MANY FITNESS ROUTINES PRACTISED IN IRELAND TODAY ARE OUT-DATED AND LARGELY INEFFECTIVE.  HERE IS ADVICE ON A PROGRAMME DESIGNED TO GIVE YOU THE RESULTS YOU DESERVE.

As a strength coach and personal trainer for the past 13 years, I have witnessed not only the explosion of the Celtic Tiger Ireland but also the rising levels of obesity and expanding waistlines in this country.

During this period of time businesses became more streamlined to deliver products and services faster and more efficiently.  Unfortunately these changes didn’t seem to carry over to the fitness industry.

People continue to train using outdated methods that fail to delver results.  Maybe this is familiar to you :you use the bike, stepper or jog for between 30 and 60 minutes three to five times per week, and have being doing so for several years without seeing any real change in the way your body looks, despite all your hard work.

World-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin (who has coached Olympic medallists in 16 different sports), with whom I’ve done a number of internships, has identified several reasons why aerobic training is counter-productive to fat loss:

• People will adapt to continuous aerobic workout after eight weeks, so anything more is a waste of time.

• Aerobic training increases stress in the cells of your body which leads to undesirable changes in your metabolism.

• Aerobic training reduces your ability to handle stress.  When one does too much continuous aerobic exercise the adrenal glands are upset.  This can subsequently lead to tiredness, insomnia and the inability to lose weight, even after extensive efforts.

• Aerobic training lowers testosterone, the hormone that builds muscle to burn calories and fat, and increasing cortisol, the stress hormone that will eat your fat burning muscle.

So you are left with two options

• Continue to do the same type of training that has consistently failed to deliver results, or:

• You can change your training methods.

If sanity is to prevail the only choice is to change.  So the next question is – what do I do if I want to lose fat?

Continuous aerobic exercise resembles the work done by a Nissan Micra.  A Nissan’s Micra’s engine is small, it doesn’t go very fast, its fuel efficient- learns to go distances without burning much fuel-but it’s not so great to look at.  But if your goal is fat loss, you should do weight training and interval sprints that resemble the work of a Ferrari.

A Ferrari has a bigger engine (more muscle mass), burns lots of fuel, because of its bigger engine, and it’s a car that is envied by many!

Tip of the Week

If you are in the gym longer than one hour you are making friends, not training!  So train hard, train with purpose and train for results.