Burn Fat, Reach Weight Loss Goals with Home Gym Workouts
Burn fat and reach your weight loss goals with short, intense and effective home gym workouts. It is one of the best timesavers.
You won’t burn fat in your home gym by just setting it up. How many little-used treadmills and fitness gadgets are sitting in people’s garages gathering dust?
About all you will need is a stability ball, medicine ball, resistance tubes and some dumbbells. And, don’t forget about bodyweight strength exercises—pushups, pullups, inverted rows, squats, lunges, mountain climbers and step ups are all staple bodyweight exercises you should be doing.
Building muscle mass will speed up your metabolism because your body has to work harder to maintain it. Muscle mass will also help you to lose body fat and inches which is more important than losing weight. Transform your body to lean and toned–that’s how to keep the weight off.
Do strength training 3 days a week and interval cardio exercise 2-3 days a week.
Vary your workout routines and intensity to keep your workouts fresh and to keep making progress. Your body will adapt if you do the same workouts week after week.
A shorter, more intense 20-30 minute full body circuit strength workout will give you better results than doing a 1 hour strength workout when you are trying to lose body fat and weight. A circuit workout is one in which you do one exercise after the other with little or no rest between exercises.
Research at Duke University, directed by Dr. Cris Slentz, supports high-intensity exercise for better fat loss. The eight-month study showed that people could lose weight with exercise and no dieting. Those who exercised intensely (especially using interval training) lost much more fat than those who exercised moderately.
According to the research, the high-intensity exercisers had these advantages over the low-to-moderate intensity exercisers:
–more release of fat from cells
–more fat used as fuel during exercise
–increased metabolic rate after exercise
Also, change up your interval cardio routines—such as rotating sprints, jump rope and bodyweight cardio.
Here are some more tips to keep your home workouts from becoming boring:
1. On some days, it helps to split up workouts into 2 separate workouts—such as doing two 15-minute strength training workouts (morning and evening) instead of one 30-minute workout.
2. Exercising outdoors can be a refreshing change from exercising in the living room.
3. Doing something fun and different works too—such as playing soccer, basketball or tennis (these are 3 of the best natural interval cardio exercises).
4. Exercising in a totally different place works sometimes—such as running on the trails at the lake.
5. Take a day off from working out—sometimes even on a scheduled workout day. Its always important to listen to your body.
Also, don’t make the mistake of laying around as much as possible until your workout. Research proves that your fat-burning enzymes shut down when you sit down. Keep your metabolism ramped up all day and burn more calories.
Walking helps you lose the weight and keep it off because it helps you maintain an active lifestyle. Walk at least 30 minutes every day.
Be sure and download your FREE eBook: “10 Must Know Fat Loss Tips,” Free Fat Loss Meals and Free Fat Loss Workouts!
“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”
Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!
Check out my other great blogs:
My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!
Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!
Burn Fat, Look like a Goddess and Stay Injury-Free
Sure you want to burn fat and lose weight. But, it doesn’t help you to “look like a goddess” if your body is totally wrecked with injuries, muscle imbalances and postural problems!
Getting healthy and fit is more than just burning body fat and sculpting your body. You need to do exercises with correct technique to prevent injuries.
The structural alignment of your body is called posture. The human movement system consists of the muscular system, skeletal system and neural system .
These systems must work together and function properly for you to achieve true health and fitness. A personal trainer is there to make sure these systems are corrected and working together while you get “trimmed and buffed!”
For you to look and feel great, you must correct your postural dysfunctions and muscular imbalances as much as possible.
You should also increase your elasticity in the muscles by improving your flexibility. This will improve your performance. Self myofascial release with foam roll is like getting a massage. The foam roller is one of the most effective techniques for releasing tension while improving mobility.
Foam rolling exercises will release and organize your muscles, as well as release and align your skeletal system. Muscle injuries such as strains and tears and broken bones can be avoided with proper flexibility and skeletal alignment.
You might also need the services of a massage therapist or chiropracter to keep your body fine tuned.
One good place to start training is with leg circuit workouts:
Leg exercises (free weight and bodyweight) will help you burn more calories and fat during and after your workouts.
1. You activate more muscle fibers by doing leg exercises such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, step ups, mountain climbers and sprints. The bulky, fast-twitch muscle fibers will shape and sculpt your legs better. Fast-twitch muscle fibers will lie dormant if you don’t “fire them up.”
2. Your core will also get work, especially with squats, lunges and deadlifts.
3. You will burn more calories during and after your workout because your metabolism stays elevated longer.
Exercise Post-Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) causes your body to burn more calories and fat after a tough workout. Your body has to work harder to get back to its pre-exercise state.
For instance, athletes in speed and power sports are usually very cut and lean because most of their exercises are done with intervals at full speed.
4. Your workouts will be shorter and more intense because you will be doing compound (multi-joint) exercises.
Always do leg exercises early in your workout order because they take so much energy from you. Single-joint exercises like bicep curls and calf raises should be done at the end of your workout order.
Good upper body exercises are shoulder press, bench press, pullups, inverted rows, bentover rows, triceps dips on bars, dumbbell front raises/lateral raises.
To your health, fitness and goddess-like physique!
Be sure and download your FREE eBook: “10 Must Know Fat Loss Tips,” Free Fat Loss Meals and Free Fat Loss Workouts!
“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”
Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!
Check out my other great blogs:
My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!
Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!
Women’s Weight Training and Testosterone–What’s the Connection?
Testosterone is not a bad word for women, especially if you are trying to “lean and tone” your body.
One way to build muscle mass is through heavy weight lifting. “Heavy” is relative to your body weight and strength. According to the research, doing this type of weight lifting will give you exercise-induced testosterone increases. This will help you build muscle mass.
To lift heavy enough, your repetition range for exercises should be between 3-5 (you would have a difficult time lifting these repetitions). You would typically do 4-5 sets of each exercise.
Rotate heavy lifting days with light lifting days (10-12 reps per exercise, 3-4 sets). Do circuit weight training with the lighter weights (little or no rest between sets). You will need more rest between sets when you lift heavy (1-2 minutes rest between sets).
Women can also burn more fat by increasing exercise-induced growth hormone. Yes, your body can produce more growth hormone without any illegal drugs. Growth hormone is important for building muscle and burning fat.
Intense circuit weight training and interval cardio workouts will increase your body’s growth hormone. Research has also proven that the benefits of anaerobic exercise (like sprint interval cardio) is superior to aerobic exercise for fitness and heart health.
The progression of your cardio exercise should be low-intensity aerobics to moderate/high-intensity aerobics to high-intensity anaerobic exercise. Rest 20 minutes between sessions if you do weight training and cardio during the same workout.
Doing a second workout during the day (even a short one) keeps growth hormone levels high throughout the day. This will give you even more fat burn.
According to research, growth hormone in your adult body works great to produce the fat-burning results you want. If you want to burn even more fat, do more weight training exercises that test your balance, coordination, strength and flexibility.
Try some of these weight training exercises:
1. Incorporate one-legged exercises such as step ups, single leg squats, single leg good mornings, single leg medicine ball exercises, etc. These types of exercises are more intense than two-legged exercises.
2. Include exercises with your eyes closed to improve limb position sense (proprioception).
3. Exercise your body in all 3 planes of motion to improve multi-planar balance. An example would be a grouping of walking lunges, side lunges and transverse lunges.
4. Do combinations of one-arm and one-leg exercises such as single leg squat-to-single arm shoulder press.
Balance training also improves your core strength.
Challenge yourself more with weight training and your body will burn fat and lean out!
Be sure and download your FREE eBook: “10 Must Know Fat Loss Tips,” Free Fat Loss Meals and Free Fat Loss Workouts!
“Exercise is not my life…..exercise makes my life better!”
Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!
Check out my other great blogs:
My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!
Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named one of the 50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody—including athletes!
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