Posts Tagged ‘burn fat’
I think I may have invented a new body weight exercise for burning fat. I didn’t set out to invent it but it happened nonetheless. And the interesting thing is that it will not force you to find any extra time to perform it. It left me feeling as if I had a great workout and I believe I burned quite a few calories in the process.
Let me describe how it happened. The last couple of days it has rained quite a bit where I live. In fact, it poured for most of the weekend. Yesterday (Saturday), I went to watch my son play baseball at college so it left only Sunday to get my grass cut. Unfortunately, it rained most of the day. Finally, I was able to get outside in the late afternoon to cut what was a pretty wet yard. But when you have only certain times to get it done you need to take advantage of what you are presented with.
Now I am cheap. All of my neighbors have riding lawnmowers. I do not. I still give it a go with my old standby push mower. I have no intentions of changing either. I don’t have a huge yard. It normally takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to cut my grass.
Well when I went out to cut the grass about halfway through it began to rain lightly again and dinner time was just around the corner. So I had the great idea of jogging while cutting grass. My 17 year old daughter was watching through our large window that overlooks the back yard and was laughing at her dad looking rather weird running with a lawn mower.
Now this is not something you would do everyday unless you want to run with your lawnmower off through your yard each day. If you do that then your neighbors may wonder what caused you to go crazy. But jogging while cutting grass is quite challenging. Your heart rate will elevate and I guarantee that you will burn quite a few calories and burn fat in the process. Since you have to cut grass each week anyway you may want to give it a try. If you have a riding lawnmower then maybe you want to put it away every now and then and break out the push mower. It will provide you a great workout and burn some fat in the process. You will even get your grass cutting duties done quicker. Give it a try.
The benefits of bodyweight exercises can be enormous. Bodyweight exercise uses your own body to help condition you. On top of this it also help you with everyday tasks that you perform in life such as squating, jumping reaching, twisting and the like. These exercises are built for you normal everyday life.
People are worried that bodyweigt exercises may not provide the individual with gains the gains in muscle, strength, and endurance that can be provided through other means of exercise such as weight lifting or cardiovascular exercise. But this is not true. Not only can bodyweight improve on these things but it can help burn fat effectively as well.
The nice thing about bodyweight exercises is that you are not forced to get an expensive gym membership. You can perform them anywhere. You can do them in the comfort of your own home. You can do them in your backyard or in a park. You can do them in a hotel room if need be.
The military still understands the benefits of bodyweight exercises and uses them as the primary form of exercise and conditioning. If it is good for them it will be good for you as well.
Bodyweight exercises have the ability to raise your heart rate and in doing so to burn more calories and burn more fat in the process. They give you the ability to build muscle while working the heart to a great degree. Weight lifting, although, greatly beneficial to build muscle lacks greatly when trying to keep your heart rate up. There is often too long of a wait time in between weight sets to keep your heart rate up. On the other hand, cardio has the ability to elevate your heart rate but it does absolutely nothing for building muscle. In fact, a lot of cardio exercise will actually decrease muscle rather than enhance it.
One of the benefits of bodyweight exercises is the time that it can save you. You don’t have to perform weight lifting exercises and cardiovascular exercises. All you need to do is perform a circuit of bodyweight exercises to accomplish the same result in less time.
So if you have never considered doing bodyweight exercises before give it a whirl and see what you think.
The Tabata Protocol sounds like a new Robert Ludlum book. I can imagine a Jason Bourne like thriller set somewhere in western Europe where our hero is running from secret international spy agencies. However, the reality is that the Tabata Protocol is something much different. The tababa protocol is a really an exercise protocol. OK, I know some of you are asking, “What is a protocol?” A protocol is simply a way of doing something. In this instance, the tabata protocol is a particular way to perform an exercise.
If you think that a pushup or a bodyweight squat is a simple exercise to perform then you haven’t done it the tabata way. If you had, both your body and your mind would have remembered it. You will reap tremendous physical benefits from it if you can endure.
The tabata protocol was originally an exercise concept developed by Japaneese exercise researcher, Izumi Tabata. In a nutshell, a tabata exercise routine is a rapid rotation of exercise and rest lasting for 4 minutes. Sounds simple, right? Let take the pushup for example. You would do push-ups for twenty seconds and then rest for 10 seconds. And you will do this for eight rounds. It would look something like this.
| Event | Time |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Push-Ups | 20 Sec |
| Rest | 10 Sec |
| Total Time | 4 Min |
I promise you that at the end of the four minutes you will be in a fat burning zone. Your heart rate will be elevated, your chest and triceps will be aching, and you might even want to cry out for you mama. But we have only just begun. After all, we have only exercised for 4 minutes. If you string five exercises together, you will have a super fat burning workout beyond comprehension. You may have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning but after a couple of days you will be feeling better.
Here are five suggested exercises:
Push-ups
Bodyweight Squats
Pull-ups (or inverted rows)
Crunches
Jumps
Many people are unable to do pull-ups. If this is the case you can do a cheat pull-up (see video) or you can do an inverted row.
For the jumps, I mean nothing more than standing in place and continually jumping as high as you can for 20 seconds.
Give the tabata protocol a try and see what you think. I think you will agree it is one tough calorie burning, fat shredding, muscle ripping, fabulous exercise.
(The tabata exercise protocol and be very taxing. If you are a beginner or out of shape please consult a doctor and if given the go ahead begin with a different time frame. You could possibly to 15 seconds of exercise followed by a 15 second rest. Experiment with what you can handle initially.)
I read an article today from the UK. I just happened to run across it. Here is the link and here is a direct quote from the article:
“During my hour in the gym with Matt we never touched any of the machines that I would normally use and yet at the end of our workout I felt as if I had exercised every muscle in my body.
“Most gyms are full of equipment, whereas we only use a few pieces of equipment,” says Matt. “I can do a 35-minute circuit without using any of the machines.
“You can use your own body weight to realign your posture and get your muscles working properly.
“Certain machines in the gym can actually make problems worse, especially if you are not using them properly.”
For those of you who have used machines all of your life get ready for the challenge of a bodyweight exercise routine. Over the weekend I will write a post about a great bodyweight workout that is guaranteed to kick your butt and help burn fat and increase muscle. Stay tuned.
