Alwyn cosgrove fat loss program

Mind-blowing I know. Okay so you probably knew that some activities are better for fat loss than others, but do you know which ones rank highest? Without a doubt I think this an accurate order of important for fat loss. We all know how important nutrition is and if you are neglecting this and want to lose a significant amount of fat all I can say is this: good luck. Knowing about this hierarchy is great, but you may be wondering, what are some more specific methods of training I should be using for fat loss?

Take a look at this list and ask yourself this: Which method is making up the majority of my training? To read the entire article Which I highly suggest because it is really good click here. If you are looking for a fitness professional to structure a workout plan for you to help you lose fat in the most efficient way possible contact me.

So, if you have to stop doing it at some point to get the benefits you seek why not do anaerobic work to begin with?

Your metabolism or your metabolic rate is what determines how many calories you burn each day - or more importantly for the purposes of this book - how many you need to maintain your current weight. Your metabolism is quite simply how many calories you burn in a typical day. It is affected and controlled by your thyroid, and is largely a factor of your muscle mass. To break it down further - every pound of muscle you put on requires approximately 50 calories per day to maintain.

This doesn't take into account the calories burned in training to develop that muscle, or the calories burned in training to keep that muscle - these 50 calories are just the amount needed by that muscle to just sit there. So, one pound of muscle on your body requires approximately 50 calories per day.

This equates to 18, calories per year or the equivalent of a little over 5lbs of fat. So you can see that gaining and maintaining even five pounds of muscle in your training program, will assist in burning off over 26lbs of fat over the coming year.

So in order to really get the athletic look we want to develop, the key is not just how many calories we can burn during exercise, it's how many calories we can force the body to burn all the time. Raising your metabolism is the real key in long term fat loss and physique change. In order to lose body fat, you must burn off more calories than you consume. Despite the proliferation of diets- low carbohydrate, low fat, high protein, high carbohydrate etc this simple rule remains.

I don't want to talk about nutrition here as this is more than adequately covered in another chapter in this book, but suffice to say the caloric balance is still important. I've lost count of how many times I've heard people say "I barely eat anything - I eat like a bird and I still gain weight". Oh really. You are eating fewer calories than you need and your body is gaining weight?

This violates the law of thermodynamics. Usually it's a case of not really being aware of how much you are actually eating. Because let's face it - if your body was capable of producing body weight from nothing, then we better get you sent over to NASA or UNICEF immediately - with magical genes like yours, we might just be able to solve the Third World's hunger problem.

Fat loss is all about caloric expenditure. We must burn more calories than we take in, and the real key to doing this, as mentioned before, is not aerobic training, which will burn calories while you are doing it, its anaerobic training, which burns calories while you are doing it and increases the calories burned for hours afterwards. In the case of weight training, if we build muscle and keep it, that burns calories forever more. Even when you sleep! The key with anaerobic training is what is known as EPOC.

Anaerobic exercise burns a ton of calories while you are performing it. However, the metabolism remains elevated following this type exercise. This was, at one time, referred to as the oxygen debt, but is now referred to as the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption EPOC.

The recovery of the metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels can require several minutes for light exercise aerobic training , several hours for very heavy exercise anaerobic cardio training , and up to 12 to 24 hours or even longer for prolonged, exhaustive exercise interval training or circuit weight training. The EPOC can add up to substantial energy expenditure when totaled over the entire period of recovery.

If the metabolism remains elevated for five hours, this would amount to an additional expenditure of 75 kcal that would not normally be included in the calculated total energy expenditure for that particular activity.

This major source of energy expenditure, which occurs during recovery, but is directly the result of the exercise bout, is frequently ignored in most calculations of the energy cost of various activities.

If the individual in this example exercised five days per week, he or she would have expended kcal, or lost the equivalent of approximately 0. The next obvious idea is - if you trained the next day while your metabolism is still elevated, will we have an even higher return - is the effect accumulative? Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?

Science has yet to give us an answer, however in the real world, I think so. I have seen amazing results with my clients using this exact protocol. So is there a better way of performing cardio workouts to prevent these adaptations, and rapidly improve fat loss results? The key is to perform what is known as interval training. Interval training simply refers to a series of intense activity separated with short rest periods. Through using interval training you are able to exercise at a higher intensity without getting tired.

In other words - because we alternate the periods of high intensity work, with periods of lower intensity work - you are able to do much more work in the same time period than you were before.

The beauty of this is as you improve, the work intervals can get harder and harder, and the recovery intervals can be shortened, or performed at a higher speed. In fact, there is no end in site, and no downside to interval training other than it is really hard. This can be performed using any cardiovascular machine, and I suggest that you use them all.

Multi-mode cardio where you change the machine or type of activity regularly has been shown in the research to be another more effective factor. The main thing is keeping insulin in check. How do you address these attributes with your clients? Alwyn Cosgrove: Yeah — the three keys I presented are all physiological. But psychology trumps physiology every single time.

And social support drives motivation. It makes a huge difference. Probably because of group dynamics and social support. Craig Ballantyne : Most relatively good trainers can handle the physical components of fat loss, but how does a trainer succeed at the mental game? Any resources you can recommend? As far as the mental component goes — my resources came from being exposed to a great coach at a young age. We all remember the coach in our youth, who left us on the bench, or had us running laps in the rain.

We also remember the coach who inspired us, picked us up and made our young lives a little better. Which type of coach are you?

I instill in my clients that we are a team. I work for them. I deliver the best service I can in the position of their fitness coach. Once they put their faith in you — never betray that. But their results will increase when they realize this is a coaching relationship — not just a trainer — client. Occasionally they want comparisons but generally they respond better to comparisons to themselves.

Is this a good number for me to be lifting? A poor coach uses the same personality when working with all his or her clients.