Get F.I.T.T. for Summer

One of the more popular questions that many of my personal training clients ask me about is how to decrease body fat to not only increase their appearance and self esteem, but also to increase their athletic performance.

Anyone who has a family history of body fat related disease or illness really needs to be mindful of their diet and exercise program. Weight training is the best way to increase your metabolism due to the fact that the more muscle that your body has, the higher your metabolism will be. Diet is the easily the most important part of the body transformation process. Diet has proven to be 60%-70% of the process of changing your body, not to mention anything about your health related concerns. But how about cardiovascular exercise (aka cardio)? How much? How often? How long? What is the most effective? The human body is a very tricky thing sometimes and it does not always like to lose body fat. As a matter of fact, your body will try to hold onto as much fat as possible for survival purposes. Your body would rather sacrifice muscle (which is protein = 4 calories per gram) than burn fat (fat = 9 calories per gram) due to the fact that your body does not know when it will be fed again (which is the primary reason that we are supposed to eat small meals every 3 hours). When doing cardio, you must be sure that you are doing "smart cardio" due to the fact that your body quickly adapts to cardio based workouts. The more you do the same routine, the more efficient your body becomes, causing you to burn fewer calories from your fat stores each time you exercise. Most people make their cardio sessions longer which increases the likelihood that your body is breaking down muscle rather than fat. The most effective cardio programs are designed around the FITT Principles: Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type. Frequency refers to the number of times cardio is performed each week. No less than three days per week with no more than two days between workouts is ideal. Intensity is described as the speed and/or the workload of the workout. It is important to continually monitor the intensity level of the workout to ensure that you reach your fitness goals in the least amount of time. Time is the length of time an exercise is performed, not including a warm up or cool down. It is recommended to do no less than 20 minutes and no more than 60 minutes per session for optimal fat loss. Remember, more is not necessarily better. Type refers to the activity used to create a stimulus. Example, treadmill, stair master, fitness boxing, etc... Any activity that continuously uses larger muscle groups and is repetitive is best.

So in closing, let's all make the summer of 2013 our hottest, happiest, and healthiest summer ever! Keep lean and tight now because not only will you be healthier, your performance will increase as well. If anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to call or email me at anytime. Thirty days from now you will be happy that you did. Have a great day and be extra good to your body today. Craig Chapin