We've established that variety is the spice of life. As long as we change up what we do before it gets too easy, we will be able to keep our bodies guessing and adapting, which leads to greater overall fitness and, most likely, weight loss. If anything, you will shed fat and gain muscle that may or may not show up on the bathroom scale. This is good thing, believe me.
HIIT - To up the ante, one of the things you can try to do to really rev up your metabolism is something called cumulative fatique. Basically, it is hitting your body with short and intense bouts of activity followed by brief rest periods then hitting it again before it is able to fully recover. This is popularly known as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Among its many iterations are Tabata, Crossfit, and Metabolic Resistance Training, etc. A very simple example of a routine is 20 seconds of squat (as many as possible) followed by 10 seconds of rest then repeat 8 times.
For more information on similar programs, here is a link to Dan Go's blog. He is a very well-respected trainer in the Toronto-area and is always on the forefront of weight-loss and strengthening programs.
Interval training or fartleks or tempo runs are similar in nature to HIIT. The idea is to push your body to adapt faster than it normally would if you simply sustained the same pace on each run. Running, say, 6 x 1 mile intervals at 10k pace as part of a longer run not only burns more calories, it also increases your Lactate Threshold (running pace that you sustain for about 90 minutes) AND builds strength. All of which means that it will also increase weight loss when performed properly.
Fasted Runs - this is one of my favourite workouts. The idea is to go for a run on an empty stomach. These are usually done in the morning while your body isn't so hungry yet...before breakfast. Overnight, our bodies process the last meal that we eat by firstly filling up our liver and muscles with glycogen. After that, it stores whatever is in excess as fat. As we sleep, our body and brain taps into the liver for fuel and, if necessary, the muscles as well. When you wake up, you're not quite running on full but you'll still have enough fuel to get in a really nice workout.
When you start running, two things happen to your fuel supply and it all depends on how you start. Glycogen is the most available fuel source when you start running as it takes the least amount of energy for your body to process it. Just like money, everything in the body has a price. In the body, the currency is energy. To extract more energy, the body must first use up some energy.
It is a wonderful tool that is used to condition our bodies to run at less than a full tank, which is the norm in marathon racing. Fasted runs are believed to help the body learn to synthesize fat more efficiently as well as simulate the final kilometres of a marathon. During distance (aerobic) running or activity, our bodies have three available fuel supplies in glycogen, lactate, and fat. We know that glycogen is always first to go so by starting with less glycogen, this forces our bodies to tap into our fat supplies. The more fat it uses up, the more energy we have for running and the more weight we lose. Fantastic right? Mostly yes. There are two gotchas that you have to watch out for though.
Fasted runs are very hard on the body. It forces certain adaptations that we may not see or feel as, say, a hard progression run. So keeping fasted runs to one per week is a safe bet that you will be able to recover properly. Here's the other gotcha and it's a biggie.
If you start out too quickly (meaning at a pace that is too fast for your current fitness level), your body will overreact and start eating up its precious glycogen supply too quickly. This leads to two things: one is it creates an imbalance between glycogen and fat synthesis (meaning your fat stores won't be activated until later) and two, a jump in lactate production.
For the longest time, people thought that lactate (lactic acid) is metabolic waste. We now know that it isn't. It is actually another energy source that our bodies tap into....but it needs oxygen for it to be processed. Too much lactate causes pain...a lot of pain. And it will cause you to slow down until you recover. This is why raising your lactate threshold leads to better performance.
What ends up happening is you not only use up your glycogen too quickly, you also introduce pain to your body, and you don't synthesize fat as efficiently thereby cancelling whatever benefit a fasted run gives you. This pretty much explains why going out too fast in a race, which a lot of runners do regardless of experience leads to a miserable run and missing out on a time goal.
Starting out with an easy pace allows our bodies to be more judicious in maintaining the right balance of glycogen and fat synthesis as well as maintain lactate at a manageable rate leading to both enhanced performance and weight loss.
Compound Movements - see the big buff dude in the gym doing biceps curls? How thick are his legs? If they're spindly then he has what we call show muscles. They're not really good for anything other than stretching the fabric of his shirt to its limits. Isolation movements are great for shaping muscles and not much else. Unless you're gunning for the next Mr. Olympia title, compound movements are the meat and potatoes of resistance training. These are the kind of movements that involve several large body parts.
This means squats, lunges, deadlifts, planks, push-ups, chin-ups, bench presses, rows, and more squats. Stick to these movements and you will find yourself burning more calories and gaining strength very quickly. A great program to consider is Eric Cressey's Maximum Strength. You can get his book for 15 bucks or so and it will be one of the best investments you can make for yourself.
Do be careful when performing compound movements as these are tougher on your body and if done improperly may lead to serious injury.
Workout Timing and Frequency
The 80-20 principle is something that has been shown to produce dramatic results in runners. 80 pct of weekly mileage is performed at an easy pace (80 pct heart rate or lower) and 20 pct at a hard pace (90 pct or higher). I believe this principle can be applied to any exercise program.
In terms of workout schedule, the template for the 80-20 is hard-easy-easy; one hard workout followed by two easy.
If you like hitting the weights or maybe going to spinning class, you would do the following sequence for a four day workout week:
- Monday - hard
- Tuesday - easy
- Wed - rest
- Thursday - hard
- Friday - rest
- Saturday - easy
- Sun - rest
The key here is giving your body a chance to rest and recover. It is rest that triggers the adaptation needed for your body to become stronger. If it doesn't get a chance to recover because you keep pounding away one hard session after another, you will end up getting injured. I guarantee it.
Easy sessions are just as important too. You see, no matter how hard you work, our bodies always carry a reserve. It will always make sure that it has enough juice left. Always. It does this by slowing you down through several mechanisms including inducing some pain (lactate, cortisol), increasing respiration (out of breath), or inducing fatigue. Another way it preserves energy is it never fires all of the muscle fibres during activity. It regulates the number of muscle fibres working at one time. The harder you work the more muscle fibres are used.
Easy workouts the day after hits up the muscle fibres that weren't used or as used the day before. These workouts help add to your fitness level and burns extra calories without adding too much punishment to your body.
By timing hard and easy workouts intelligently, you will be able to increase overall fitness and fat-burning than just randomly working out.