Try Workout Of the Day

I wrote about Crossfit in my very very very early posts. Here is the link. I called it 'the next big thing'. Well...I would now like to correct my self. It is the NOW BIG THING. It is absolutely insane. The workouts are like 15 - 20 minutes long (including the warm up) but extremely high in intensity. I have been going to the guy for a long long time, but after trying this, I was seriously depressed because all that hard work did not REALLY make me all that fit!!

The main idea is a combination of strength training and cardio. Typically we do a strength training session and then a cardio session, BUT what these Crossfit super humans do is do both at the same time e.g. 21 clean and jerks without any rest and with a reasonably heavy weight. I have recently start some Crossfit routines and the numbers and times are impossible to reach e.g. 100 pull ups (kipping pull ups), 100 push ups, 100 Squats and 100 situps. Now, very honestly, this will completely burn you out. If you want to be FIT i.e. really really fit then go to a crossfit affiliated gym and see the changes in your body. Ahh but if you want to have that bodybuilder sort of look then, crossfit ain't for you. Crossfit is for people who want to adopt to a healthy liftstyle rather. You will definitely get a good physique, but more like a toned and defined look rather than a bulked up body builder look. At the same time, you get the strength and stamina. Maybe that's why everyday, more and more women and moving towards crossfit!!! HMMM!!!!

Go to the crossfit site and read about the concept. You can view lots and lots of their videos on youtube. There is this lady called Nicole and MAN is she strong. Go on...type in Nicole crossfit on youtube and you will see what I mean.

Try the easiest routine of crossfit and share your experience here :)

If you are done with the workout, checkout this website and see if you can learn to make money online.

How to get the ripped washboard six pack abs

Are you looking to get those six or eight pack abs in your mid section? I’m sure you are!! Abs are the one thing that both men and women desire and try every trick in the book to get them. People do endless crunches and leg raises or just keep doing the cardio and what not. The first thing to understand is that just doing ab exercises wouldn’t help you see them. You need to have the proper diet and fat burning workouts in place. Basically, everyone has ab muscles, but they are hidden under a layer of fat. If you don’t get rid of that fat…doesn’t matter how many crunches you do. WON’T work. I recommend that you do 2 sessions of ab workouts a week and concentrate on full body workouts and cardio including HIIT.

Anyways, now that I have made my point about losing the fat, here is a routine that can help you really hit the abs from each and every angle. So once you get rid of the fat, you will see a much better definition.

Crunches 15
Leg raises 15
Crunches 15
Leg raises 15
Criss crosses 30 (15 second rest)
Criss crosses 30 (15 second rest)
Criss crosses 30 (15 second rest)
Hanging leg raises 15 (15 second rest)
Hanging leg raises 15 (15 second rest)
Hanging oblique leg raises 15 (15 second rest)
Hanging oblique leg raises 15 (15 second rest)
Plank 15 – 30 seconds (15 second rest)
Plank 15 – 30 seconds (15 second rest)

That’s it. It will take you about 10 minutes. Do an HIIT session right after this for about 15 minutes and you will have had an AMAZING workout in less than half an hour.

Do try and and let me know what you think.

The best home chest workout

Most of the guys who go to the gym say that they want to get big biceps and a muscular chest. We won’t be talking about the biceps today, but as far as the chest goes - here is the single most important question that these guys ask.

Can I build a big and well-defined chest at home?

The answer to this question is ‘Yes’, you can build a huge chest by working out at home. If you manage to exhaust a specific body part and then feed it, you will see an increase in size. If you hit your chest from a number of angles so that the entire chest muscle group gets REALLY tired and then feed it with proper amounts of protein and carbohydrates, you will see an increase in you chest size and muscle mass.

Here is a workout routine that you can do on the days you want to work your chest or upper body. This workout can also be incorporated in a fat loss program – I will show you how.

Pushups burpees 15 - 20 for warm-up: Do the burpee but do a pushup as well when you go down.

10 pushups wide, 10 pushups shoulder width and 10 pushups narrow without any rest.

The following pushup movements should be very slow. 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down.
5 – 8 x 3 pushups wide (rest 30 – 45 seconds)
5 – 8 x 3 pushups shoulder width (rest 30 – 45 seconds)
5 – 8 x 3 pushups narrow or diamond (rest 30 – 45 seconds)

1 minute rest

In the following movements, do the first 3 – 5 reps very slow and without taking any rest continue the exercise as fast as you can for the remaining reps.

15 – 20 x 1 pushups wide (rest 30 – 45 seconds)
15 – 20 x 1 pushups shoulder width (rest 30 – 45 seconds)
10 – 15 x 1 pushups narrow or diamond (rest 30 – 45 seconds)

This is an intermediate workout. For advance level workouts, you can increase the 5 second up and down to 6, 7 or whatever you want. The slower the movement, the more stress you will feel. Also, you can increase the number of reps in you final set (i.e. the slow and fast combination)

For fat loss, you do not have to change the workout. All you need to do is do a lower body compound movement e.g. squats and/or lunges after this workout (I will post a lower body routine as well). This should be followed up by a protein meal. Keep the carbs low and try to take the meal in about 30 minutes to 1 hour of the workout so that you get the most benefit from the important hormones.

The top 5 fat burning exercises

I have been writing about how to lose fat and how to design your own plans for some time now, so I thought I would write about some thing different - the best fat burning exercises that you concentrate on rather than searching the web or other places. As mentioned in earlier posts, you need to engage maximum and larger muscle groups to get the best results.

According to TT (Turbulence Training), you should do a squatting movement, upper body pushing, upper body pulling, single leg movement and a full body abs movement. If you think about it, you hit each and every muscle group which a high intensity and get the most out of it. However, wouldn’t it be useful if you do 2 or 3 exercises instead of 5 but still engaging all the muscles? The good thing about this is that you increase the release of even more HGH if you engage more muscle groups at the very same time. I have discussed some basics about HGH in previous posts and will be writing details very soon.

I intend to give you the 5 best exercises that take you one step ahead of the TT concept. These are some what intermediate movements, so if you find these to be very hard then either lower the weights or make the exercises slightly simpler.


Number 5: Pullup and hanging leg raise
The usual pullup, but when you get to the top, you raise your legs like a hanging leg raise, lower your legs and come back down. You engage your back, abs, biceps and forearms. Try this only if you can already do 10 pullups in one go.

Number 4: Squat and push
In this exercise you hold a barbell across your shoulders. Do a barbell squat and when you come up; go right into a shoulder press without pausing. This exercise will engage your thighs, buttocks, core, shoulders, triceps and back for stabilizing. If you want an advanced version, then change the exercise to ‘Lunge and push’.

Number 3: Deadlift and pull
You do a deadlift and continue to an upright row. Usually, the weights for a deadlift are reasonably heavy. This really depends on you – how much weight you want to use. My recommendation, it should be heavy enough for an upright row but not light enough that you don’t feel the deadlift. In this exercise, you engage your thighs, back, traps and deltoids (shoulders), biceps and forearms.

Number 2: High jump burpees
Start with lying face down on the floor. In one smooth motion, do a pushup, bring your legs in (towards the chest), do a squat and jump high. Now in the exact opposite manner, come back to the start position. If done with good speed and control, this is one the GREATEST fat burning exercises. You work your chest, thighs, calves, abs and shoulders. Joint this with the ‘Pullup and hanging leg raise’ for an amazing full body workout in less than 10 minutes.

And the winner is: Sprints
HIIT is ruling the world right now and sprints are ruling HIIT. Go to a track, do a warm up and then sprint for a good few seconds (10 – 30 seconds) depending on your fitness levels. 6 – 8 of them and you will be drained. Trust me!! All hormones, EPOC, RMR – everything turn to help you burn more and more fat.

Now all the exercises above will help you lose weight. The key is, to exhaust all major muscle groups. You are not trying to become a pro-body builder so you don’t need to concentrate on this head of the tricep or that part of the chest. Treat it as one muscle and just exhaust it. 15 reps for a 3 – 5 sets per exercise is good enough with a 30 second rest. The best way is to alternate between two or three exercises.

Hope this was useful. Please do leave comments and questions. Please digg it as well if you get the time and like what you see. Stay tuned for lots lots more.

The EPOC effect

I have written a number of articles where I mentioned the EPOC effect, but I never wrote an article on what EPOC actually is. I won’t go into A LOT of detail at this point. It really depends on you. If you want to know more, leave a comment asking questions or just tell me that I should write more about EPOC.

EPOC stands for Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, which means that the usage or need of oxygen increases after an exercise session. The extra oxygen is used to get your body back to its resting state. A number of operations take place in our body such as hormone balancing, replenishment of fuel stores and anabolism. The main thing that we should be concerned with is that it increases our metabolism after a workout. Depending on how strenuous the exercise was the length of the EPOC effect varies. The strenuous the exercise, the longer the EPOC effect. This is where the concept of burning fat during rest and sleep came from. So if you workout really hard, you will burn fat till hours after the workout and even while you sleep.

The common concept is that you just do cardio to lose fat as it increases your metabolism during the workout and an hour or so after. However, latest research shows us that you can increase your fat loss dramatically through strength training. Anaerobic training increases your EPOC effect for hours and hours after the workout, which means that your metabolism increases for a long long time and you burn more fat. The more and larger the muscle groups fatigued, the longer the EPOC effect.
According to research, the absolute best kind of workout for EPOC is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I have already written quite a bit about HIIT so I won’t go into any details to bore you :-).

My recommendation to get the most out of the EPOC effect, is to workout as many muscle groups as you can at one time and completely drain yourself (you don’t need to workout for hours to do this…this can be done short and high intensity workouts. You can find examples in my previous posts) and do HIIT the following day. You will be amazed with the results.

Hope this was useful. Let me know what you think about this post. Let me know if you want to know more. Stay tuned for some very interesting posts, still to come.

How to design your own strength circuit training program part 2

I hope you guys found the last post useful. Here are a couple more samples of circuit training.

Routine 1
Squats 20
Pushups 30
Lunges 20 each side
Rows 20
Donkey kicks 20 each side
Shoulder pushups 20
Jump squats 10
Pullups max
Squat n Row 20
1 minute rest

Plank 15 - 30 seconds
Pushups 10
Mountain Climbers 30 seconds
Repeat 1 - 3 times

This routine is one of my absolute favorites. If I haven’t worked out in quite a while, I do the above to make sure I hit every muscle group. In the second bit of this routine, your body is always tensed – especially the core. You will really feel this, so be prepared to get really sore the next day ;).

Routine 2
Pushups 15
Squats 15
Pushups 15
Squats 15
Jump rope 1 Minute

DB rows 12 Each side
DB rows 12 Each side
Jump rope 1 Minute

Shoulder press 12
Upright rows 12
Shoulder press 12
Upright rows 12
Jump rope 1 Minute

This is a fat loss circuit that is supposed burn a lot of fat, increase stamina and improve your overall body conditioning. Try these routines and tell me how you get on with them. I want to know what you think about these routines. Were they effective for you? Did you enjoy doing them?

Stay tuned for the EPOC effect post. Till next time.

How to design your own strength circuit training program part 1

Circuit training is an excellent way to increases metabolism, elevates heart rate, burn fat, get an EPOC effect and get a full body workout. It is a type of interval training where you alternate between strength training and cardio vascular training. However, recently a number of other types of circuit trainings have come into play where you alternate between high intensity and low intensity exercises (both strength training), alternate between smaller and larger muscle groups and simply doing strength training for maximum reps, for one set and moving on to the next body part.


I would like to think that the best kind of circuit training is where you concentrate large muscle group, then the attached smaller muscle groups and finally a cardio movement. But this is not cast in stone. All circuit trainings are useful...heck...you can come up with your own circuit training method. The main concept is do one thing after the other. Here is a routine that I have often used.

Set 1:
Pushups
Triceps dips
Speed ball punches (imagine you are hitting a speed ball that boxers use)

Set 2:
Jump squats (with weights if too easy)Calf raises
Run in place with knees as high as possible

Set 3:
Rows
Bicep curls
Speed punches (Stand in a TAE KWON DO punching position and imagine you are trying to hit the person in front of you in the stomach really hard and fast)

Set 4:
Shoulder press
Lateral raises
Jumping backs

Set 5:
Hanging side leg raises (for the obliques)
Plank
Burpees

This is a routine that has given excellent results. Now it is up to you how you want to do it (or something similar). I usually do 20 reps per exercise, 1 minute for the cardio and 10 second rest per set and repeat the entire workout twice. You can do 30 reps, 30 seconds for the cardio and 30 seconds rest or any other method. The idea is to exhaust. Mix it up and make it interesting. I will be posting two more circuit training routine which are different to one above so stay tuned. Also, let me know what you think about this routine. Do you think it is unrealistic, too hard or is it exactly what you are looking for. Please leave a comment and do let me know. See you next time.

How to create your own fat loss exercise plan

A number of you guys really appreciated the last ‘How to’ post…here comes another one :-). The best way to lose fat and keep it off is to have a good diet and exercise regularly. The last post mentioned ‘how to create your own fat loss diet plan’ and today I will discuss ‘how to create your own fat loss exercise plan’.

The first step is to establish when you can workout. Some say that the best time to workout is in the morning before breakfast when glycogen stores are very low. Others say that you should try to workout in the evening as you don’t have enough energy in the morning and you will burn what you have eaten throughout the day. Which one is better? Answer to this is – It doesn’t matter. Do what suits you best. Both have their benefits and working out is more important thing than the time.

Match time with diet plan: We have discussed what your diet should be like, so you need to match the timings with your diet. At the same time, you need to see what is possible for YOU to do. What I mean to say is that if you workout in the morning, your breakfast need to be different to when you workout in the evening.

Identify equipment: You may have some exercise equipment at home, you may be a gym goer (or thinking of joining a gym) or you may simple want to use your own body to do the workouts. Regardless of what you choose, you need to identify which one suits you best. You can work each and every body part with absolutely no equipment, so you don't have any equipment excuse.

Identify strength trainings: As a beginner, all you need to concentrate on is 4 major muscle groups. These are the chest, shoulders, back and thighs (or the entire lower body). Don’t break up your workout, do full body every time you do strength training. Look for compound exercises for these muscle groups. If you have some kind of exercise equipment, try and see how you can use that to work these muscles. Make sure that all are compound movements and not isolation. Compound movements use more than 1 muscle group. It can be 1 major muscle and 2 or 3 minor muscles or can be 2 major muscle groups. The key point here is that – the more muscle movement, the more the calorie burn. Try and make a plan where you completely exhaust these muscle groups. Start off with one exercise per muscle group then introduce supper sets, then alternate between upper body lower body. Whatever you think will exhaust these muscles. Exhausting is very important for EPOC (I will discuss EPOC in a later post). Don't do strength training everyday. I suggest doing it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you want to lose fat from your stomach, thighs or butt, don’t just do crunches or donkey kicks. Spot reduction is one of the biggest myths of the fitness industry. You need to do full body workouts.

Identify cardio: Do any cardio you like. It can be jumping jacks, cycling, walking etc. - whatever you like. However, you need to do it in an HIIT and varying format. During the beginning stages, do the HIIT training on days when you are not doing strength training. Once you think you are fit enough, do HIIT right after your strength workouts. This will burn calories like you cannot even imagine. On the other days i.e. the non-strength/HIIT days, do any kind of cardio for about 20 – 30 minutes, but keep changing your speed every minute or so. Go very fast, then very slow, then medium. Basically, mix it up a bit.

Resting days: I usually take Sundays off. It is very important to take ATLEAST one day off from working out. Too much of anything is bad for you. Take a day's rest and be sureto cheat as well :-). Good, isn’t it.

Write down your plan and see how best you can follow it. Shoot me with any questions you have and I will try my level best to help you out.

The Power Of The Eccentric Motion

The following post is taken from http://www.weightgain4you.blogspot.com/

In this article I will be talking to you about a simple tip that was used years ago for explosive muscle growth, but for some reason it's not used as much these days and it should be!

This popular weight training technique was used by muscle building enthusiasts long before you where lifting and even walking for that matter. For it not to be used as much now is a real downer and people are missing out on the results it can bring them. So, follow me and read on below to start seeing more in your muscle building efforts.

In weight training, in order for the muscle to grow and develop, there needs to be a high tension and stimulus placed on the muscles (well durrr!). When the muscles are overloaded with more tension than they were put through the last time round the musculatory system requires your muscles to undergo hypotrophy, or increase in mass. Therefore, resulting in an increase in both muscle size and strength.

The larger the force of tension put on your muscles, the larger more they muscle tissue is stimulated. So in order for your muscles to get the best possible chance of growth, you need to implement a good stimulating technique into your weight training program.

Now, that’s enough of me babbling on, I guess you wanna here this old super powerful technique this whole article is about.

Well....Have you ever heard of the negative lift? Or eccentric contraction training? It's a weight training technique that places a huge demand on the muscle, even more so than just lifting a conventional weight. This increased amount of stress on the muscle is what is responsible for delivering increased results in muscle growth.

An eccentric contraction or negative contraction is the lowering position of a lift. When you lift a weight, the strain on the muscle is less than that of when you lower the weight. The increased tension on the muscle when lowering is because the muscle fibres are lengthened and the strain on each individual muscle fibre is increased. Thus, resulting in an increase in muscle growth potential.

Another example of this is included in a bench press. When you lift the bar up to the point of full extension, and then you begin to lower it again, trying not to let it come down too fast and smack you in the throat, this is what is known as an eccentric contraction. The longer you take to lower the bar the more muscle fibres are stimulated, and the chance of muscle growth are increased.

Check out this example of the negative lift. In this case the guy is doing chin ups on the rack:

Negative Lift Example




The human muscles are a wonderful thing, they can lift up to 40% more weight during the negative motion (or eccentric contraction) than they can do during the positive muscle contraction. The positive contraction of the lift is when there is a shortening of the muscle fibres. In other words, the concentric contraction (which is the positive contraction) is when you undergo lifts such as curling, pressing, or pulling down resistance.

That 40% of extra weight which can be lifted on a negative contraction increases your weight training intensity, and places a higher stimuli on the muscles. Therefore, resulting in optimum tension and stimulus for maximum muscle growth and development.

Please be advised that the negative weight training technique is proven to increase muscle fibre damage, and in turn intensify muscle soreness. This extra muscle trauma is the result of higher intense and more targeted muscle training. Along with this increase of intensity comes shorter training times and increased speed of the muscle growth process.

Building the muscle you want is easier than you thought, as long as you utilize the negative repetition. Introduce it to your weight training program now so you can increase the speed of which you build muscle mass.


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The 2 push routine

This is a very interesting routine. There are only 2 basic pushing exercises and you do lots of variations to hit your full body to maximize calorie burning, increase metabolism, condition the muscle and boost your overall energy levels. Do this workout if you are short of time and dont have any equipment. The rules are that you are not allowed to rest and that's it.

15 speed squats
15 normal pushups
15 squats
15 narrow pushups
20 lunges each side
10 narrow pushups (use the 5 second up and 5 second down rule)
20 jump squats (jump high)
30 second T-hold (Get into a pushup position. Move your arms to the sides so that your body makes a T. Now hold)
30 second wallsit (Do a squat againt a wall and hold)

Repeat 1 - 3 times. Max rest - 1 minute.

This is an excellent routine. If you are week at pullups and chinups,you will also engage your back muscle to strengthen them, making it easier for you to do pullups. This routine is a full body fat burning routine. You can make this your only routine for a month and combine with a healthy diet plan. You will surprised with the results. The key is compound movements, high intensity and low periods of rest.

Try it and leave comments :).

The jump rope workout

One of the best and most affordable exercise equipments around is the jump rope. Athletes ranging from swimmers, to boxers, to martial artists use it for total conditioning. It is no longer a 6 year old girl’s toy. You can get an amazing heart pumping, fat burning, BMR raising, stamina building, muscle conditioning, strength increasing, co-ordination improving workout in a matter of minutes. You don’t even have to do it every day. Do it 3 – 4 days a week and that is it. The jump rope is an excellent addition to any weight loss/fat loss or muscle building program. You may have seen a number of Muhammad Ali’s workout clips where he is just skipping. Here’s one:



Here’s another video of a boxer skipping away.



Now, I don’t expect you to do what the guy above is doing, but you should be able to do the following.

Stretch your calves and legs, grab a jump rope and start skipping at a normal pace (you define what is normal for you). Skip for about 30 seconds then start walking in one place with knees as high as your waist and arms moving as well. Walk for 1 minute at a reasonably high speed then start skipping. Skip for 30 seconds at a higher speed. If the rope gets stuck in your feet, no worries…just adjust the rope and start jumping again. Repeat the above 6-8 times and you’re done. If this starts to get easy for you, start alternating between fast and slow skips rather than skips and walk. You will surely see benefits in you stamina, body fat percentage, speed and co-ordination.

There are some safety precautions that you should take. Make sure you are wearing proper shoes and are not skipping on a concrete or very hard floor. Don’t hold your breath while skipping and keep your back straight. One tends to start slouching while skipping which can be bad for your back and posture.

If you want to include skipping in your workout, you can replace the cardio with skipping. That should do for now...take care guys...see you soon.

Burn fat in an hour..........A WEEK!!

What is the most common excuse that people have for not working out? It's that they don’t have time to workout. An average person works for about 8 - 10 hours everyday, comes home and either crashes on the bed, in front of the TV or runs to the fridge. Usually the people are so tired that they find time to do anything but workout. There are a number of reasons for that, revolving mainly around their diet and the type of work that they do. Instead of getting them to change their job or get disciplined in their eating habits (which they don't want - trust me), we can look for an alternative. Never fear - Usman is here :). I have designed a workout plan that is only an hour long. An hour you say, that is just another workout. Actually, no it isn't. I did not say an hour a day, I am saying - AN HOUR A WEEK. Is that good or is that good. 10 minutes a day for 6 days a week in the morning and you will be melting fat instead of burning it. Just think about it, 10 minutes a day, 1 hour a week, 4 hours a month, 48 HOURS A YEAR. That is easy...isn't it? NO, it isn't. The workouts are short but highly intense. It should be done before you breakfast when glycogen stores are at their minimum and if a need is created, the maximum energy will come from fats. You can multiply you effects if you take an all protein breakfast as you will increase your growth hormone (it help you burn fat) to dramatic levels for a couple of hours and then take the carbs. So if you have an all protein breakfast at 8, you can take a snack with carbs at 11 or 11:30. However, this is not necessary.

Ok then, here is the workout:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Warm up (1 minute)
10 squats
10 pushups
30 jumping jacks

Strength (5 minutes)
10 pushups – Very slow – 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down, but do not rest.

10 pullups or rows – The concentric movement (coming back to the start position) should be very slow i.e. 5 minutes. If you cannot complete 10 pullups/rows, jump to do the pullup but come back to the start position very slowly.

10 Upright rows – Grab something heavy (a bucket of water would do just fine), stand straight and the bucket towards your chest. Remember the 5 second rule.

12 jump squats – squat and jump as high as you can

Internal Cardio (4 minutes)
15 burpees
30 jumping jacks
15 burpees
30 jumping jacks
15 burpees
30 jumping jacks
15 burpees
30 jumping jacks

Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

Warm up (1 minute)

The idea is now to have sudden burst of high intensity movements. Imagine there is someone right in front of you and you have to beat him/her up REAL BAD. Here’s what you do:

1 minutes jump rope or jumping jacks
30 seconds just go wild kicking and punching as fast and hard as you can. You want to mutilate the other (non-existent) guy.

Repeat this 8 times and you’re done. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Try this with a healthy diet i.e. drink lots of water, take sufficient low GI carbs and proteins with low carbs at dinner and a few portions of fruits and you’ll be surprised. Trust me! I’ve got lots more to tell you guys so stay tuned.

Best Fat Burning Exercise

There are more than 100,000 articles, blogs and websites on the internet that talk about the best fat burning exercise. Some say it is walking, some are of the opinion that cycling or rowing burn the most fat, then you also have a category of people who promote weight training as the best fat burner. Each one has arguments for their exercises. The thing is that in order to make this decision we cannot only rely on the exercise. It is the exercise, intensity and the method of training that counts. For example, bench press is one of the best chest exercises and to achieve the final goal, you need to consider the intensity and method as well. If you use 2 lbs dumbbells and do 25 reps for 2 sets of bench press, you will never gain muscle. So the exercise alone is not enough to make this decision. Let’s analyze each of these aspects and try to draw a conclusion.

The best fat burning exercise should work all of your major muscle groups. These include the glutes, thighs, back, chest and shoulders. Simply put, the more/larger the muscle, the more calories you burn and the bigger the EPOC effect. So any exercise that works all of these muscle groups is a good fat burner. Exercises that do actually work the entire body or the major muscle groups are running, skipping, burpees, clean and jerk, high jumps, kettle bell swings etc. You get the idea. So which one is the best? In my personal view, anaerobic exercises are better than aerobic for fat loss. Many experts may at this point be like – ‘This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ as it is a general notion that aerobic exercise is for fat burning. But we fail to realize that anaerobic exercise gives us the EPOC (Excess Post-workout Oxygen Consumption) effect for a lot longer as compared to aerobic exercises. This helps you raise your metabolism, increase your oxygen intake and in effect, burn more fat. I would say that the best exercise for a full body workout is clean and jerks or kettle bell swings. Don’t get me wrong, running is excellent, but there is A LOT of risk for injury. If you do the clean jerks or swings as a controlled movement at a medium to high intensity, you would be a lot safer.

As pointed out earlier, it is not only the exercise that determines whether it is the best burner or not. It is also important to note in what method the exercise is being done. As many others, I support HIIT as being the best method for burning fat, but majority of the trainers look at HIIT as alternating between low intensity and high intensity cardio. I think slightly differently. I prefer strength training workouts alternated with resting periods. For example, do 15 reps of clean and jerk followed by a resting period for about 1 – 2 minutes. Repeat this 5 – 8 times and you’re done. All the HIIT essentials are there – EPOC, carb and fat usage, cardio workouts, mass gaining workout, release of HGH and testosterone and lots more. It’s actually the same HIIT concept, with minor changes.

Ok, so the conclusion is that a full body workout like clean and jerk or kettle bell swings with medium to high intensity in an HIIT fashion is the best kind of fat burner. Stay tuned for a lot more hints and tips for BURN FAT AND BUILD MUSCLE.

The 3P workout method

This is a very interesting concept. I came up with this when I was wrestling with my cousin about 2 years back and even though I was a regular gym goer, I felt sore the very next day. At this point I was intrigued to see what exactly I did during the wrestling session that it engaged the muscles that I had not worked on? The point to note is that the soreness was present in the smaller muscle groups in places like the calves, the lower part of the lower back, the end tip of the traps (shoulder muscles that attach to the neck) and the inner triceps. After thinking about it for some time, I realized that there were two major aspects to the entire wrestling session – Pushups and pulling. However, these were not the traditional controlled push and push movements that we do in a gym. There were a lot of jerks and sudden burst of power involved. After a lot of pondering and recalling I came up with the 3P method which can help you burn fat and tone up/define the muscles that you really want to show. The 3P stands for ‘Pull Push Partner’ routine. The thing is that you cannot do this workout alone, hence the term ‘Partner’. Here is what you need to do.

Look for an open area where you have at least 50 meters of space – like a track. You will start with a warm up which can be anything as long as it gets the heart pumping and makes you feel a bit warm. Now grab your partner’s hands in whatever way you feel comfortable and start pulling. The pull should not be a continuous pull, think of a rowing machine; the difference is that you are standing up and moving one step backward after each pull. So after each pull, take a step (or two) back and pull your partner towards you with one powerful jerk. As for the partner, he/she should not try to pull back but provide resistance. The partner’s arms and forearms should make an angle of about 90 – 130, back should be straight and knees slightly bent. These steps are very important to avoid injury. You are not to stop between pulls, it should be high intensity, high power and high speed.

Once you complete the 50 meters, start pushing your partner. The concept remains the same that the partner will provide resistance and you will get a GOOD workout. Repeat this 3 – 5 time and then you become the resistance provider and your partner can get the workout.

Some points that are very important – You and your partner should more or less be at the same level of fitness. You don’t have to be exactly the same but some what similar. WARM UP is absolutely vital. You don’t want to pull a muscle or anything so make sure you are warmed up.

I have actually used this technique on a few of my partner clients and it has worked very well because by the end of the workout, you will FEEL like you have had a workout. The workout reminds me of this machine where you sit and pull the handles, then push them with a big wheel on the side that provided resistance. At one time it was said to be the best machine for full body workouts. If you want to be innovative, you can replace your partner with some other kind of resistance provider like say a small car. Anything would do as long as you can pull and push it.

The 3P method works on the HIIT and Supersets concepts which are both excellent for fat loss and muscle gain. I for one always enjoy this workout so I would urge you to have a go as well. Please do leave comments on what you think about the 3P workout method.

Crossfit - The next big thing!!

Crossfit is an exercise methodology created by Greg Glassman a former gymnast in the 1970s. In my personal view, if you don’t want to bulk up like a pro body builder, but want a well-defined body, lose body fat and improve your fitness level beyond your wildest expectations then Crossfit is for you. They concentrate on strength, speed and endurance, which cover almost all the aspects of fitness. You do strength exercises with high intensity with high speed to failure.

Here is a beginner’s workout for you to try.

Kipping pull-ups x 5
Push-ups x 10
Squats x 15

Continue doing this for about 20 minutes or for however long you can. The idea is to keep your self going. If you can’t do 5 pull-ups after repeating the routine 5 times, then do it 3 or 4 times. If you can’t even do one pull-up, then use momentum and jump and come down slowly, but try to keep going. This really exhausts your muscles. It is always recommended that you do the Crossfit training in teams or at least in pairs to keep the motivation high.



This is a tough and challenging method of training, hence the high number of drop outs. However, the numbers seem to be increasing very rapidly and people are getting excellent results with regards to fitness overall. If you are not into challenging your body and seeing how far you can push yourself before giving up then this is probably not the best training method for you. But if you want to see what you are made of, then grab your exercise kit and get ready for a workout of a life time.

Now finally, my recommendation - Look into the Crossfit method of training and try it. Go to their website at http://www.crossfit.com/ and learn their beginner movements. For now, you can start with the routine listen above. If fat loss and tone is your aim, you will be surprised with the results. Just make sure you follow a sensible diet plan. You can try the ‘1-2 zig zag’ method described in the previous post. The routine should be done on the high calorie day before breakfast for best results. If you want to gain muscle mass using this routine then you will have to increase the resting period and slow down the movements. This should also be supported with a muscle building diet plan. To get some guidance on what a muscle gaining diet plan should be like subscribe to get the 10 week burn ‘n’ build program and see how the muscle building diet works.

I think that should do for now. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more interesting stuff about how YOU can get to where you want to be. Till next time – Keep the motivation high.