Exercises are performed in all sorts of ways. Expose your body to more work that it is used to handling, allow rest and recovery and the body will make a positive adaptation as a form of self protection. You can put in more time – do more reps, do more sets, run a little further, engage in whatever the activity is a little longer – and as long as you don’t overdo it the body will come back improved.
You can work a little harder – more weight on the bar, a steeper hill at the same pace, sprinting instead of jogging - and again as long as you don’t overdo it the body will come back improved. If you exercise in this way the workouts cannot be very long but they can be very effective. Just one benefit is fat loss.
From this study, High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss this quote:
The effect of regular aerobic exercise on body fat is negligible; however, other forms of exercise may have a greater impact on body composition. For example, emerging research examining high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) indicates that it may be more effective at reducing subcutaneous and abdominal body fat than other types of exercise.
For my time and effort, I much prefer high-intensity intermittent exercise. Doing exercise in this way you continue to burn calories long after the workout is over. It is a workout you need to work up to. It can be conducted on all sorts of aerobic equipment. I use a recumbent bike. The workout consists of a warm-up followed by an all-out sprint and then a recovery period at a slower pace. The sprint and recovery are then repeated for
up to eight cycles. There is not set formula on how long the sprints should
be. I use the format laid out by Dr. Mercola on his web site – three minutes
of warm-up followed by a 30 second sprint with a 90 second recovery period pedaling at a slower pace the sprint and recover again. Doing it for eight cycles would mean four minutes of highly demanding work. I think it is worth it for the results.
All-out isn’t 80 or 90%, it is really all-out. The first time I did I did two sprints and I was really spent. I am up to six and it is difficult. The fat is coming off; one is less likely to be lured by comfort food when one putting out a lot of effort. It is taking me less time to get my pulse back to normal after a session. After a long hiatus from exercise I managed to get badly out of shape. The best part of getting back to exercise is that I feel much better.
At New Orleans Fitness Trainers and at Austin Personal Training we can show you how to work up to this workout and how to workout effectively and efficiently so you can spend less time in the gym and more time doing the things you want to do.