Men's Muscle Building Resources

As a personal trainer, I encounter a large percentage of people who want to lose weight and drop some size. For some reason running seems to be the go-to exercise for the general population when they set out on their quest to lose weight and slim down. I’m not sure why going on a weight loss exercise program automatically conjures up images of hours of mind numbing boring cardio but for some reason this is the case. You see it everywhere you go, driving everyday I see people out running (often with terrible form) in an effort to shed the body fat. It makes me want to pull my car over, run up to them and shake them, and give them a big rant about how there’s such better use of your time if fat loss is your number one goal. Now if you like running because you enjoy it, then great for you that is fantastic, run all you want. But if you are running in Balaclava for the wrong reasons the its time to face the facts, if you want to make real changes to your body or bust through that plateau then running not what you should be doing.

For all of you who don’t have the luxury of a personal trainer, let me explain a few things about jogging to lose weight. It is really of no debate that higher intensity energy system training is a superior method for fat loss and body composition improvements than steady state cardio. Now if you have trouble understanding what I just said let me explain, trying harder and putting in more effort for brief periods of time, where you train with higher intensity (think a 100m sprint vs a 10km running pace) followed by an incomplete recovery period, repeated over the course of 20 minutes or so is far more effective and time efficient for people wanting to lose body fat and tone up.
You can get more out of doing a hard 20 minute session of interval training than you could out of a 1 hour jog. I know which one I’d rather do for better results in less time.

Jogging uses your aerobic energy system which allows you to burn x amount of calories over x amount of time, and once you’ve finished jogging, the prolonged increase in metabolism is negligible. When you perform a bout of interval training using your anaerobic energy system, you body undergoes a physiological response which elevates your metabolism and your calorie burning for anywhere between 24 to 48 hours afterward. So compare 1 hours of calorie burning to 24-48 hours of calorie burning and you can see the net effect favours interval training for fat loss.

Not only that but the same jog you were doing 2 months ago, isn’t having the same effect on your body as it is now. If you want to maintain any increase in fitness or drop in body fat then you better make sure you are running further every time you train, so you have to keep running further and further and taking longer and longer to exercise just to get the same effect. Before long you will be running 10kms and getting less out of it than when you started running 5kms.

Another problem is that in this aerobic energy system you are utilising a higher percentage of fat as opposed to stored carbohydrates in fuelling these workouts, whilst this sounds good initially, what it actually means is your body will think it needs a reserve of stored fat to keep up with this endless jogging you have exposed it to, so it will WANT to store body fat to become more efficient. Remember an hour of slightly higher percentage of fat burning compared with 24-48 hours of an elevated metabolism is a no brainer. This is simply an inferior and outdated training method.

If you or your personal trainer are stuck in this mindless jogging rut because that’s all you’ve ever known, then I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is you or your personal trainer has been torturing you silly for very little reward, but the good news is that you can get really great results by changing what you are doing, and you’ll also save time. Now don’t get me wrong, if you have spent the last 10 years sitting on the couch and the only exercise you get is getting up to walk to the fridge then yes you will get results from jogging…you will also get results from walking, but for most weekend warriors who’ve achieved slightly better fitness and are looking to optimise their progress this is the next step to make. Just to keep things simple to start off with and keep you on the running front, instead of going for your same jog around the same route the next time you do it, go to your local football oval and sprint around it as fast as you can, rest for a couple of minutes to catch your breath then repeat 5 times or so to begin with. Odds are you will feel extremely out of breath, light headed, and potentially nauseous, you will get over this feeling.

What you will also get if you keep this up is a much more effective way to lose body fat. Compliment this with regular weight training sessions with a qualified personal trainer to further increase your metabolic rate and maintain your lean muscle and you are set for success. For information about a devising an appropriate weight training program you can’t beat online for some free start up information and if you are a complete beginner then get some advice from a qualified and experienced personal trainer.

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