Monday, April 23, 2012

METABOLIC TRAINING WHAT IS IT


What is Metabolic Training?

The short definition of metabolic training is completing structural and compound exercises with little rest in between exercises in an effort to maximize calorie burn and increase metabolic rate during and after the workout.

FYI, your metabolism (aka metabolic rate) is how many calories your body burns at rest. For more on calorie burn, check out How to Calculate Your Calorie Burn.

So that’s the short definition, but here’s a deeper look at metabolic training:

1) Metabolic Training Uses Large Muscle Groups

“Structural and compound exercises” are types of exercises that require a maximum amount of energy because multiple joints are involved like a Squat with a Press. Sitting down and doing a biceps curl is like the exact opposite of hard core metabolic training.

A metabolic training purist may tell you almost all exercises should be structural, which means the spine is loaded and the legs are engaged to some degree during the exercise. I think you can still make a workout metabolic without engaging the legs every exercise as long as the weight lifted is heavy enough, or the intensity of the exercise is very high. For example, doing a bench press then a chin up back to back can be quite metabolically intense.

2) Metabolic Training is High Intensity

Metabolic training is high intensity anaerobic exercise that makes you breathless. If you are completing a metabolic workout and you are not breathing hard and sweating, something is wrong. Ideally you should be lifting as heavy as you can and resting as little as possible between sets.

The downside in my mind of some metabolic training is that it can be so intense so that your lips turn white and you want to puke. Personally, I like workouts that are tough, but not so tough that I never want to work out again. From a 1 to 10 scale, the workouts that I do and those I designed for Princeton BootCamps are around 5 to 8 in terms of their metabolic intensity. If you are doing very metabolic workouts all the time, your body may not be able to recover properly.

The extreme of metabolic training is CrossFit, where a few intense exercises will be repeated in a circuit with little to no rest to push the body to its absolute limit. This training is usually reserved for seasoned athletes and the military, but more recently has been taken up by average fitness enthusiasts for better, or worse.

3) Metabolic Training Makes You Feel The Burn

A metabolic workout should help create a burning sensation in your muscles as you are working out. So by your last rep of a given exercise, you should be feeling a burn in your muscles. While the depth of the muscle stimulation from metabolic training is not as deep as a bodybuilding program where you hit one muscle the entire workout, it’s still significant.

It’s not clear exactly what causes muscle burn (the old theory of lactic acid build up has since been debunked . We do know that with an increase in muscle burn comes a favorable hormonal response to help the body burn fat and/or build muscle. I’m a big believer in working muscles intensely and going for that muscle burn.

Metabolic Training Benefits

Below are just a few of the benefits of a metabolic style of training:

Metabolic Training Benefit #1: Improved cardiovascular capacity

While metabolic training is not “aerobic” like going for a jog, some studies have shown anaerobic exercise such as HIIT can increase in V02 max beyond that experienced by exercisers following an aerobic program.

Metabolic Training Benefit #2: Improved hormonal profile

Several studies have shown that hormones that promote “lipolysis” (the technical term for fat loss) increase as a results of high intensity strength training. I don’t want to bore you with all the studies, but strength training in general has been shown to help improve hormonal profile, and metabolic training is debatably the best type of strength training to elicit the most powerful hormonal response.

Metabolic Training Benefit #3: Serious calorie burn

While calorie burn studies come to different conclusions as to the total calorie burn of metabolic training, it certainly burns a ton of calories. The calorie burn during a workout is easily around 500 calories for a 30 minute workout, but it also increases metabolic rate from anywhere between 10% to 25% for up to 48 hours, with some studies showing an increase in metabolic rate for up to even 72 hours. This equates to hundreds of extra calories, which over the course of a few workouts can become significant.

Intuitively I think the “afterburn effect” as it’s called makes sense, because you are shocking your body, creating an oxygen debt (i.e. excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), and causing muscle damage (in a good way), which the body needs to repair to become fitter and stronger. This extra repair to get your body back to homeostasis requires a lot of extra energy, it’s just difficult for researchers to measure perfectly, especially after exercise. From my practical experience, the metabolic effect of intense strength training is real and it’s powerful.

Example Metabolic Training Exercises

Here are just a few examples of what would be considered “metabolic exercises”.

·  Hang Clean & Press

·  Push Press

·  Snatch

·  Squats

·  Jump Squats holding dumbbells

·  Jump Lunges holding dumbbells

·  Deadlift

I think making your workout more metabolic is worth a try and I find simply categorizing a workout based on its metabolic intensity can be useful.

Hope this was helpfUL
WANT MORE INFO ON HOW THIS TYPE OF WORKOUT WILL GET YOU IN THE BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE.   GO TO WWW.Princetonbootcamps.com and register for the the bootcamp and be amazed what this type of workout will do for you.  See you in Camp.
Dave
www.Princetonbootcamps.com
princetonbootcamps@yahoo.com
888-402-2267

health and wellness,diet and exercise,fitness bootcamp,personal training, cardio fitness,strength training.

Monday, April 16, 2012

WEIGHT REDUCTION STALLED, HERE IS WHY

WHY CANT I LOSE WEIGHT?

If you can't lose weight, there are specific reasons for this that you have more control over than you think.

You're not strength training. Often, people who can't lose weight don't do any strength training. The more lean, sleek muscle you have, the faster your resting metabolism, because muscle is the body's most metabolically active tissue.

You're not exercising in a waythat forces the body to adapt. The adaptive response requires energy; it raises your body's energy needs. The body will then dig into stored fat for this energy.

If you've been strength training and the weight hasn't been coming off, it's because you're not doing much more than merely going through the motions.

There's the story of a heavy-set woman who was doing lat pull-downs with 70 pounds. A trainer waltzed over, knelt beside her, said "Hi" with a smile, then moved the machine's pin to the 100 pound mark.

The woman's mouth fell open, but the trainer said, "You're going to do 100 pounds for your next set, and eight times."

"I can't do 100 pounds!"

"Oh yes you can. Trust me. You're going to complete eight reps."

The woman said her goal was to lose weight, but nothing was happening despite regular workouts. She began pulling down the bar, and it wasn't easy. She had to fight her way to the eighth rep, but she completed eight full repetitions.

The trainer said, "Now that's the way every set should feel. Apply this effort level to all of your sets for every exercise. You won't lose weight if you keep doing something your body is efficient at. You must do something that forces you to struggle. Struggling begets weight loss."

A month later the woman reported having dropped an entire dress size.

Moral of this true story: Exercises that require struggling will burn fat and cause weight loss, especially when coupled with sensible eating.

You eat mindlessly. Every little sample and nugget counts. One tablespoon of gravy is 100 calories. A "little bit here and there" adds up. Avoid eating due to cues not related to sustenance, such as watching TV.

You drink diet sodas. Artificial sweeteners often trigger hunger.

Too many processed foods. These trigger hunger, and too much white sugar and high fructose corn syrup will get stored as fat.

You skip breakfast. Breakfast, even if it's only a cup of yogurt, tends to tame later-day appetite. Skipping it can make you feel entitled to overeat later on.

You don't do cardio. It's amazing how many people, who don't do cardio, wonder why they can't lose weight. Taking care of two preschoolers or pulling weeds does not replace structured cardiovascular exercise.

You hold onto the treadmill.This has got to be one of the most weight-loss-sabotaging habits out there. The body has absolutely no reason to burn more fat in response to make-believe walking.

Instead, pump the arms and get winded to force your body to adapt. Remember, the body won't adapt to something that it's very efficient at doing (e.g., walking while holding onto something for support).

You don't do HIIT: highintensity interval training. This form of cardio blasts fat.

Inconsistent exercise habits.Weight loss won't go hard and deep if your workouts are not consistent. Even if you're doing everything right in the gym, consistency is still very important.

Poor sleeping habits. Research shows that under six hours of sleep and over nine are strongly linked to excess body fat.

Too much daytime napping.Excessive inertia means a slowed metabolism to accommodate it.

Before you blame your parents and grandparents for having "the wrong genes," review your lifestyle habits to find out what can be modified to promote fat loss. For more details on changes you can make to boost weight loss, call us today.

There you have it! Enjoy your week!

Stay fit,Stay happy
David Knapp NCSF-MCPT,CNS
888-402-2267

diet and exercise,Health and wellness, HIT Training,Fitness boot camp,Cardio intervals.