Workouts that burn fat and tone muscle

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Interval training may motivate people who claim they have a lack of time which always seems to result in a lack of results with their workouts.  This challenge is one of the biggest reasons why they don’t exercise.

A value added fitness training program called “interval training” involves short bursts of heart-pumping, intense activity followed by longer periods of less intense work.  The easier interval is described as the “active recovery” period.  This provides your heart with a rest, but you are still working muscles.

What are the benefits of interval training for me?

Interval training helps to provide variety to mundane workout routines. Benefits include burning more calories.   It stands to reason that the more vigorously you exercise, the more calories you’ll burn.  Improving aerobic capacity. When your cardiovascular fitness improves, you’ll be able to exercise longer or with more intensity. You may now be able to finish your typical 60-minute walk in 45 minutes.  Spice up your workouts. Turning up your intensity in short intervals can add variety to your belly fat exercises.  No need for special equipment, so you can simplify your current routine.

When starting out, interval training for beginners, 15 minutes can feel longer than a year.  It may not be possible to go for 30+ minutes for the first few weeks.  That’s okay, listen to your body and don’t get hurt.  However, to recognize any results, you will have to work hard (at least a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10 in terms of intensity).  Following is a great beginner’s interval training workout:

Quick running for 20-30 seconds followed by brisk walking for 3 minutes for a total 30 minute workout.  To make it simple, I like to run for one block, then jog or walk for the next 2-3 blocks.  I continue this work out for at least 30 minutes.

A slightly more advanced fat loss workout is:

Spend 5 minutes warming up by jogging. Do some stretching before you go into the intervals, however I recommend stretching after the warm up because stretching cold muscles can pull them.

After your warm up, start your first set of intervals. These consist of running full pace for 30 seconds and then jogging for recovery for 90 seconds. Repeat this at least 6 times. Be careful that in your first few sprints that you don’t go all out. This is because your body is still getting used to this type fitness workout and it’s essentially still warming up. I recommend using the first few reps as warm up sprints. Trust me, you will feel when your body is ready to go all out, and when it is, that’s when you should go for it.

When you are done with all six repetitions and intervals, cool down and stretch for another 5 minutes.

As the first few weeks pass, your allowed recovery time comes down in 30 second increments. When the repetition time and the interval time are both 30 seconds, then the number of sets increase per week until you are doing 15 repetitions per workout.

Another popular fitness workout, similar to the beginner’s interval training workout, is called “walk-back sprinting.”  Sprint a short distance (anywhere from 100 to 200 meters), then change direction and walk back to the starting point.  This walk will be your recovery period.  Next, turn around and do it again. To add challenge to this workout, change each of the sprints to start at a predetermined time interval.  For example complete a 200 meter sprint, walk back, but sprint again after 2 minutes. The time interval provides just enough recovery.

Other examples of interval training include: This same technique can be used with biking (stationary or moving), swimming (combine front crawl with a resting side stroke), treadmill, stair climbers or elliptical machines.

Turbulence Training was created by Craig Ballantyne, a personal trainer and guest writer on this blog. His program is ideal for those pressed for time.

Craig shows how interval training routines can be compressed into only 3 sessions per week. He also has a comprehensive beginners routine for those new to Interval Training. Turbulence Training formula is to maximize fat loss by getting the body to adapt to the intense exercise.  Click here to find out more about Turbulence Training.

Personal note: I have been using Craig’s routine and I really like it.  It has a comprehensive guide to beginner routines.  What the program lacks in nutritional info, it makes up with detailed fat loss workouts and tracking worksheets. You can try the original turbulence training workout for free by clicking here.

RISKS: This type of interval training isn’t appropriate for everyone. If you have a chronic health condition or haven’t been exercising regularly, consult your doctor before trying any type of interval training.  Also keep the risk of overuse injury in mind. If you rush into a strenuous workout before your body is ready, you may hurt your muscles, tendons or bones. Instead, start slowly. Try just one or two higher intensity intervals during each workout at first. If you think you’re overdoing it, slow down. As your stamina improves, challenge yourself to vary the pace. You may be surprised by the results.

CAUTION: Ensure you get your doctor’s OK if you have heart disease, high blood pressure or are over 55 and haven’t been exercising regularly.

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Bodyweight exercises are where resistance to movement is supplied by the weight your own body.  These exercises are great for people that have a limited amount of time to exercise.  Most of us don’t have 10 hours per week to workout, nor do we really need it.  If you looking to burn belly fat, consider these as a combination of strength training and interval training.

Bodyweight exercises are typically used to warm-up. However, because they can help to build muscle, bodyweight exercises can be a fitness workout used to develop strength and endurance.  Consider using the following bodyweight exercises prior to your workout programs and you’ll be able to get in and out of the gym in 45 minutes, three times per week.

Choose 4-5 of the following 7 bodyweight exercises

a) Wall walking – Stand with your back to a wall or tree or anything else you can wall walk down. Make sure you are about 3-4 feet away from the wall.  Lean backwards and place your hands on the wall behind you. Slowly move your hands down the wall until your hands hit the floor.  Arch your back and come up to your tippy-toes as you move further down. THEN, either 1): Turn to your stomach and repeat or 2) Walk BACK UP the wall.

b) Bear Walks – for your arms, back, chest and lower body. These get you out of breath really quickly if you perform them correctly. It’s basically an animal walks.  Find a large area to do this exercise. Put all your weigh on your hands and feet. Bring your right hand and left foot forward and then your left hand and right foot. Start RUNNING like this on all fours.  Keep going until you’re out of breath.

c) Press Ups – also known as a push-up.  This fat burning exercise is performed in a prone position, lying horizontal and face down.  Raise and lower the body using the arms. Push ups develop the pectoral and triceps muscles.  There’s also some development of the deltoids.  To develop other arm, chest, shoulder and back muscles, you can perform variations of the push-up.  Planche press-ups are completed with the feet elevated. Boxer’s push-ups are completed while wearing boxing gloves. This means the exercise is done on your knuckles without using your wrists.

d) Side to Side Jumps (leg | hip exercise)– to get that explosive power and speed, you need to incorporate some kind of jumping into your weekly routine.  Find an open area with room to jump left and right. Facing one direction (forward), jump as far as you can to either side and immediately jump the opposite direction. Do this for about 20-50 times.

e) The Tower – a yoga position that’s perfect for strengthening your neck and your core.  Be sure you know how to bail out of this exercise, so you don’t injure yourself.  First ensure you have plenty of room.  Once you are in the position and feel like you might fall over, either tuck your head and roll, or make a quick ¼ turn and bring you legs down.  Place your head and palms on the ground in the shape of a triangle. Next bring you knees up to rest on your elbows and then lean your body back and use your abdominals to bring your legs up. When you are straight, you’ll feel less pressure on your arms and your weight should be even down your body into the ground.  Breathe naturally.

f) Knee Jump – this fitness exercise works the hamstrings and develop some explosive power. Start the exercise by kneeling on the ground. Make sure that you feet are flat and that you butt is resting on your calves. Look forward at all times. To initiate the exercise, swing your arms back and then forward immediately.

g) Door Pull-up – A pulling exercise that can be done with just about any door (assuming the door is not too flimsy). Open a door halfway and place a towel over the top. Place your hands on the towel and let yourself hang off of the door.

All of the above exercises can be done at home.  After completing these exercises, you can move into least 3 strength workouts that are performed twice each with minimum rest between each. This way you only need an additional 20-25 minutes to complete your fitness program..

Check out more Workouts that Burn Fat and Tone Muscle

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By Guest Columnist: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Long, slow cardio is not the fastest way to burn fat. Research shows that short interval training workouts burn belly fat faster.I was one of the first trainers to question long, slow cardio for fat loss
back in the late 1990′s and I believe that traditional cardio is over-rated.

Interval training, or interval “cardio” if you want to call it that, is
much, much better for fat loss. It burns belly fat in half the workout time.

I figured this out just before the year 2000.

In my study (which was published in the Canadian Journal of Applied
Physiology for any science nerds like myself out there), we had guys use the supplement androstenedione, and go through a couple of weight training sessions. By February of ’99 I was stuck in the lab, analyzing the blood samples using some fancy radio-active isotopes.

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Craig sells a very detailed program he calls Turbulence Training.  He provides numerous detailed workouts for the home or gym which really work.

If you’re seeking a plan which you can implement and track your results, then I recommend Craig’s Turbulence Training program.  There’s numerous testimonials and even sample workouts available.

If you want to lose weight, tone muscle and get in shape, check out Craig’s weight loss workouts.

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Now coming from a very athletic background, this sedentary lifestyle didn’t sit well with me. But there I was, studing for a degree in Exercise Physiology and left with no time for exercise. Or so I thought.

Fortunately, I actually had a 50 minute window once per day of “down-time” while the lab’s gamma-counter analyzed blood samples.That left me 50 minutes to get to the gym (5 minutes across campus) and get a workout in the remaining 40 or so minutes. I knew that if I applied my studies to the workout, I could get maximum results in minimum time.

As a former athlete, I knew that I had to find a way to stay fit and to avoid the fat gain that comes with working long hours in a sedentary environment. And I also had to stay true to the high-school bodybuilder I once was, so there was no way I was willing to sacrifice my muscle to one of those long-cardio, low protein fat-loss plans that were popular at the time.

Instead, I had to draw on my academic studies and my experiences working with athletes as the school’s Strength & Conditioning Coach. I knew that sprint intervals were associated with more fat loss than slow cardio, and I knew that you could also increase aerobic fitness by doing sprints (but you can’t increase sprint performance by doing aerobic training).

So clearly, intervals were (and ARE!) superior to long slow cardio for fat loss. I had seen first hand the incredible results of sprint intervals in the summer and fall, as the athletes made huge fitness improvements and shed winter fat in a short time using my interval programs. I knew that intervals
had to be the next step in the evolution of cardio.

The biggest benefit of intervals? A lot of results in a short amount of time. I knew that I only had 40 minutes to train, and therefore I could only spend 15-20 minutes doing intervals.

Before I go on, let me clear up how an interval training workout goes.

After all, I believe everyone can do interval training for fat burning. Even beginners. For beginners who usually exercise for 30 minutes at 3.5 mph on the treadmill, their interval workout would be to go for 1 minute at 3.8mph and then recover for 2 minutes at 3.0 mph. That’s it. Repeat 6 times. If you are more advanced, you would use more intense exercise.

Interval training simply needs to start off harder than normal and progress from there.

Most folks hate cardio, so they are happy to use interval training as an effective replacement to lose stomach fat. Here is my list of preferred ways to do your intervals, ranked in order from best to worst, based on my experiences.

1. Sprinting outdoors (Hill sprinting might be the absolute best method)
2. Kettlebell exercises
3. Bodyweight interval circuits
4. Treadmill running
5. Stationary cycle (upright cycling preferred over recumbant bike)

With those 5 Turbulence Training interval training methods, you’ll burn fat fast and never have to do cardio again!

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No matter how much you want to believe it, doing thousands of crunches is not going to take off any inches from your waist or fat
from your abs.

You should be able to go to the gym and complete an entire
workout in the same amount of time that others spend on only abdominal exercises. It’s true, even if it seems ridiculous.

None of these people are any further ahead than they would be if
they used total body movements and made every exercise an abdominal
exercise with the Turbulence Training lifting technique.

Find out the 3 keys to abs on page 6 of “The Dark Side of Cardio”
FREE REPORT you can download at Weight Loss Workouts.

Helping you burn more belly fat in less time, check out

Belly Fat Exercises

PS – You also get a Sample Turbulence Training workout when you visit:

=>Exercise Lose Weight

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