Yo Pack, I wanted your thoughts on a good fat loss
program for Suria. She wants to “tighten up” for the
wedding and would love to hear your thoughts. I have
her doing mostly HIT training with some heavy stuff
worked in and a variation of aerobic routines on days
off- yes, sprints too! What do you think?
Peace, MP
Coach Pack’s Reply:
Teach her how to perform barbell complexes. Do you
remember the one that you did here in Miami with me?
If you need a visual theres a client of mine on my
website thats doing one. I think these are the most
effecient and effective tools for fatloss. Also I love
intervals! Especially ones performed in a ladder
sequence, 1-10. Pick like 4 exercises, a
push(push-up), a pull(seated row), a leg
movement(squat,dead or kettle bell swing or snatch pull) and a cardio movement like
burpies or squat thrusts.
First round perform 1 rep of all 4 exercises
Round 2: 2reps of all 4 exercises
Round 3: 3 reps of all 4 exercises…… You get the
idea
Perform the exercises until you get to 10.
If it gets too easy than go back down the ladder.
You can also make up your own dumbell complexes. A
Complex is simply a group of exercises (8-10) strung
together for a certain amount of reps (6,8,10) without
rest. Use your imagination.
I would use the Ladders and Complexes mixed in with
Heavy weight (6-8) and a little steady state cardio
mixed in. Let me know!
MP replies:
Thanks dog! I knew you’d come through. You know I’m
coaching her on nutrition. Peace. MP
Coach Pack:
There is one more tool that I use for fat loss and it’s the Tabata Method. Pick any exercise(bodyweight squats, sledge hammer swings, squat thrusts, mountain climbers, med ball slams, shadow boxing, burpies etc.) and perform as many reps as you can in 20 sec, rest 10 sec and repeat. Repeat the 20sec on, 10 off sequence for 8 cycles. This will come out to be 3:50 of total work. It can be thrown in at the end of a Energy System day(complex day or sprint day) or it can be used as a training day all on it’s own performing 3-4 different 8 round cycles. This is very taxing so be careful! Another fatloss gem which isn’t used as much as it should be is stair running or hill running.
Notice all of the suggestions I’ve made have included some sort of HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training). My belief is that there just isn’t anything that works as fast. Not to say that steady state aerobics shouldn’t be used, Im just saying that HIIT is the most efficient and the best bang for your buck modality that I know of for true FAT LOSS.
As far as Nutrition is concerned, here are a couple of tips:
There are 4 ways to speed your metabolism
1. Eating 5-8 small meals a day
2. Eating Protein with every meal. This is called TEF(the thermic effect of food). Protein raises your metabolic rate to digest protein.
3. Resistance training. I prefer 6-8 rep range due to the muscle damage it causes. The more muscle break down the harder your body has to work to repair the muscle tissue. If your body has to work hard to repair it has no choice than to increase you guessed it, metabolic rate. Resistance training must never be left out of a fat loss program for the simple fact the more muscle you possess the more calories your body burns at rest. This allows for increased cheat meals! Ha!
4. HIIT(Cardio)- Remember that Aerobics is cardio but cardio isn’t necessarily aerobic. HIIT is primarily anaerobic and increases something called EPOC( Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption) which in a nut shell means that when you get done with your session you aren’t done burning calories for up to 18-24hrs later! But obviously whether it’s aerobics or anaerobics you’re still putting yourself in a caloric deficit but the more intense the bout of exercise the greater the EPOC.
So with all that said I’m not going to say move more and eat less. On the contrary if she is going to be using steps 3 and 4 for a combined 4-5 days a week than I would suggest she significantly increase her caloric intake. Why? See numbers 1 and 2.
To explain step one further understand that caloric intake chases caloric expenditure. The more energy you expend the more energy you need to intake. So the more you expend(HIIT, weight training, steady state etc.) the more calories you burn and speed your metabolic rate. Add that with increasing your calories and protein intake(step 1 and 2) and you even further increase metabolic rate and her chances for shedding some major body fat in a short amount of time.
I hope this helps!