I see this almost everyday that I walk the around the streets of Dublin. “Speed Limpers”, as I once heard Mike Boyle quote Diane Lee. What is a “Speed Limper” you may ask? Well like me, you also see them everyday. You might even be one yourself!
“Speed Limpers” are the people you see out jogging on the streets, in hope that this will help them to lose weight. If only they knew that there is far more superior ways to attain the healthy looking bodies that they want, without ending up with some sort of orthopaedic problem (i.e. knee pain, back pain, etc). Lets stops this Madness!
If you want to change your physique and improve your health, take heed of the following advice:
1. Clean up your nutrition:
You will never, and I mean never, work off a poor diet! Everyones biochemistry is different, so there is no one size fits all nutrition plan. But if I had a gun to my head I would tell everyone:
- Eat more regularly. Try to eat every 2-4 hours. Starving yourself will only lead to your metabolism slowing down, your starvation hormone Leptin will be suppressed, which leads to your body storing fat, NOT losing it, as a protective mechanism. This can also lead to a suppressed immune system.
- Eat more Protein. Try to eat a protein source at every meal (e.g. eggs, chicken, fish, lean grass feed meat, turkey). Stay away from deli meats. They are full of chemicals.
- Eat more Fruit and Vegetables. Pretty self explanatory. Try to eat a fruit or veg at each feeding. They are full of excellent vitamins and minerals.
- Eat more Fat! Thats right, eat more fat. Healthy fats are an important part of your diet. Examples: Olive oil, variety of nuts, avacados. Even the sataruted fat in grass feed meat has been shown to be a healthly fat to have in the diet.
- Decrease the intake of sugars, and other starchy carbs. If you have a sweet tooth, have these foods, straight after some high intensity exercise. Try not to eat these foods late at night as your insulin sensitivity is decreased.
- Drink more water. Stay away from drinks that have calories! Also stay away from 0% calorie drinks, they are still full of chemicals.
With your nutrition just try to eat as much nutrient dense food as possible (lean protein sources, fruit, and veg) . If something has more than 4 ingredients or ingredients that you can’t pronounce, don’t eat it.
Stick to these rules 90% of the time, and you will be doing a lot to improve your health and physique.
2. Start Strength Training:
If you want to change your physique, strength training will be an essential piece of the puzzle. A total body workout is a far superior way to burn calories and to get leaner than to go for a run around the block! Don’t forget that fat burns in muscle.
And for any women out there who are afraid of getting big and bulky, all I will say is “give me a break”. Stop patronising yourself with your pink dumbbells, and lift some real weight. You don’t not have the biochemical make up to get big and bulky. What will happen is you will get leaner, and stronger. Just look at most drug-free female athletes. They all have awesome lean physiques, and they all lift heavy shit!
A properly designed Strength Program, with the proper progressions in place, that covers all aspects of Strength Training from soft tissue quality, mobility, stability, speed, power, strength, and conditioning, will go a hell of a long way to achieving your desired goals.
It amazes me that people have no problem spending money to go see the doctor when they are sick, but won’t spend money on things that would have stopped them from becoming sick in the first place. Things like their nutrition (that was outlined above), or a gym memebership.
Just be clear on one thing. Getting sick is NOT normal.
So Strength Training helps to improve the following:
Strength
Power
Posture
Body composition (Body Fat%)
Injury Reduction
Immune function
Metabolism
Bone density
Longevity of your body
Self confidence, and self esteem
So do it. And if you don’t want to pay for gym membership, bodyweight exercises will still go a hell of a long way to improving your health and movement. Throw in a kettlebell, and you're laughing.
Better still go the playground, and knock out some bodyweight stuff there (i.e. chin up variations, push up variations, split squats, squat jumps, lunges, etc).
Just get activate!
3. Do intervals instead of Long Slow Distance (LSD) running:
Interval Training has been proving time and time again over the past few years to be far superior to LSD in terms of body fat changes. Why is this?
The experts reckon it is to do with EPOC (Excess Post – Exercise Oxygen Consumption). What EPOC basically means it that after your training session has ended, your metabolism is still elevated and is burning calories even when you have stop exercising!!
You do not get this EPOC effect from LSD, as your metabolism returns to resting levels relatively fast after ceasing exercise.
Examples of intervals (on a bike):
Sprint 30secs/ Rest 60secs x10
Sprint 15secs/ Rest 45secs x10
Sprint 15secs/ Rest 30secs x10
For very fit:
Sprint 15secs/ Rest 15secs x10
You can do just about about style of training as an interval:
Bodyweight Interval x4:
Push Ups 30secs on/ 30secs off
Burpees 30secs on/ 30secs off
Inverted Rows 30ses on/ 30secs off
Sqaut Jumps 30secs on/ 30secs off
Interval training is also far more efficient. You will burn far more calories from 15mins of intervals then 45mins of LSD. Again this is also to do with the EPOC effect.
So there are just some ways to improving your Fat lose efforts, and to improve your health.
Until next time,
Stay Strong,
RB
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