Fitness Newsletter - May 15, 2009

	Hiperfit featured on NBC's hit show The Biggest Loser as the training team that helped finalist, Wylie lose 129 lbs! More Success Stories

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JHB

The High Performance Fitness Newsletter
Health News You Can Use
HIPERFIT www.hiperfit.com

What We Have Here Is Failure To Communicate

I’ve had this weird feeling lately that I should be tracking down some myth or following up a folklore. Like, maybe, go fishing in Loch Ness… or rendezvous at Roswell… or hang out with Bigfoot. Say, I know—I’ll go after the big stuff! I’ll explore some of the urban legends that pass for wisdom around the gym. Talk about your X-files! Anyway, it’s nearer home, and chances are better I won’t be abducted by aliens.

Put this stuff down under the Another Myth Has Been Shattered category… and queue up the Twilight Zone music.

“I Use Light Weights And High Reps!” Bully for you. But if you think this is helpful, lessee… to burn one pound of bodyfat you’d have to do it 4 hours and 39 minutes! See, the secret of circuit-training is its intensity. Hands down, an intense workout is more desirable than one that is not. But it’s not an aerobic workout, nor can it be. In fact, on the gym floor, you never can have an aerobic workout. That’s because aerobic is defined as raising your heartrate to at least 65% of its maximum rate for 20 consecutive minutes or more. Under this definition, neither tennis, or even basketball, can be defined as aerobic. Besides, that’s why they invented treadmills, right?

Don’t despair. There are ways of using weights to recruit more fast-twitch power muscle fibers that help you burn more calories, ergo, more fat. But you’ve really got to dial it in by lifting heavy and fast, with minimal periods of rest. If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. But if you want to ramp up your fat-burning engine then forget about lifting dainty. Between 3 and 10 reps best elevates your metabolic rate, and keeps it there. Also, perform reps explosively and keep your rest periods short between sets, to less than a minute.

We’re a long way from light weights and high reps, ain’t we Dorothy?

Elaboration & elucidation: Weight-training is defined as anaerobic, that is, “without oxygen.” As such, you can’t use bodyfat for fuel. It becomes instead a pursuit of focus, Zenlike in its mind-to-muscle linkage. Got to get your mind right, boy, to be lifting weights. And because it is anaerobic, your body’s fuel-burning choices are glycogen (blood sugar), or muscle—don’t ever want to use muscle as a source of fuel, because you spend too much time, money and effort in building it, making it denser. Why throw it away as cheap fuel?  Recall our chat on catabolism, which turned out to be a form of self-cannibalism: If you don’t keep your muscles well-fed, you’ll look like a haggard long-distance runner no matter how much you work out. Far better to come to the gym with a protein shake and small piece of fruit under your belt. This way you’ll have plenty of the kind of fuel for powering intense workouts—which should always be your aim.

“I Don’t Want To Get Big!” Ah, yes. The old ‘bulking up’ canard. As if. Look, I do want to get big. Fact is, I want to get so big I can knock people down on the sidewalk and get away with it. (I’m nice, but I have issues.) Anyway, I’ve been trying to “get big” for 20 years, and anybody’ll tell you I’m anything but (you can call me lean and I won’t mind!). Truth is, only by overtaxing your muscles with increasing poundages of weight makes them respond by getting leaner, longer, tighter. But nobody leaves the gym looking like Arnold.

Women sometimes avoid weight-lifting with endless rationalizations. But they especially benefit from the gains in strength and confidence, reduction of injury, better bone density and propensity to ward off Type II diabetes that weight-lifting brings. All this, plus fat loss and a sleeker look!

“I Do My Cardio First!” Well, hell. You got it exactly backwards. Many folks head to the gym and do 20 minutes on the treadmill before they start their workout. Here’s why that’s all topsy-turvy: First, they jumped off the treadmill just when they started getting into bodyfat. It’s a scientific fact that your body squirrels away less than a half hour supply of glycogen in your muscles, brain and liver. You can look it up. If you’re doing cardio, then it shifts over to burning fat (remember that aerobic means “with oxygen,” which means it’s burning the fat). That’s why aerobics classes the world over are 45 minutes long; the first 20 minutes are for burning off the blood sugar, the rest are for burning the fat. So our Joe or Joette Average, who just hopped off to do weight-training really only burned through their glycogen stores—the very stuff that powers workouts—and, now <pfffft> it’s all gone! All they have left for fuel is fat or muscle, and—repeat this with me—weight lifting is anaerobic and fat is not used for fuel. Which leaves only muscle, which means catabolism, which means, well, you oughtta know by now... And as lifting weights burns off all the blood sugar, when you get on the treadmill you’ll go straight into fat-burning mode and need only an intense half hour, but—
45 minutes is always preferable, especially if done solo!

”I Want To Lose Fat Here!” I hate to be the one to break it to you, but—ready?—you can’t spot educe. You really can’t do 1,000 sit ups and hope your belly will be going away (and all those ab-this and ab-that thingums won’t do diddly, either, if you’re not doing cardio), or lie on the mat and do scissor-kicks and leglifts by the hour to get rid of those saddlebags. Fat comes off the body in equal proportions, and where you want to lose it most is where you’re going to lose it last. Same thing with tightening up your muscles. You can’t just “tone this up.” The body doesn’t work in isolation, but synchronicity. You can emphasize certain areas, but for a balanced, symmetrical look exercise all your muscle groups hard at least once a week.

“I Can’t Eat All That Food!” When I tell people to eat 5, 6, even 7 meals a day they stare in disbelief. “I’ll get huge!”, they say. Uh, no. What you’ll get is lean. As we discussed elsewhere, eating equal-size meals every three hours throughout the day is the most effective way of keeping your metabolism stoked for burning calories. Remember, diet is the cornerstone by far of any fat-loss or muscle-gain program.

At HIPERFIT we already know all this stuff, so you don’t have to waste your valuable time finding it out. Call (305) 674-9899, and take advantage of our free assessment. Tell us your goals, and we’ll show how we can help get you from here to there fast. Master our system of hard work and accountability in a fun environment, and reap the rewards of a tighter, toner body.

Questions or comments, email here or call (305) 674-9899.

The And Now For Something Completely Different Department
Would you like some free sessions or a complimentary spinning class? Here’s how you can get them. Just send your friends or family by our training center at 465 41 Street and have them say you referred them. That’s it! They get 3 absolutely free half-hour personal training sessions with a qualified trainer, or a complimentary spinning class. (Of course, they get to refer you for the same deal.) Whenever your referral signs a HIPERFIT personal-training package you get 2 free sessions.

BTW We don’t call our clients ‘members’—there are no membership fees—but HIPERFITsters. It’s easy to become one! Just forward this email to your friends, and make sure they mention your name.

Yours in health.
Jeffrey

Next issue: “SECRET SUPPLEMENTS!”