There are many ways to get fit. Depending on your goal you can work out what types of workouts you need to do to reach your goal.
Many of us have a goal that is not specific and does cover many aspects such as wanting to get lean and fit and also want to improve for example your half marathon time or improve your mountain biking, but at the same time you don’t have hours to spend running or mountain biking.
A lot of people/clients want to look good and improve their physique, while improving their performance in a specific activity like running or biking or an event such as a triathlon. Most endurance based activities or sporting events are not automatically properly geared to optimise burning fat and/or building a lean physique at the same time. Calories burned doing running and biking comes mostly from glycogen (carbohydrates) stores in the body and not from fat stores which means stomach fat won’t shift much which consequently isn’t great if you want a lean and defined body. Especially long bouts of running and biking break down lean muscle mass, making it even more difficult to reach your goal. Without complicating it, lean muscle is your best source for calorie burning, especially from fat, and it’s essential to shred the excess fat if you want a lean defined body.
Maximise your fat burn, to become leaner and fitter while improving your overall performance for an endurance based sport or event by including high intensity (and interval) resistance training (HIRT) where your body is able to do this will get you to achieve all of your goals. This training is meant to be out of comfort zone (hard) until fatigue and is therefore not suited for all, do not attempt this when your body isn’t ready for it yet (if you're injured or unconditioned).
Please see my video example (on my Facebook page) of a routine that can be included in a HIRT workout.
By including high intensity resistance training (HIRT) to your workout routine, your body improves to develop maximum power, which will improve performance in almost any activity including endurance-based activities. Within weeks your body will prepare itself for HIRT workouts and the body ‘re-programmes’ itself as it wants to keep hold of the lean muscle to cope with the HIRT workouts which is the way your body increases calorie burning from fat. Ensure the intensity is high and adjust resistance to fit your fitness level. I suggest you keep the repetitions between 8 and 12 per exercise with minimum rest between exercises. Perhaps add a 30 second rest after a round or set. You can add time restriction to the routine or simply do 5 or 6 sets but please do not compromise on form. These HIRT workouts don’t need to be long, anything up to half an hour would do. Try it and fit one to three of these HIRT workouts into your weekly fitness routine. If it is too hard then decrease weight or increase rest after each round/set.
Stay Fit For Anything