You Should Be Doing Interval Training (Part 2)

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, start there.  In Part 1, I defined interval training with some quick facts you'll want to know before you start this style of training.  There's also 3 good workouts you can do listed at the end of Part 1!!  If you read Part 1 and tried the workouts, I'm sure you noticed they are not easy, but they should leave you feeling great.  It may take a couple weeks for your body to adapt, but stick with for at least 6 weeks of consistently training and you'll get some amazing results.  You should be doing at least one high intensity interval training session each week.

For our second part, let's talk about how to get the body metabolizing fat.  While there's many personalized benefits and motivations for training, we all do it to look good, feel good, get stronger, and stay healthy.  Most of society is training to lose some weight, or tone up, so let me tell you the best ways to make that happen.  It can get scientific and complicated quickly, so I'll try to keep it basic and helpful here.

The body needs oxygen to burn fat.  This is known as the oxidative system, or aerobic system.  The body has three many energy systems it uses to keep you going, no matter the activity.  If it needs energy quickly it looks to carbohydrates to keep you going.  If it's long duration, it will tap into the fat stores for energy.  This would have you thinking that long runs at a steady pace would burn the most fat.  While that is true, it's not the most efficient and doing those long runs just to accomplish a lean physique is VERY time consuming.  What if you could build strength, burn fat, improve your endurance, and gain more energy all in about 20 minutes of effort (vs. 1-2 hours of steady pace runs).

  

Enter interval training!!!  Interval training is effective because it challenges the mitochondria in the muscle, makes the enzymes and fat burning hormones kick in, and the overall strength building needed to get through the intervals turns your body into a fat burning machine!  During training your body ends up using all the carbohydrate and stored muscle energy during the workout.  This means it needs to replenish those energy stores, so while you are resting and going on about your day, your body is using fat as energy to replenish the muscle glycogen.  In short, carbs get used during the exercise, fat gets burned at rest.  This is the perfect situation for anyone looking to lose weight.  You must train your body which forms of food to store as fat and which ones to burn as energy.  When you eat properly, healthy, and supply your body with enough carbs, this helps promote a lean physique when in combination with interval training.  Carbs are not the enemy, carbs are the solution and absolutely necessary when you do interval training.  So check out Part 1 for 3 great workouts and know that you'll be burning fat while you rest!