Exercise: Great Results From Strength Training Without Weights

Exercise: Great Results From Strength Training Without Weights

While the owners of gym memberships and expensive in home exercise equipment would have the entire world believing otherwise, it is absolutely possible to burn body fat and build a lean and healthy body without a single piece of equipment or weights.

You read that right; you do not need an expensive gym membership or costly home exercise equipment to completely transform your body in the shortest period of time possible.

Strength training without weights provides many opportunities that gym memberships cannot: you will save time and money from not purchasing expensive gym memberships, or spending time driving to and from the gym.

Furthermore, bodyweight exercises are safer and easier to perform, but give you benefits machines and weights cannot.

For instance, you will greatly improve your strength-to-mass ratio by using bodyweight workouts. People will greater strength-to-mass ratios generally have a more lean and athletic appearance. Not only that, but they have much more "functional" bodies and capabilities compared to people who use machines.

However, if you want to get the best results in the least amount of time by strength training without weights, you absolutely must choose the best exercises.

EXERCISES:

Always choose the most effective exercises. Don't waste valuable time doing exercises that don't incorporate use of the largest amount of muscle mass.

Some of these exercises are:

Lower Body Exercises:
• Squats
• Bulgarian split squats
• Lunges
• One leg Romanian dead lifts
• One Leg Squats
• Step Ups

Upper Body Exercises:
• Dips
• Handstand Push-Ups
• Push-Up (and all variations)
• Pull-Ups (and all variations)
• Inverted Rows
• Chin-Ups (and all variations)

Core Exercises:
• Side Planks
• Hanging knee raises
• Reverse Crunches
• Planks

Total Body Exercises:
• Jumping Jacks
• Burpees
• Sprints
• Squat Thrusts

How to Set Up Your Workout:

• Choose one exercise from the lower body group, two from the upper body group (a push and a pull movement), one from the core group, and one from the total body group.
• Get the most out of each exercise by using perfect form and performing full reps. For example, is you choose squats, make sure you squat down until the top of your thighs are parallel with the ground. If you don't go down at least that far, you are not doing the exercise properly and won't get the best results.
• Alternate these two techniques:

1) Perform the reps as fast as possible while maintaining control and perfect form.

2) Perform the reps slow and controlled.

This will provide variety and a different training stimulus.
• To further increase intensity, try to keep the rest periods to a minimum, only resting as needed. Over time, try to decrease your rest periods.
• Always remember: correct form will yield more results than carelessly performed exercises.

SAMPLE EXERCISE CIRCUIT:

• Bulgarian Split Squats: 12-15 each leg
• Decline Push-ups: 10-20 reps
• Inverted Rows: 10-20 reps
• Side Plank: 20 seconds each side
• Burpees: 10

Apply the tips from the section above. For example, the first time through this circuit, perform the reps as fast as possible while maintaining control and perfect form. The second time through, perform the reps very slow and controlled.

Try to keep the rest periods to a minimum to keep the intensity elevated. Rest as you need to, but over time try to decrease your rest breaks.

Furthermore, you can perform the circuits one of two ways:

1) Perform as many circuits as possible in 10-20 minutes
2) Perform a total of three to six circuits

THREE IMPORTANT TIPS FOR LONG TERM SUCCESS:

1) Decrease the length of breaks between circuits each time you exercise.
2) Increase the number of circuits whenever possible.
3) Increase the number of repetitions for each exercise when possible.
4) Use more challenging exercises. Examples: clap push-ups, one leg squats, jump squats, chin-ups, etc.

That sample circuit workout will help you burn off body fat, build lean muscle, and improve your physique better than most traditional gym workouts.

Best of all, you are going to save time and money in the process.

It doesn't get better than that: more results in less time.

Exercise intelligently, you will get results!

Exercise intelligently, you will get results!

People often go about exercise haphazardly, assuming just doing it is enough to achieve results. Wrong! Exercise intelligently, and you will get results.

Far too often, I see people having conversations on their cell phone or reading during their workout. Then there are those who insist on jogging for hours on end or churning their elliptical into the ground for 90 minutes.

Trust me, if you can hop on an elliptical for 90 minutes, you can't be working that hard! If you want serious results, you have got to be serious about your exercise.

A very smart person once said you can work hard, and you can work long, but you cannot do both. This is SO applicable when it comes to exercise, and the truth is, hard work beats prolonged work every time.

In kinesiology, long-duration cardio is termed steady-state exercise. Typically, steady-state exercise is of a low intensity and is always below an individual's VO2max, or the capacity of the body to get oxygen to working muscles for exercise.

Once exercise surpasses your VO2max, the exercise becomes anaerobic. Anaerobic exercise is paramount to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, also known as "EPOC".

This phenomenon is the "oxygen uptake above resting values used to restore the body to the pre-exercise condition" (Baechle and Earle 35).

Why is this important? EPOC is a critical factor in burning calories after you're done exercising. That's right, you can burn calories for up to 24 to 48 hours after exercise, when you're relaxing! That's huge, and any exercise that's anaerobic creates EPOC.

How do you know if an exercise is anaerobic? Well, generally if you cannot maintain your current intensity after 90 seconds with an exercise, it is anaerobic. The oxidative system takes over after 90 seconds, and the exercise becomes aerobic.

The best way to include an anaerobic portion to your cardio bouts is through interval training. Put simply, intervals are bouts of high-intensity exercise interspersed with lower intensity periods. Intervals can be done with several ratios.

As a general rule, the shorter and more intense your high-intensity bout is, the longer your low-intensity period should be, relatively speaking.

For example, if you want to do 10-second sprints, your low-intensity periods should be at least a minute, or a 1:6 ratio.

If you want to run at a fast pace for 2 minutes, then typically you can then slow down to a fast walk or jog for 2 minutes.

This ratio, of course, is 1:1. The rest periods will allow your body to recover for the next high-intensity bout.

Intervals will mobilize fat stores more efficiently than steady-state exercise. This is because high-intensity exercise will rapidly deplete your glycogen stores (the storage form of carbs in your liver and muscles). Once you deplete your glycogen levels, your body uses fat for energy.

A sample protocol would look like this:

2-3 days/week
20-25 minutes total

1 minute fast (RPE = 7-9) : 2 minutes slow (RPE = 3-5)

RPE is the Rate of Perceived Exertion, using a 1-10 scale. Ten would be impossible, and one is way too easy.

Intervals are intense, so doing them without at least a base of steady-state cardio for six to eight weeks is ill advised. Also, you shouldn't need more than 25 or 30 minutes to complete an interval session; sometimes less will suffice.

Doing more than three days a week for 30 minutes can lead to overreaching and overuse injuries. When it comes to very short high-intensity training like 10 and 20-second sprints, use caution. These intervals are very intense and can lead to extreme fatigue the next day. Build up slowly.

The treadmill and bike as well as outside running are the best choices for interval training. Switch it up often to prevent over-training and boredom. If you're feeling extra tired one week, listen to your body and back off the intervals. A good rule of thumb is to do two interval sessions per week mixed with one steady-state session.

Next time you want to go for a run, remember this: steady-state, low-intensity exercise only burns calories during exercise.

The advantages of doing intervals are clear. Even though they may burn fewer calories during the actual exercise, in the end they will burn more calories through EPOC.

The harder you work, the more EPOC you create. Intervals take less time than steady-state sessions. They mobilize body fat by depleting glycogen stores. As if that wasn't enough, intervals will increase your VO2max and therefore your overall fitness level.

You get out what you put in, and the hard work is clearly worth it!

References
Baechle, T., & Earle, T. (2008). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Exercise: Interval Training Fitness

Exercise: Interval Training Fitness

When it comes to exercise, the word 'intervals' puts fear in many peoples minds.
Intervals are sometimes misunderstood but adding them to your exercise program can help you burn fat and get in shape quicker.

Intervals are not for everyone. To begin performing intervals, you should be in good condition and a physical from your doctor is highly recommended.

What are intervals?

The easiest definition would be periods of high intensity exercise followed by recovery periods of low intensity exercise.

Here's an example. You are following a walking program and have been walking briskly for thirty minutes a day, four days a week. You feel pretty good but would like to lose weight a little quicker.

Intervals might be perfect for you. Begin your regular walking program and, after five minutes, jog for ten, twenty, thirty seconds or more. Your heart rate will begin to increase and your breathing will pick up after this period, return to walking briskly until you have completely recovered. You then begin to jog again.

In the beginning you may only want to perform two or three of these short jogs. That's fine. Do what's comfortable for you. Later, as you become more accustomed to this routine, you can add more jogs or increase the length of time you jog or both.

During each period of jogging, your heart rate has increased. When you stop jogging and continue walking, your heart rate will be at an increased rate for a minute or so. This is an added benefit. During aerobic exercise you want your heart rate to increase, which makes it stronger and makes you healthier.

Intervals work great on a treadmill. You can increase the speed for however long you want, or you can increase the height, so you are walking at the same pace only going uphill.

This is interval training at a low level but you still get benefits from it. You can follow a similar routine in your other aerobic exercise as well.

For instance, if you are riding a bike for exercise, every so often pedal faster until you begin breathing heavier, and then return to riding as before.

You can see that interval training is not only for athletes. It's one of the fastest and most effective means of reaching a top level of fitness and decreasing body fat.

Do these three or four days a week and watch your fitness level go up while your pounds begin to disappear.