaneously teaching my body to store fat during the 23 hours of the day before the 1 long hour of moderate exertion. The interval training that I did in the 90s (when I was fit) is literally saving me now that I'm doing it again. Of course I had to start carefully. It's amazing how out of shape 40 extra pounds can make you. :) But I credit interval training as a huge part of my continuously increasing health and fat loss. Long story short ... In my book, interval training is the ONLY way to go.

~ Jason ~

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

chirocheer — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:43:44 GMT

I recently added sprints to my workout regime. I sprint for 30 secs and then recover for 1 min. After 10-15 mins of this, I am completely wiped. A few mins to warm up and a few mins to cool down, and my workout is done in 30 mins. Something to mix-up my workout -- we'll see how it works.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

crashtx1 — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:59:30 GMT

This is a study of seven people. That might count more as an observation than a study.

re: Want to Burn More Fat During Exercise? Take a Break

schoncas — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:24:32 GMT

I seriously suggest you to do high intensity training. Hill sprints or stair sprints can quickly eliminate the need for long drawn out cardio work-outs and you will definitely have less injuries. Remember between each sprint to take a 45-60 sec. rest, warm up properly and stretch afterwards.