Are Your Weight Issues Your Fault?

An article posted recently at Today.com reports that “overweight teens actually eat fewer calories daily on average than their trimmer counterparts” according to a new study. The article goes on to explain “For older children and teenagers, increasing involvement in physical activitymay be more important to weight and health than is their child’s diet.” While I agree that diet alone will not lead to a successful fitness routine I do have some disputes to this claim.

There is one major factor disrupting this study, although the teenager who are at a healthy weight are eating more calories I can guarantee they are burning more than they consume. The simple science is if you burn more calories than consumed you will lose weight, the teens that are obese but are eating fewer calories are simply not burning the amount the healthy teens are through physical activity.

Calories burned as energy not calories eaten is what will determine appetite, hunger and how much someone eats. Calories entering the mouth and stomach do not control food intake but its how the body disposes of these calories either into your fat storage cells or into your muscles for burning that will control the food intake.

A lot of people think that high fat diets make you gain weight. This is not the case. Lower fat foods can leave you feeling full for a lesser amount of time and in return you eat more. Where as eating higher fat foods make you full longer. Think about eating a peanut butter sandwich. Peanut Butter has higher fats but chances are you wont be hungry 2 hours later where as eating a turkey sandwich plain on bread would leave you still feeling hungry and you would be more likely to snack quicker

One of the biggest problems some people may encounter is the belief that if you run and run and run, the body you want will be at waiting for you at the finish line. While aerobic exercise is great for helping lose and control weight, it can only do so much. Running is a repetitive, low – tension exercise that is incapable of sculpting and increasing muscle. The most effective weight loss and body – sculpting workout is without doubt strength/resistance training.

Strength training builds muscle: the stronger you are, the more muscles you’ll have. Strength training is not bodybuilding however: building muscle is a byproduct of exercising, not its goal. Strength training also burns calories, keeps your metabolic rate high under strict dieting and tends to make you stick to your diet better. More benefits to strength training are increased endurance, bone density & testosterone levels. It strengthens your joints, lowers cholesterol & improves your sleep. You’ll notice nutrition is important to get results in strength training. All leads to a healthier body & lifestyle.

While the article has some valid points  such as caloric intake alone is not a sufficient explanation for weight loss, but there are some holes in their argument. The plain truth is that when more calories are burned than consumed you will lose weight, but the key is calories burned meaning that physical activity is essential.

Read more: http://www.isoinsane.com/are-your-weight-issues-your-fault/

Isometric Strengthening Effect

The result of isometric training on strength development was first reported to provide a 5% per week increase (12), but later it was reported as 1.8% per week in their subsequent publications. There was some outcry as to the accuracy of the work by Hettinger and Muller (13,14).

1n 1962, against mounting criticism, Muller argued that strength increases depended upon an individual’s current state of conditioning, with those who were less fit, gaining more rapidly, and those who were more fit, less rapidly.

The weekly gains vary from 12% (2.4% per session) assuming five training sessions per week for those in a poorer state of health to less than 2% (0.4% per session) for those close to their limiting strength.

Therefore, according to Muller, even for the untrained, very few weeks are needed to reach limiting strength. Muller believed the results depicted in the Table explained why the results of other studies may have been at variance with his own: “Contrary findings are distorted by comparing unequal states of training.”

They (Hettinger and Muller) later defined the training state operationally: the state of training of a muscle is its initial strength (Pi) expressed as a percentage of its end strength (Pe). Limiting strength is defined as the final value to which strength can reach at its maximum potential regardless of how long training goes on, i.e., training can go on forever, but it is believed that strength increases have a limit.

So the final value depends on two things: 1) the strength capacity of the muscle and 2) the efficiency of the training method adopted. Therefore, if the training program chosen is of little value, then end strength would occur rather quickly since the method cannot serve to increase strength because of its ineffectiveness.

There is an inherent weakness to assessing strength in this manner and certainly one way around this is to establish a database of age and sex-related norms to qualify an individual’s initial fitness status.

Basically what we’re saying is isometrics is the best way to gain strength!

The biggest advantage to this type of training is twofold.

First, by forcing your muscles to hold a position for a certain length of time, your body starts to recruit more and more motor units to help maintain this contraction. Motor units that are rarely exercised within a muscle are now brought into use, perhaps for the first time.

Second, the motor units that are recruited are forced to contract continuously, time after time, until your muscles achieve a state of maximum intensity safely and effectively.

The end result is that the entire muscle matures very quickly.

Resistance band training with an isometric strategy adds additional benefits to the athlete beyond traditional isometrics.  Read more at http://www.isoinsane.com/isometric-strengthening-effect/

The 30-30 Workout Challenge

Use this lightning fast total-body workout to strip away fat and send your heart rate soaring. The routine, created by Men’s Health fitness adviser Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., combines high-intensity cardio and strength training for a gust-busting combo that you can do almost anywhere.

Directions: You’ll need a stopwatch to perform this workout. The routine is simple: Start the clock and do first exercise for 30 seconds at a moderate pace: 1 second up, 1 second down, and a 1-second pause in the middle. (That’ll be 10 reps.) Then rest. Start the next exercise when the clock hits 1 minute. (So you’ll rest for 30 seconds.) Repeat this process, moving to a new exercise at the top of every minute, until you’ve completed all five exercises. That’s one circuit. Do a total of four circuits.

1. Y squat
Stand tall and raise your arms straight above you so they form a Y with your body. Pull your shoulder blades together, and lower your body as deep as you can by pushing your hips back and bending your knees. Push yourself back to the starting position and repeat.

2. Pushup
Assume a pushup position with your hands just wider than shoulder-width apart and your arms straight. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your heels. Lower your body until your chest almost touches the floor. Push yourself back to the starting position and repeat.

3. Right-leg reverse lunge
Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart. Step back with your left leg and lower your body until your right leg is bent at least 90 degrees and your left knee almost touches the floor. Push back to the starting position. That’s 1 rep.

4. Pushup position row
Assume a pushup position (your arms straight), but with your hands grasping a pair of hex dumbbells. Without allowing your torso to rotate, row the dumbbell in your right hand to the side of your chest. Lower and repeat with your left hand. That’s 1 rep.

5. Left-leg reverse lunge
Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart. Step back with your right leg and lower your body until your left leg is bent at least 90 degrees and your right knee almost touches the floor. Push back to the starting position. That’s 1 rep.

What Types of Training Should You Be Doing ?

There are as many notions about what exercises to do, types of training patterns to use, and types of equipment to use as there are people who train. Each thinks his own method is the best, and will gladly tell you so. There are always new-day, popular ideas sprouting-up about the best types of exercise to do, and a dogma often arises that the “new” plans lead to better results than the old plans.

My greatest blunder occurred when I adopted the High Intensity, single set, “training-to- failure” philosophy espoused by Arthur Jones, the inventor of the Nautilus machines. What a waste that was, and it took six or so years until I figured that it didn’t work very well. I, however, was very good at deluding myself, as are many today, about the efficacy of various training (and dietary) regimens. Amazingly, we’ve really known what is effective for improving strength and physique for more than 2,700 years, and nothing dramatically more effective has emerged during the millennia, despite what many say.

Trainers endlessly speculate about what types of training are  the best to do as if there is such a thing. The speculating is pretty much a waste of time because so many things work well. We know, for example, that training one time every six weeks isn’t as productive as training three times a week, although, believe it or not, there’s a camp that says that very infrequent training is the ideal. But to knowledgeable trainers, some issues are resolved and we know what works well and what doesn’t work too well. Unfortunately, the myriads of ideas that constantly pop-up cannot be resolved through the on-going, never-ending speculations spewing out of the mouths of trainers/trainees and printed on the pages of muscle and fitness magazines.

They also talk about weight to strength ratios, wanting the most strength with the least bodyweight. A consequence of this belief is the pursuit of bodyweight-only exercises. And naturally, these trainees begin to argue that bodyweight-only training is the most effective. Having no real background in training, they don’t know that weight training was the child of gymnastics. Early on, it became very clear to trainees in gymnastics that bodyweight training couldn’t match the results arising from the use of added-resistance training. This understanding is what led to the development of the barbell as a more effective tool for muscle building which, in turn, led to the development of the sophisticated machines in the marketplace today. What do they say, “History always repeats itself?”

For me, bodybuilding types of training is the most Functional because it involves more of the muscle’s total functionality, its Spectrum. It allows one to look good, feel good, and it’s a healthy form of training because it gets the blood flowing, and burns calories, and it’s the safest method.
So remember, there are many training plans that are good and variation is still the number one factor to use in designing a training program. Personally, I avoid heavy, single repetition lifting and ballistic (accelerating the weight) lifting because of the increased potential for injury. The power lifters are always complaining about their injuries. This is also true for those who use ballistic (weight throwing or weight acceleration) training techniques.

Make sure to check out part 2 tomorrow for a step by step workout.

For a more in depth look check out http://www.isoinsane.com/insane-strength/

Value of Resistance Training

Resistance training (lifting weights) has taken it on the chin for many years. No more. Once the dominion of football players and pure muscle builders, it’s now a popular exercise activity for the general population. Personal trainers are the stars of the current-day fitness trends, pushing their protégés through muscle pumps and chanting the new T-shirt slogan of “no pain, no gain.”

In the early days, this type of training was called progressive resistance exercise or PRE for short. This is the key feature to this type of exercise: it’s progressive. In other words, as you become stronger and the weights you’re currently lifting no longer challenge you, then you increase the resistance to further challenge your muscles thereby stressing them and causing an adaptation that makes you stronger.

The beauty here is that you don’t need fancy equipment to achieve fantastic results. An inexpensive barbell, used in the privacy of your own home, is all that you need for success. Purchasing a few optional pieces of equipment will allow some variations in exercises that will be very productive. But none of these are very expensive. Later on I’ll lay out a complete home exercise barbell program for you.

Science Discovers Resistance Exercise

In the past, the scientific and medical community paid little attention to resistance exercise and its effects on the body. They, like everyone else, considered weightlifting something that makes you muscle-bound while inflating weak egos. With the growth of running and the fitness boom of the mid to late 1970’s, a whole new breed of exercise research scientist developed.

These young scientists are now exploring the benefits of resistance exercise, measuring its effects on the body and showing exactly what physical changes occur. The scientific exploration of resistance exercise is just beginning. Yet, despite this present lack of scientific work, the benefits of resistance training have been known since the days of the Greek athletes.

Physiological Benefits of Resistance Exercise : Body Composition

Resistance exercise can cause a rapid growth of muscle tissue in both men and women. Although there are sex differences, primarily because of the anabolic hormone testosterone, women, as well as men, will readily respond to the growth stimulation provided by resistance exercise, but with not as much muscle growth.

Regular training allows continual stimulation and response. Muscles take on shape, appearing in places that had precious little muscle before. You are able to craft a completely new appearance and persona. Finally, when you’ve achieved your desired shape and look, you simply embark upon a maintenance program, using the same resistance that triggered the transformation. Little further growth occurs at this juncture. It’s like a water spigot; you can turn it up to get a stronger stream or turn it down to reduce it. The good news about resistance exercise is that you can decide what to build or what to leave alone.

For women this is particularly helpful. Women often get fat from the hips down, a pattern of weight gain called “gynoid” or female pattern obesity. Overall weight loss, unfortunately, usually fails to help such women look significantly better than they did before they started their weight loss program.

The body loses fat from areas where it has the most to lose. This is probably hormone-mediated and controlled by an enzyme in the blood vessels of the fat and muscle cells, lipoprotein lipase (LPL). LPL is responsible for grabbing fat as it circulates in the blood and depositing it in fat or muscle cells. Women have more LPL in the fat cells of their hips and thighs than in their waist; men have more in their waist.

As a woman loses weight, she loses it from both her upper body and her lower body. However, since she has less to lose from her upper body, she often looks increasingly gaunt in the torso area because of muscle loss occurring along with her fat loss. This

occurs at the same time that her hips and thighs remain far fatter than she would like.

A woman can avoid this sort of unbalanced loss by concentrating on upper-body muscle building exercises. With this type of exercise, she can replace the lost fat with muscle, permitting her to maintain her upper body size while preventing a drawn, emaciated appearance. As a result, she can afford to continue losing fat from her lower body until she reaches her desired shape. And please note that I said body shape, not bodyweight. The new muscle that she acquires weighs something and contributes to a bodyweight that is inevitably higher than she thinks it should be.

Aerobic exercise can’t equal the body-shaping effect of resistance exercise. The nature of aerobic work is that it doesn’t build significant muscle size because enhanced girth of muscle isn’t needed to do repetitive, low tension exercises. And that’s what aerobic exercise is — repetitive and low tension.

You can can read more about Resistance Training in my book INSANE STRENGTH … Which you can purchase at http://www.isoinsane.com/