Choose the right exercise to reach your goals

Following on from my advice last week about choosing the right diet to help achieve your goals, this article is all about doing the correct exercise.

At this time of year especially, many people are looking to lose body fat and to increase fitness levels.

I’m going to show you how to achieve this but, first and foremost, it is important to find exercise that you enjoy. Succeed in this and you are more likely to stick to it long-term. Exercise is for life not just for January and February and those weeks leading up to your summer holiday.

If you don’t exercise at the moment then start by trying to introduce exercise into your life three times a week. I’m not including walking in this. You should be doing something of low intensity every day just to stay healthy.

Here is the best exercise to lose body fat.

High Intensity Interval Training

Regular readers of this column will know that I’ve mentioned HIIT in a number of articles and I make no excuse for mentioning this form of exercise again. It really is amazing for burning fat!

Here are all the benefits:

• It takes only 10-20 minutes– this means that no matter how busy their lifestyle, anyone can fit it in.

• It increases EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) resulting in an elevated fat loss state for up to 24 hours after you finish your workout. Compare this to low intensity exercise which, if you are lucky, may last only up to eight hours.

• Many people do not realise that excessive low intensity exercise can actually increase body fat as it puts a lot of stress on the body. And increased stress means higher cortisol levels – which means increased body fat.

• HIIT training trains the body to effectively remove metabolic waste from the muscles between intervals. By quickly removing lactate and other byproducts resulting from high intensity exercise, you enable the body to be primed and ready for another bout of high intensity exercise with less rest.

• HIIT training is one of several ways to boost both testosterone and growth hormone levels. Since these hormones are highly responsible for muscle gain and fat loss, you should be doing all you can to keep levels high.

To try a 10 minute HIIT workout that can be adapted for all fitness levels go to my Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ljcuerden

Resistance Training:

• There are many benefits to weight training. Firstly it will increase your muscle mass, therefore increase your metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn at rest). If you are a woman, take note: it WILL NOT make you big! You don’t have the hormonal make up for this to happen. Men do but that still takes time and effort as well as the correct diet.

• Other benefits are improved strength and reduced risk of injury, osteoporosis, back pain, arthritis, heart disease and diabetes. Weight training has also been known to fight depression.

• When weight training, the best type of exercises are compound exercises (multi-joint movements) such as squat, deadlift, bench press, pull-ups, Olympic lifting. These movements will quickly increase your strength and also burn huge amounts of calories, not only while you are doing them but also after your workout.

Yoga:

• Yes, yoga. It is an amazing way to lose bodyfat. Why? Because it de-stresses you.

• When doing a yoga class you are unlikely to burn huge amounts of calories as you don’t increase your heart rate high enough for that to happen.

• One of the reasons people can’t lose body fat is because our modern day society sends their stress levels through the roof. Stretching your tired worn out body, resting your mind and relaxing your body will reduce your cortisol levels (the stress hormone in your body) which means your body fat percentage will decrease.

Cardiovascular Training:

• Cardiovascular training will always have a place when it comes to exercise but, if your ultimate goal is fat loss, doing only cv exercise, or too much of it, can have a detrimental effect on your body.

• Doing a form of cv training such as cycling, running, power walking, spinning, aerobics, step that you enjoy once or twice a week will definitely help you to improve your fitness and health as well as releasing those happy hormones called endorphins.

Also, remember how I began this article – stressing that it is important you find a form of exercise that you enjoy. Make that your first goal.

If you can introduce two or three of these training principles into your life then you will be well on the way to a healthier, leaner and fitter body and mind.

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