Hi guys, Kris from Custom Fitness here, your Amarillo personal trainer. Today we’re going to be talking about how you should quit wasting your time with exercise. If you have any questions about today’s blog, then please give us a call at (806)-322-3188
You read that right, folks, I want you to quit wasting your time with exercise. Sounds kind of crazy coming from me right?
There is a difference between getting hot and sweaty and feeling sore, and actually making differences in your body.
So a lot of times when you are going in the gym you look around and see people that have been on the same treadmill for the same amount of time going the same intensity and a year down the road they still haven’t made any changes.
Maybe you have been going to a class and you see these people that have been absolutely killing it in class. They go all of the time, multiple times a day and they still haven’t changed one bit.
I’m going to tell you as a personal trainer in Amarillo that you can’t expect the body to changes when you aren’t providing it with the right simulus.
So if you are going to the gym to do the same old thing; talk to your friends, try out the sauna, get back on the same machine that you have been using for a year and reading your ebook, then you might just be wasting your time and your money. So while gyms don’t charge that much to rent their machines, you are still wasting money and time is something that you can’t get back.
So if you are truly ready to make changes to your body, then it is time to make some changes to the exercises that you are doing.
Today I have four great tips for what you can do to change up what you are doing to make it more beneficial to you.
So a time waster would be to do something like crunches. Isolating your abs and only doing crunches on the floor is not going to get you that sixpack.
A time gain, to where you could reach your goals faster, is to do something like standing core work. That is where you work the entire core; front back and sides, and the biggest part of that is your nutrition.
The abs are made in the kitchen, and if you aren’t eating well, then you are never going to be able to get that stomach looking to the way that you want it to. So you want to start in the kitchen, eating well and providing your body with multiple opportunities during your workout to get that core to react.
So what would be a standing core exercise? Well, you can do what is called a kettlebell windmill.
You start off with your feet out wide, and toes turned out. Hold the weight overhead and use your other arm to reach straight down the leg towards the floor and then come right back up.
Basically what you are looking for in a standing core exercise is anything where you have a load that the core is having to hold you for. And remember that the core isn’t just your abdominals, it’s the entire torso and it wraps all the way around.
For my second tip, you want to make sure that you don’t waste your time with isolation exercises whenever you are looking to burn fat.
You want to be doing multi joint, multi function exercises. That is things like a squat, to an arm curl, to a shoulder press. The more joints that you use, the more calories you are going to burn, and the better body transformation you are going to get. So you want to make sure that you have all of that in play.
So the next time waster is taking too long of breaks. People will start to really stretch out their breaks to the point where they feel too rested in between exercises. You might feel stronger now that your weight doesn’t feel as heavy after that two minute break, but the whole point of muscle tone is to give that muscle a chance to fatigue.
So instead of taking these long breaks, you want to be shortening those breaks. You could do that by doing interval training or supersets.
Intervals would be something like 30 seconds on and ten seconds off. Or you could be doing a strength training exercise and then a cardio training exercise and alternate through.
A superset would be where you work opposing muscle groups. So maybe a chest press followed by a row, and you could do those back to back without a break.
So you want to be working on taking out those breaks, or really trying to minimize them if you still are doing those breaks.
For our fourth time waster, it’s that low intensity, long endurance cardio.
I don’t want to upset any runners out there, but a lot of people run and don’t lose the weight that they end up wanting to lose, or a lot of people run and they don’t end up changing their body the way that they want to. And a lot of the reason for this is that long endurance cardio doesn’t help you to burn fat but to burn muscle. So you are actually losing muscle mass and storing fat during that process.
And the lower intensity is not going to do much for you. So walking is great, but that shouldn’t be your only exercise. It’s great for a rest day, but if you want a workout then you need that heartrate up.
One of the things that you could do instead is sprint training. I know that it sounds scary, but I promise it’s not. It’s something that you can do with pretty much anything. It goes along with that interval idea; you go slow for a little while and then speed up for a little while. Only in this case, you would go slow for about three minutes and then speed it up to about ten to fifteen seconds. So you would be giving your all for those few seconds and then go into that rest phase. That rest phase should be to the point to where you can talk, be to to where you can sing. If you can sing then you are going too slow.
So if you can put those four steps into play, then you are really going to start seeing and feeling those changes.
So, if you are wanting the accountability and help with creating an action plan to see results, or are wanting to someone to help create a workout plan to push you to your greatest potential, then that’s what we’re here for. What we do is work with our clients not just on fitness, but also nutrition. We will ensure that you are supported throughout every aspect of your health and wellness journey, and that includes making those eating changes. We have an entire team of dedicated professionals to help you with your health and fitness goals. To get your consultation set up, give us a call at 806-322-3188 or email us at info@customfitness.biz At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR personal trainers in Amarillo, Texas. Have a great day.