Hawaiimana's Fitness
Exercise training is a critical part of a weight loss, body shaping Fitness Program. Here we will cursory address the benefits and techniques for Weight training and Aerobic Exercise. To get a full exercise fitness training program outline of many, many different workouts – for the gym, your home, in the office or even traveling, register for the HawaiiMana Transformation Challenge.
Weight Training
To fully transform your body you must include weight training as part of your fitness program. Weight training, also known as "progressive resistance training", is very effective because the body is designed to adapt and grow stronger in response to greater amounts of stress imposed on it. Accordingly, your program will become more "progressive" with each passing week, which will allow you to achieve your goals even quicker and inspire you to train with even greater intensity. Once you get a few weeks of weight training experience under your belt, you will be amazed at how great you feel and how much more confidence you have.
Weight Training Advantages
Increase Lean Body Mass (LBM)
The more LBM a person has the more calories he or she will burn at rest. The result is more fat loss! LBM is all the bones, muscles, organs, blood, water and tissues without fat. The term fat free mass (FFM) is used interchangeably with LBM.
Strengthen Bone
Weight bearing exercises help increase bone density to help prevent conditions like osteoporosis.
Increases Fat Loss
Research studies confirm that resistance (weight) training is correlated with increases in LBM.
Improves Mind and Body
Several studies have shown a positive relationship between weight training and mood enhancement; and guess what, the participants in the study didn't have to train vigorously to get the mood enhancing effects!
Periodization
Your program uses a scientifically proven weight training philosophy called Periodization. Periodization is the process of varying a training program at regular time intervals to bring about optimal gains in both muscle size and strength and prevent stagnation in progress. We keep your progress on the fast track by periodically changing variables such as the number of sets per exercise, repetitions per set, the types of exercises, number of exercises per training session, and rest between sets. Over the course of your 8-week program, you will go through 2 different periodization phases depending on the level of your training experience.
Mass Building Phase:
The first 4 weeks of the intermediate program focuses on muscle growth. The larger muscle groups are worked through 3-4 different exercises while the smaller groups are allocated 2 exercises. Muscle groups are split up and trained on different days to allow for muscle recovery, which is important for growth.
Peak Phase
The final phase of your program is a high intensity, high volume training approach designed to maintain muscle size, gain strength, and more importantly, attack fat reserves.
Once again, the training components are modified to trick the body to avoid stagnation. In this peak phase, the emphasis is directed toward fat loss. The rep scheme changes back to a moderate range (5-12), sets increase to 4 per exercise, training splits change again, and the rest between sets is reduced to 30-60 seconds. By doing more sets, more reps, and resting less, you will burn a tremendous amount of calories, and unwanted body fat.
Both training methods are very effective and each works the body in different ways. By using both methods you will find that your body sheds unwanted fat faster while maintaining lean muscle tissue.
Aerobic Exercise
Your aerobic (cardio) program is designed to specifically attack fat without eating away at your valuable muscle. During your 8–week program you will be performing two types of aerobic activity: Moderate Intensity and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
Moderate Intensity Aerobic Exercise
This type of aerobic activity should be done at a pace that allows you to talk and doesn't leave you breathless. If you follow this guideline, you won't need to measure your heart rate. The goal is to be able to perform the activity for the amount of time designated in your program.
Your aerobic session works best if done uninterrupted and at a low intensity. Don't do half in the morning and half in the evening. Also, for best results, try to perform your aerobic exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Studies have shown that aerobic exercise perform on an empty stomach in the morning can burn up to three times more body fat. Begin each session with a 2-5 minute warm-up and finish it with a 2-5 minute cool down. Ideally, by combining the total package of weight training and aerobic exercise you should be losing between 1 to 2 pounds of fat per week.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
On the 5th week of your program, you have the opportunity to incorporate High Intensity Interval Training into your aerobic schedule. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is an advanced training technique that utilizes a different approach to burning fat. Instead of performing an aerobic exercise at a low to moderate intensity for extended periods of time, (HIIT) incorporates very high levels of activity alternated by periods of lower intensity to melt the fat in a fraction of the time.
While "conventional"/ moderate intensity aerobic exercise is very effective at burning body fat during the activity itself, the amount of calories burned after you get done exercising is very minimal. This is where HIIT is substantially different; by alternating high intensity activity followed by low intensity over a very short period of time, you create a metabolic increase (fat burning) that lasts for hours after the actual exercise was performed. The end result is that HIIT allows you to burn more fat while only having to workout a fraction of the time.
Aerobic Exercise Variety
There are a variety of aerobic (cardio) exercises to choose from. Below is the list of exercises / equipment that we recommend you use for either Moderate Intensity Training or High Intensity Interval Training:
- Treadmill
- Stairmaster
- Stationary bike
- Precor elliptical trainer
- Rebok Body Trek machine
Cross training or doing a variety of different aerobic activities, helps work different muscle groups and also prevents boredom. Try not to do the same aerobic activity with every workout. One day you could use the stationary bike and the next aerobic workout the PreCor Elliptical Trainer. Shy away from intense running and excessive "bench" or "step" aerobics. These exercises tend to elevate cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that breaks down muscle mass.