Burn MORE Fat in LESS Time!

The warm weather is quickly approaching and with this come the thoughts of the new body that you are going to make for yourself to celebrate and the new admirers that you are going to gain at the beach this Summer. When you think about all of this you can literally feel the sand between your toes as you stand there watching Channing Tatum run towards you in slow motion with his arms outreached…and then you remember, it’s time to go to the gym. This would be great except for the fact that you HATE the gym and the only thing worse than the gym is the work to be done once you are there. Does this sound like you? If so, then you have nothing to worry about because it doesn’t have to be that bad and although I can’t promise you Channing Tatum, I can promise you that your dream body IS possible in less time than you think!

The goal to be tackled for you is most likely fat loss, and you will be happy to know that there are quick and efficient ways to accomplish this seemingly impossible goal. Some people love that burning, sweaty feeling of a two hour self-inflicted ass kicking on multiple cardio machines, at the same time, with one hand lifting a weight and the other hand holding a small child above your head with a heart rate monitor telling you that you’re “in the zone”. I assume that this is not you (at least I hope not) so we are going to resort to the more sensible technique of burning MORE calories with LESS time in the gym through the use of Tabatas.

First things first, no Tabatas are not the new Twinkie and they can not be eaten, rather they are a form of high intensity intervals designed to burn calories during your exercise and even MORE calories in the days to follow! How long do these Tabatas last you may ask? The answer to this question is four minutes…yes FOUR minutes and I promise you that they will knock your blubber back a notch and have you ready for your bikini in no time (I mean girls, no guys in bikinis). Although very intense, in my training experiences most all of my clients would agree that this four minutes of fury trumps the long hours of traditional cardio any day and the best part is it can be done in the gym or at home!

The first step is to choose a move or a type of cardio to use, I will use the exercise bike as an example. Make sure that you have your water bottle with you, with water in it of course so that it is readily available to drink or dump on yourself throughout the process. Next, you want to begin pedaling so that the bike will come on and you will then set your resistance to a fair difficulty (5-8 out of 20) since we will be sprinting all out but not fly off of the bike. With your second timer ticking either on your watch or on the bike, wait until you get to an even minute after your warm up (2-3 minutes) for effective timing and SPRINT all out for 20 seconds! After the 20 seconds of sprinting you then completely STOP for 10 seconds before sprinting again for another 20 seconds. You will repeat the sprint / stop rotation eight times for a total of eight all out sprints and eight 10 second breaks. The awesome thing about this Tabata format is that you are sprinting only as fast as you can and not being forced too far beyond what you can do as you would be on a treadmill so it is a safe method. The primary focus is to be sure that you have water, a towel and a soft place to lay after the four minutes is over since the lying around and moaning after usually takes longer than the Tabata itself.

Although it may sound intense it should also sound great to you that you can lose fat and tone up in just four minutes as opposed to the 30-60 minute sessions of cardio you were used to or may have never tried before. Fitness goals are strongly momentum based and the earlier we can gain that momentum in the form of results the better, so the next time you roll to the gym replace your long, boring cardio with a Tabata. You will see results from this intense method of cardio so give it a try by adding it into your workouts just twice a week and watch the fat loss happen! If you have any questions or hate messages from attempting this you can contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or use my New Client tab on my website at jayjohnsonmlp.com to find the MLP Training Option that is best for you!

Jay Johnson is a certified personal trainer, online coach and owner of Muscle Lab Performance in Charlotte, N.C. For information on training rates and more visit jayjohnsonmlp.com or contact Jay directly at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Jay Johnson, Contributing Writer