The Death of Intervals?
November 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Here is an interview I did with Alwyn Cosgrove last week about some cutting edge techniques that he is using to help clients lose more weight.
Mike: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. First so we all have some perspective, how long have you been a trainer?
Alwyn Cosgrove: I started training people in 1989. Actually 1987 if you count teaching martial arts classes.
In 1995 (after college) I went full time. Since day one I’ve been very particular about what I do. I track and tweak everything. When we opened Results Fitness in 2000, we really started to gather a lot of data. We currently have 250 members and we track all their workouts and body comp changes week in and week out.
Mike: So it is like you run your own fat loss studies at your gym?
Alwyn: Exactly. We had read all the studies showing interval training to be superior for fat loss than steady state training. This confirmed what we were seeing with our clients. But I am a big belier in that there is no physiological limit to the amount of weight a person can lose in a week, month, or year so I kept tweaking and tracking the results.
Mike: What has been one of your biggest breakthroughs lately?
Alwyn: One day it hit me — cardiovascular programming is an ass-backwards concept.
I don’t know when I first thought this – but it was confirmed to me when viewing Lance Armstrong’s performance in the New York Marathon.
I’d been taught through my college education and countless training certifications and seminars that cardio vascular exercise was necessary to improve the cardio vascular system and subsequently aerobic performance.
But there seemed an inherent flaw in that argument….
Why didn’t Lance Armstrong – with perhaps one of the highest recorded VO2 max levels in history – win the New York Marathon? Or beat people with lesser aerobic levels than himself?
The greatest endurance cyclist (and possibly endurance athlete) of all time – the seven time Tour De France winner – finished 868th and described the event as the “hardest physical thing” he had ever done.
Runners World Magazine actually examined Lance’s physiology (and VO2 max which was tested at 83) and compared them to the numbers of Paul Tergat (the World Record holder and defending NYC Marathon Champion at the time).
They concluded:
“This figure wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t for the pioneering research of famed running coach Jack Daniels, Ph.D., who first published his Oxygen Power tables in 1979– According to Daniels, who’s rarely off by more than a smidgen or two, a max VO2 of 83 is roughly equivalent to a 2:06 marathon”
Based on his other physical qualities the magazine suggested that Lance was capable of running 2:01:11.
The world record at the time was 2:04:55
Lance ran 2:59:36 (and don’t misinterpret me – that’s still a great time). But it’s clear that the physiology didn’t transfer the way event he running community expected.
The flaw in this thinking was looking solely at aerobic capacity — VO2 max – the “engine” as it were. And it’s fair to say that Lance had a “Formula One” engine.
But he didn’t have the structural development for running. Lance was a cyclist – his body had adapted to the demands of cycling. But NOT to the specific demands of running (in fact Lance had only ran 16 miles at once EVER prior to running the marathon). Lance had developed strength, postural endurance and flexibility in the correct “cycling muscles” – but it didn’t transfer to running the way his VO2 max did.
From this example we know that cardio training doesn’t transfer well from one activity to another – and it only ‘kicks’ in because of muscular demand – why don’t we program muscular activity first – in order to create a cardiovascular response. Makes total sense.
So how does this relate to fat loss? We have found that our most successful fat loss programs center around stimulating the muscles to burn more calories not ramping up and down the cardiovascular system. What matters is total calories burn and how much you can increase the person’s metabolism. It is a total shift in thinking.
Mike: Wow. So it is this the death of intervals and cardio? How to you put this into action with clients?
Alwyn: What we have found is so great about this approach is that you burn more calories, lose more weight, while putting a lot less stress on your joints.
Here’s how I like to think about it. Let’s look at traditional interval training which uses running.
Depending on stride length – walking a mile takes about 2000 repetitions and running takes 1000-1500 and will burn on average 100 calories or so.
So if we use an interval training model of running and walking – we’re looking at around 1500 reps to burn 100 calories.
If we take traditional models of caloric burn – this means we’d need to do 35 miles to lose one pound of fat from our interval training efforts discounting the metabolic afterburn for now).
So we have a problem. It’s a very poor “rate of return” on our “rep investment”.
Additionally – running applies a vertical force of 2x bodyweight on the joints of the lower body.
So now we have a dilemma.
Let’s choose a 180lb deconditioned overweight client.
1500 reps x 360lbs = 540,000lbs of force to burn 100 calories. (The 360lbs is 2x 180lbs)
That’s a lot of stress on the joints. Now no one was getting injured, but it seemed like there had to be a better way.
So — we started to think of how we could use different interval training methods other than running to get the same metabolic effect without stressing the joints so much.
We used the airdyne bike, other bikes in order to create a training effect with less load. But whenever you take the bodyweight out of the equation in cardio – you have to work harder to burn the same calories. So this usually needs more reps. So that didn’t seem like a much better idea.
At this point we started using metabolic training with weight training implements/kettlebells and bodyweight in the same interval format.
So a circuit of five exercises, performed three times round (15 total sets) would actually burn more calories than the same time spent doing traditional cardio. That was a plus.
But we could also do sets of 10-15 reps. So we’re looking at 225 total reps (with a force LESS than your bodyweight) as opposed to 1500+ reps at double bodyweight.
We gave it a try. Clients loved it (which was a plus), and actually started to get better results than we were getting with intervals.
So we get more fat loss, less stress on the body, and happier clients. It is a win-win-win. Currently we don’t program traditional interval training our regular fat loss clients anymore.
So, yeah…it is the death of traditional intervals.
You can get a sample workout using this kind of training program at:
http://www.warpspeedfatloss.com/workout.php
Mike: This is great stuff. Thanks for taking the time. I definitely recommend that everyone go to:
http://www.warpspeedfatloss.com/workout.php
and pick up the workout to try.
Metabolic Disturbance – Keep The Fat Loss Coming
February 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment
How do you maximize the amount of fat you can lose if you only have a set amount of time to workout? That is a question that many people have, as we are all limited on the time we can spend working out. The key to doing this is maximizing ‘metabolic disturbance’. I got Bill Hartman on the phone and we talked all about what you can do to maximize metabolic distrubance, now to ensure you workouts have the proper intensity, and how to tailor your workouts to your own personal fitness level. This interivew is free to download for all Faster Fat Loss Zone Members.
Success Story: A Work in Progress
December 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
If you really want to experience the Faster Fat Loss Zone experience, you have to focus on synergy.
Synergy according to Merriam-Webster is, “conditions such that the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual effects.”
In other words, if you exercise intensely enough and frequently enough, you may lose some body fat.
If you follow an effective eating plan designed for fat loss, you may lose some body fat.
But, if you put them together, and if you stick with the program long enough, you’ll be amazed by your results.
Case in point.
“JK” has been trying to reduce her body fat for many years. She’s been successful to the degree that she’d drop a few pounds of fat, but in a short time, she’d regain it.
She was always a great exerciser and trained as many as 5 days per week at times. It was easy for her to hit the gym and give it her all. Her biggest challenge like most of us was her love of certain foods and fine wines. She’s also very prominent in the community and loves to entertain. Never relying on a caterer, she’s a masterful cook and spared no calorie in her party preparations and exquisite dinners.
Just a few months ago, all that changed. Sure she still entertains and handles all the preparations herself, but she “flipped the switch” and committed to an effective eating plan and even increased her total exercise volume by adding in some low intensity exercise to top off her energy expenditure.
She still eats her favorite foods, but now she eats in proper portion sizes. Her meals will vary from 4-6 per day, and she drinks mostly water with an occasional glass of wine with dinner.
Her exercise program looks like this:
Monday
6 a.m Strength training with fitness coach and interval training
Evening walk 30-60 minutes
Tuesday
Walk 30-60 minutes
Wednesday
6 a.m Strength training with fitness coach and interval training
Evening walk 30-60 minutes
Thursday
Walk 30-60 minutes
Friday
6 a.m Strength training with fitness coach and interval training
Evening walk 30-60 minutes
Saturday
Casual walk with her husband
Sunday
Off or walk
JK still considers herself a work in progress. Her doctor, her husband, and her coach are all thrilled with her progress so far.
Your Daily Dozen for Faster Fat Loss
August 15, 2008 | 1 Comment
How much fat you lose is ultimately related to your daily habits. The more consistent you are with those habits that impact fat loss the most, the faster fat comes off. If we were to design the perfect day to accelerate your fat burning, here’s what it would look like. You could call it your 12 Daily Habits of Highly Effective Fat Burning.
Habit #1: Drink enough water first thing in the morning
There seems to be a link between how much water you drink and training to lose fat. Now there’s actually research to support it. Dehydration can reduce insulin sensitivity which will direct your breakfast carbs toward fat storage much like an excessively low calorie diet or a fast. Another resent study showed that drinking about sixteen ounces of water, actually increased metabolism by 24% for up to an hour afterward. The volume was important as a smaller quantity of water had no effect. I recommend that you drink at least 16 ounces of water after you first get up in the morning to kill two birds with one stone. There’s also good evidence that a 1-2% dehydration rate reduces your mental acuity. Slam down a quick bottle of water first thing in the morning, you boost metabolism, improve insulin sensitivity, and begin rehydrating from your overnight water fast and shake the morning blues a little quicker. Drink consistently throughout the day to accumulate a total of a half a gallon on days you don’t exercise and up to a gallon on training days.
Habit #2: Break the Fast…AKA, Eat Breakfast
Good morning. You’ve just awakened from a 6-8 hour period of starvation, and your body is screaming for essential nutrients. A comparison between breakfast eaters and non-breakfast eaters show that not eating breakfast leads to a slowing of metabolism, a loss of energy using muscle mass, and an increase in fat storage (remember that insulin sensitivity thing?) to cover up your hard earned abs. For a quick, effective morning meal, try a bowl of oatmeal flavored with a scoop of your favorite protein powder and some berries. Even that leftover chicken breast and broccoli will work in a pinch. The important thing is to eat first thing in the morning.
See “Optimal Meal Replacements” for more ideas
Habit #3: Review your fat loss goals
I’m certain that at this time in your life you’ve heard or read that those people who commit their goals to written form tend to achieve them. Writing them down makes them real and important. While this is true, the second part of this success system is typically left out. You have to consistently review your goals to program your mind to make appropriate decisions on a daily basis that are congruent with your intended goal. When faced with an option that’s contrary to your goal to achieve you six-pack abs like having fast-food for lunch instead of your intended chicken breast and veggies, the more prominent and important your goals are to you through constant review, the more likely your decisions will support your goals.
Habit #4: Pack your meals for the day and take them with you.
My personal Igloo cooler just celebrated its 20th anniversary. I started carrying my cooler with me every day back when I was in college and still carry the exact same one today. I’m not kidding. You need to do the same (but get your own cooler, please). Pack your cooler with all the food you’ll need to carry with you to stick to your personal eating plan to expose those six-pack abs. Take everything you need to eat complete meals every 2-3 hours, and eat nothing that isn’t in there. Packing your food in your cooler should be as much of your morning ritual as showering and shaving each morning.
See “Morning Rituals”, “Optimal Meal Replacements”, “ or “Road Ready” for meal ideas
Habit #5: Eat before you hit the gym
Effective training sessions are a key stimulus to accelerate fat loss and uncover your abs. To hit it hard in the gym, you need to go in full of energy and nutrients that will promote recovery after your training sessions. Being well fed before your workouts by eating complete meals containing protein and carbohydrate every 2-3 hours provides your body with a kick-start as soon as you’re finished with your workout. If you’re unable to get in a good meal 1-2 hours before your training session, slam a pre-workout shake of 20-30 grams of protein and 40-50 grams of carbohydrates to fill the void.
If you have a question as to what is the best pre-workout shake, post your question to Mike in the forum.
Habit #6: Start your workout with mobility training
One of the keys to faster fat loss to uncover those abs is to turn on more muscle during exercise. Poor joint mobility, especially in the shoulders and the hips can actually reduce your ability to use the bigger muscles in your back, hips, and thighs resulting in smaller muscles doing the big muscle work. Not only do you end up using less weight and building less muscle, but you can’t crank up your metabolism to the max as you intended. Simple “gym class” exercises like arm circles, trunk twists, glute bridges, body weight lunges, push-up variations, leg swings, and other dynamic stretches performed prior to strength exercises assures that you activate maximum muscles during each training session.
Habit #7: Emphasize metabolic strength training in your workouts
Strength training is essential to increase metabolically active muscle mass, but by tweaking your programming you can make it an even more effective fat burner after and between workouts while you’re recovering. Follow these simple guidelines:
1. Train your entire body three times per week
2. Include a push exercise (bench press or standing press), a pull exercise (chin-up or row), and a squat variation (front squat or deadlift)
3. Perform 2-4 sets of each exercise
4. Perform 8-15 reps per set
5. Rest about 45-90 seconds between sets
6. Keep a training journal and make an effort to increase your weights, increase your reps, or decrease your rest period each week.
See “Fat Loss Foundation” for more information
Habit #8: Take advantage Interval Training for faster fat loss
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is superior to long duration endurance “cardio” exercise typically recommended for fat loss. Science and empirical evidence proves it. That means you can spend less time exercising than you would for fat loss-based endurance training and lose more fat in a shorter overall time period. The key to success is in alternating periods of near all-out effort with periods of low intensity effort or rest. For instance, run at your top speed for 60 seconds and follow it with 2-3 minutes of rest. Repeat 4-6 times. Perform your HIIT on alternate days of your metabolic strength training to give your metabolism a boost between strength training sessions. If you need a “finisher” to really ramp up your fat loss after your strength workouts, or if you’re just short on time, consider using Tabata Intervals. They only take 4 minutes to complete.
See “Understanding Interval Training for Fat Loss”, “Faster Fat Loss in 4 minutes” video, or the Tabata break-in program in the forum for more information
Habit #9: Finish your workout with post-workout nutrition
There’s two times of day when carbs can really impact your fat loss program, first thing in the morning and immediately after your workout. Just like in your pre-workout shake, consuming 20-30 grams of protein and 40-50 grams of carbohydrates immediately can accelerate your recovery from your intensive training and improve your fat loss results. There’s also research that shows NOT eating a combination of protein and carbohydrates after your training session makes losing body fat even harder. Consider your training session incomplete until you’ve eaten your post-workout meal. If you need a quick and simple solution, a tall glass of chocolate milk will work in a pinch.
Habit #10: Prep your meals for tomorrow
If you’re going to eat effectively every 2-3 hours to uncover your six-pack, you have to have the proper food available when it’s time to eat. I suggest you cook a large volume of chicken breasts, fish, or other meats a couple times a week. My wife and I cook primarily on Sunday and Wednesday. This keeps food fresh and enjoyable because it doesn’t sit in the fridge for too long. Buy large bags of your favorite frozen vegetables for quick and easy preparations. Throw in your favorite seasoning to keep your meals interesting and flavorful. Separate your serving of protein and veggies and store them in separate Pyrex glass storage containers (I hate plastic containers!), so you can just reheat and eat when it’s meal time. Throw in a piece of fresh fruit, and you’ll have all you need to complete a powerful eating plan for fat loss.
Habit #11: Review your goals and plans for tomorrow
Fifteen minutes before you go to bed review your training and eating goals one last time. Reviewing them before you go to sleep will provide your subconscious mind with “food” to mull over and solidify your goals while your body sleeps. It’s also the perfect time to go over your plans for the next day including work activities, chores, or whatever else needs to be done. This prevents you from lying awake for extended periods of time worrying about tomorrow and cutting into your quality sleep time because you’re going over your schedule repeatedly in your head. A quiet mind will have you sleeping like a baby in about 15 minutes.
Habit #12: Get enough sleep
We still don’t know why we need to sleep, but we do know that hormonal changes associated with not getting enough sleep will bring your fat loss plans to a screeching halt. A lack of sleep causes an increase in cortisol which promotes a loss of energy burning muscle mass. Ghrelin, another hormone, increases and causes calorie burning to slow to a snails pace and, along with a decrease in leptin, increases your desire for food. Not really the combination we’re going for when trying to lose fat. You also tend to become more insulin resistant, and your typical night time growth hormone spike will diminish which will result in a greater accumulation of abdominal muscle blurring body fat. What’s more important…your favorite late night TV show or developing the ultimate six-pack? Get a TiVo and get some sleep.
See “Effective Recovery for Faster Results” for more information
Consistency of effort toward effective fat loss is what will get you your 6-pack. But you need to be certain that you are on the correct path to your goals. Track your performance regularly to assess your compliance to your Daily Dozen and your progress. Body weight will fluctuate daily, so checking your weight and body fat every 1-2 weeks should provide enough information to make necessary changes in your eating plan and training program without driving your crazy.
Are You Working Hard Enough for Faster Fat Loss?
August 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It may surprise you, but I am not terribly concerned as to how much body fat you burn during your workout. This may seem a little contrary to what you have come to believe as important in regard to exercise and fat loss. Most of the popular media that touts the fat burning effect of exercise tends to support the view that it’s all about how much fat you burn during your workout that’s important. I would argue that it’s not the fat that you burn during your workout that’s the key to fat loss, but rather, it’s the fat you burn between workouts that’s more important.
Consider how long you actually exercise per week. Let’s say you workout for the common one hour, three times per week. If your only concern is that fat burned during your workouts, how can those three hours possibly offset the other 165 hours per week that you’re not exercising.
It sounds like a losing battle. And in many cases it is. More people are looking for the answer to their fat loss prayers, and yet more people are carrying more body fat than ever before.
As I’ve said in the past, it’s not their fault. They’ve been misinformed and misled into using an ineffective and inferior technology when it comes to fat loss.
The ultimate goal of your workout is to create a stimulus that causes the body to increase its fat burning when you’re not working out. Do it correctly, and you’ll spend half the time exercising and burn more fat than ever before.
Not Working Hard Enough
Look outside on any nice day, and you’ll see them all over the place. The runners.
Ask them why they run and most will say, “To get in shape.”
Ever see a runner who really looked like he was “in shape.” Certainly, there are a few, but most never achieve the results that they’re after. Then they quit running and go back to old habits that lead to their current “shape.”
Their ultimate failure is not working hard enough. Let me explain.
Let’s say that a runner trying to lose fat runs for 45 minutes, three times per week.
While this may feel difficult to run this long, this type of physical activity qualifies as a low intensity activity. It’s low intensity for the simple fact that it can be performed continuously for an extended period of time.
Certainly, they are increasing calorie burning for the time that they are exercising, but we know that this type of activity has little impact on fat burning after they finish their run. The only way to burn more fat is to exercise longer or more often.
Working Harder…and Smarter
If low intensity exercise (AKA, endurance exercise, long slow distance, aerobic exercise, etc.) isn’t the answer to faster fat loss and more fat burning between workouts then what is?
The answer is higher intensity exercise. In other words, working harder.
So what qualifies as higher intensity exercise in regard to fat loss?
Let’s use a quick comparison. If low intensity exercise is something that can be performed for an extended period of time, then higher intensity exercise must be something that cannot be maintained for an extended period of time because it’s too hard.
How hard should it be?
Consider activities that last from 30 seconds to two minutes to be your goal range for an exercise that will impact fat loss to larger extent. By this, I’m referring to activities that are hard enough that you can perform them for at least 30 seconds but trying to maintain the level of effort for greater than two minutes is virtually impossible.
Some example types of exercise may be strength training exercises performed for 10-15 repetitions, longer sprints or runs, body weight calisthenic circuits, or bike intervals. The key element is to try to activate as much muscle that you can during the exercise of choice.
Is there a way to monitor how hard you’re working?
Absolutely. It’s called the Rating of Perceived Exertion. In simplest terms, you’ll score how hard the exercise feels relative to your best all-out effort on a scale from 0 to 10. A zero is essentially rest. A 10 is your absolute maximum effort. The effort that you could give if someone held a gun to your head or offered you a million dollars to push yourself to the ultimate limit.
For our purposes, to be challenging enough to impact fat loss, you’ll need to hit at least an 8 out of 10 for the duration of your exercise interval to achieve your effort goal. Obviously, trying to maintain an 8 out of 10 for a long period of time is virtually impossible.
To get enough total exercise time in to impact fat loss, you’ll alternate your maximal effort exercise periods with lower intensity periods or total rest. If you want to see how this will look in an actual workout, take advantage of the training programs available to you as members. You can also check out the various videos showing how to do intervals, body weight circuits, and barbell complexes.
If you have any specific questions, drop me a line in the members forum.
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