Interval Sprints for Fat Loss

Warmup: Walk/jog for around 3-5 minutes until your heartrate is around 120-130 (you can feel you’re working hard, and your breath may be coming a little quicker, but you could still yodel if someone asked you to.)

Sprints: 

• 30 second sprints aiming to get your heartrate up to 160s-180s as fast as possible and keep it there for the duration.  If you don’t have a way to monitor your heartrate, this is where you’re gasping for breath and couldn’t talk to anyone if you tried.  After the first few, you should start to feel that lactic acid burn in your muscles during the last ten seconds. 
• Active rest (meaning jogging, not walking) for 60 seconds between sprints and focus on getting your heartrate down: close your eyes and take deep breaths, but keep moving.  You want your heartrate to drop to the 120-140 range (out of breath, but can still carry on a conversation), so you can push hard again.  Mostly, I just say screw it, and stay in the 150s.
• After the first 5 or 8 or 12 sprints, increase the rest to 90 seconds between sprints.

Cooldown:  Jog/walk for 5 minutes.

Postworkout: This is an anaerobic workout, so it burns primarily sugar.  Make sure to have something with natural sugar/real sugar as soon as possible afterwards.  At least within 30 minutes.  If you don’t, you could spiral into a blood sugar crash, which will cause you to consume way more calories than you just burnt off.  Sadly, this doesn’t mean a snickers bar–it means an apple, or a protein shake with fruit.  You want sugar, not a blood sugar spike.

Other points:

• They tell me that this workout is intended specifically for fat loss.  Personally, I think if you want to burn fat, you should just burn more calories than you consume, period. 
• The idea is to get a metabolic boost from this workout, so you burn more calories throughout the day.  So it’s best done in the morning to give your body the most time to burn the most calories. 
• In order to get the metabolic boost, you have to work really freaking hard.  Signs of metabolic boost include: heartrate of 160-170 during the first half of the intervals, and above 170 for the second half.  (Heartrates are very individual, so these are just guidelines.)  Other signs include nausea, slight dizziness or headache, a ringing in the ears and a flushed face.  I told you this was fun.  No, seriously.  Because when you work that hard, your body also releases testosterone, endorphins, and growth hormones.  It’s a pretty cool high.
• You should also be in reasonable shape.  This isn’t a beginner’s workout.
• It’s best done after weight training, so you’re not exhausted when you go to lift.
• Don’t do it everyday.  It’s an intense workout, give your body time to recover.
• In case of injury, it’s perfectly adaptable to the machines in the gym.  I use the precor machine, but other folks love the arc trainer.

The Best Reverse Crunch

You’ll need a partner for this one.

Lay down on your back and have your partner stand over you with her feet alongside your head and hold onto her ankles, as if you were going to do ab throw-downs.  (For a bit more challenge, or if your partner’s wearing baggy shorts and it weirds you out, scooch forward until your arms are nearly straight.)

Bend your knees so your heels are near your butt and lift your heels so your toes are just grazing the floor.  Contract your abs and slowly bring your knees to your elbows, so your tailbone is entirely off the floor.  (Swinging your legs over your head is using your hip flexors is cheating.  Go slowly, bringing your pubic bone to your ribcage and feel the burn.)  Try to use your partner’s ankles as little as possible.  Keeping your abs tight, slowly release to touch your toes to the floor before bringing your legs right back up.  There’s no rest involved–your abs should be tight the entire time.

Too easy?  Good.

When you’ve got your knees by your elbows and your tailbone off the floor, slowly straighten your legs and hips until you are entirely vertical.  Your partner can help spot/stabilize your feet.  (In yoga, I believe they call this a shoulder stand.)  Keeping your body tight and straight, lower the whole thing slowly to the floor.  You want to look like a slow motion ladder falling, and it feels like you’re in some crazy circus show.  You should definitely be using your partner’s ankles for this.  (Heck, my partner nearly pulls me off my feet.)  I can usually only get in one or two like this before my abs really fatigue, so the modifications are to bend your knees so the lever isn’t as long.  You can also bend at the waist, but this makes it much easier, so try not to do this.  When your tailbone hits the floor, immediately bend your knees and begin the sequence again.

Go for 30-60 seconds and then switch with your partner.  Repeat until totally fatigued, then do one more set.

Day 5

The good news: surprise weigh in today, and I’ve lost 4 lbs!

The bad news: my knee is acting up, so there will be lots of ice and ibuprofen in my future.

There’s been a request for the workout, so here is today’s:

Warm-up: capoeira style.  Lots of active stretching and jumping jacks.  It really gets your heart pumping and is much more athletic than a typical warm-up.

Workout:  In sets: 30 seconds of each exercise, 30 seconds rest, with 60 seconds of rest between sets.  We did 4 or 5 sets today.

1st: Plank: just like you’re used to.  Level 1: fly your arms out one at a time, but don’t let your hips move.  Level 2: push-up position instead of elbows.  Reach one arm out to the front, to the side, and by your hip before replacing it, and then work the other arm.  Level 3: Same as level 2, but put a dumbbell on your lower back.

2nd: Cobra: Lay on your stomach, hands under your shoulders.  Heels together, toes touching the floor.  Engage your lower back to lift yourself off the floor, but do not stick your abs out to do so, rather engage your abs, by sucking in your belly.  Raise your hands off the floor.  Level 1: Reach your arms out to the sides, lock your elbows so you know your arms are straight.  Level 2: Reach your arms out in front, biceps by your ears, thumbs up.

3rd: Reverse crunch: Typical crunch position, but point your toes and tuck your heels close to your butt.  Raise your shoulder blades off the floor.  Look through your knees, squeeze your abs and raise your knees through your elbows until your tailbone is off the floor.  Keep your legs well bent.  Squeeze your abs as you lower your knees to the floor (keep shoulder blades up).  Repeat.  Your abs should burn and cramp.

4th: Double-ended crunch: Like the reverse crunch, only you raise and lower both halves.  Feet and shoulder blades should only tap the floor, so your abs never disengage.

5th: Shuffle overs (2 x 30sec intervals): On an aerobics riser, with yourself and the small end of the riser facing the mirror, place the left foot on the riser, and the right on the floor.  Explode off the left leg, jumping high and to the left, and replacing it with the right leg, so you now have the right foot on the riser, and the left foot on the riser.  The key is the upward motion, not sideways.  Use your arms.  Level 1:  When you land, go deep into the squat, but keep your chest up.  Explode from the squat.  Level 2: Hold hand weights and as you explode up, press them up until arms are fully extended over your head, biceps by your ears.

Cool down with passive stretching.

Cry.

Exercise Tip – Renegade Rows

An advanced version of what I said yesterday.

Pushup position, hands holding weights.  Lower yourself for a full push-up, raise up, and do a row on each arm.

For an even more advanced version, do the push-up with your legs together, and jump them apart for the rows.

Exercise Tip

Most people do rows with a dumbbell and one hand and one knee on the bench.  But try it this way:

Get two dumbbells. (I used 10lbs, shoot for a step lower than you’d normally use.)  Support yourself with them in a pushup position.  If you need to (and I needed to), open your legs for balance.  Now do your rows.  Alternate sides and don’t move your hips.

It seems impossible, but I promise it’s not.  Rather, you feel like superman for being able to do it.  I hate doing abs, and this is a great way to target them without doing an “ab workout.”