Guest Blogger

John Gibson:
Hey mixers, I hope those of you who are doing the competition are going strong.

I have been asked to carry on with the series I started a while back. In my last article I talked about
strength trainings role in weight loss.

In that article I mentioned the three things that are important to weight loss:

1. Nutrition
2. Strength Training
3. Cardio (but not what you think)

Those are the three most important parts of a weight loss program, and yes they are listed in order of
importance.

Ok, so let’s talk the cardio side of things. First I need to define a couple things. There are different types
of cardio that you can do. The first is the Long Slow Distance (LSD) running, biking, etc…You put in your
favorite activity.

The second type of cardio is Interval Training. This is any type of training that involves a sprint followed
by relaxation. An example might be sprinting for 20 seconds, then walking for 1 minute, then repeating.

When I have people talk to me about weight loss, I always like to find out what they are currently doing
so I can help them progress from their current thinking and activities, to the activities that will get them
the best results possible.

When these people share their activities, they usually go on telling me about all the miles they’ve been
running. Usually they aren’t lifting any weights, which is the first thing I will fix. Next I work on their
cardio.

Now, because I consider myself somewhat of a scientist, I need to share some research that I read when
I was finishing up my Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology.

There are a couple of very interesting studies that have come out. I think you might be surprised by
what the results were in these studies.

In this particular study one group rode a bike for 90 minutes to 2 hours, probably a lot longer than most
people do their cardio session.

The second group did 25 minutes of interval training. The protocol they followed was 30 second sprints
on the bike with 4 minutes of recovery before they sprinted again.

Another interesting part of the study was that the 90 minutes to 2 hours group did their program for 28
weeks, and the interval group only did 20 weeks. Don’t ask me why they did it that way, it doesn’t make
sense to me.

So the 90 minutes to 2 hours group burned over 26,000 calories in that 28 week period, while the
interval group burned over 13,000 calories in the 20 weeks.

So really quick let’s look at the facts here. The LSD group burned nearly 2 times more calories than the
interval group. So we can determine that the LSD group lost more weight… right?

Not so fast. One thing that I haven’t told you is that the calories they measured where calories burned
during the workout alone. They did not count the calories that were burned after the workout.

So what were the final results… The interval group lost 9 TIMES MORE FAT!.

But how could this be when you look at the amount of calories they burned.

There is a principle called EPOC (Excess Post exercise Oxygen Consumption).

This principle states that higher intensity exercises have a tendency to increase the amount of calories
burned after exercise.

When we look at LSD (not the drug) your metabolism increases over a period of time but quickly returns
back to your baseline as soon as you finish.

But with interval training, your metabolism has been shown to nearly double for up to 48 hours after
exercise.

So when a person tells me they are doing Turbo Jam and that it has been shown to burn 1000 calories
an hour while you’re working out, I could care less. How many calories does it help you burn after the
workout and for the next two days? That is what I care about.

So for real true fat loss you need to start doing interval training.

To get started I recommend you find an activity that you really like. Maybe like cycling or running or
jump rope.

Start out by warming up, which usually means start out at a slow pace and slowly go faster and faster,
until you feel ready for the real work.

When you are ready to rock, start sprinting as hard as you can for 30 seconds. Then recover for about 2-
4 minutes. Then sprint again. Do this as long as you can handle. If you need to lengthen out the recovery
time, go for it. But do this for about 20 minutes or longer if you can.

I hope this helps out. Let me know if you have any questions.

John Gibson is the owner of Do Performance and Fitness. He is a Utah County Personal Trainer that
specializes in getting rapid fat loss results for his clients.

To Schedule an appointment or to find out more about what he has to offer please visit
DoPerformanceAndFitness.com