You can build lean muscle, increase endurance, improve performance, and promote fat loss with brief, intense, & effective workouts.
My clients tell me they want to lose weight and that’s why they try long distance running. I try to tell them that sometimes working out too hard for too long can prevent weight loss and make you hungrier. It doesn’t make sense to work so hard and then come home and eat more calories than the ones you burned!
Brief, Intense workouts are incredible for saving time, getting stronger, and improving performance. I want to spend my time doing things that help me feel young, strong, and healthy! A lot of people spend so much time in the gym doing stressful cardio workouts for as long as they can possibly stay on the cardio machine. Sound familiar? In most cases, this is extremely ineffective for optimal body composition and weight management.
You might need to think about scaling down your long cardio workouts and consider brief, intense, & effective workouts.
- First, let’s stop counting the calories we burn on a piece of cardio equipment. Say this with me: “Burning a ton of calories is not the goal!” Plus, it wasn’t any fun counting them anyways! When you want to achieve optimal health and body composition, the best way to get there is by balancing your hormones!
- When you work out, you produce a variety of hormones that need to be in perfect harmony in order for your body to work optimally. When I say “work optimally”, I am talking about burning fat as fuel instead of sugar! I am also referring to higher energy levels and reduced stress. You can develop lean muscle and enhance fat metabolism when your hormones are in balance.
- Some of the hormones we need to balance are insulin, glucagon, growth hormone, testosterone, and cortisol. When you workout, you produce stress hormones. This is fantastic because they help you with performance and growing lean muscles. But if you workout for too long or without sufficient rest between workouts, you end up producing these stress hormones for too long and your body ends up responding in a way that is not a good return on all the effort and time you put in at the gym. This could make losing weight a struggle. You may actually gain weight!
- Long, stressful workouts without sufficient rest between sessions cause fatigue and burnout from too much stress and not enough recovery. If you are feeling fatigue, getting injured, or noticing a decline in your performance, it’s time to take a step back and assess whether you are working out too much. If you are, you need to scale your workouts down a notch and also give yourself more rest and recovery between workouts.
How about doing a 5 Minute Workout?
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Disclaimer: Please check with your doctor and have it cleared before beginning any new exercise or diet program. I am not a doctor or registered dietician, my blog is opinion based and I do not claim to diagnose, treat, or cure any cause, condition or disease. All information provided is for informational purposes only; it is not medical advice and has not been approved by the FTC or FDA. Please always communicate with your doctor to make any decisions or changes regarding your health, as your doctor is the only one who knows what is right for you.