“I want tone”

“Shawn, I need a workout I can do to tone and I don’t want to run.” “Shawn, I am running but I want to tighten up my core.”  Being a certified personal trainer my friends and family are always asking me for advice in this manner and many, many other ways. What they are really saying is, “Shawn, I want to lose body fat and increase muscle mass and the only way I know how to do that is through running.” Running is a great steady-rate cardiovascular activity and very useful in increasing calories burned.  But, in order to become more toned and increase muscle mass, not necessarily size but strength and density of muscles, you must do more than just steady-rate cardio. Steady-rate cardio includes biking, running, swimming, Stairmasters, elliptical machines, or any activity that uses the same muscles in a predictable way for an extended (20 minutes or more) period of time.

Types of Muscle Fibers

There are two types of main muscle fibers, fast twitch and slow twitch. Fast twitch muscles fatigue quickly and are typically referred to as anaerobic muscle fibers. They get their energy from a process that does not require oxygen, aerobic, to produce energy. Slow twitch, the longer, prominent, and most noticed muscles are aerobic thus they require oxygen to have energy to continue to work and they fatigue very slowly. The development of these muscles allow for maximum fat loss. They allow for conditioned athletes to maintain their rate of energy use for hours in competitions such as ultra marathons, Iron Man, and, Tour de France. Slow twitch fibers and how the body utilized, focuses, and maintains energy to those muscles adapt quickly thus reducing the amount of calories used in the same amount of time. An experienced, efficient runner will burn fewer calories on a 30 minute run than will a novice runner because their body has not learned how to be efficient and the novice uses unnecessary muscles with poor form. This leads us to better understand why calorie counting in eating and exercise is not always an accurate way of determining fat loss.

Fat Loss

Speaking purely about fat loss it seems simple: intake fewer calories than are used throughout the day and you will lose weight; intake more calories than you expend and you will gain weight. However, knowing when to eat and what to eat at each meal is the key to you achieving what you say are your fitness, training, and ultimately your body composition goals.  Diet and what to consume when, I have touched on in a previous article so I won’t go into detail with it here. I will expand on it in the future so please stay tuned but what I want to focus on here is how fat is burned, muscle is gained, and how to increase your metabolic rate.  These three factors, when combined correctly will create an energy convergence that will cause you to nearly watch your fat melt, muscle strength and mass increase and your energy level to skyrocket.

Interval Training & Fat Loss

The primary reason for exercise is fat loss and muscle gain and it is a common myth that fat burning only occurs through extreme cardiovascular exercise such as lengthy time on the treadmill, running, or some other steady-rate cardio. Contrary to the little tables on the treadmills and the programs on the stationary bike labeled as “fat burning” there is no special fat burning zone in order to cause the body to mainly use fat as fuel. As long as there is more energy being used than being consumed fat is being burned. Oxygen that enters the body allows for fat or carbs to be burned but fat and carbs differ in the amount of oxygen use. Thus one must create the correct respiratory exchange ratio (RER), ratio of carbon dioxide produced to the volume of oxygen consumed. The ideal RER is .71. This is why just an increased heart rate will not burn fat. Interval training is the best way to create the ideal RER, cause overload to your system (necessary for gains), and increase your VO2 max which is the efficiency of oxygen use by your body. Interval training combines both cardiovascular and strength training through a series of resistance training exercises performed back to back with little recovery period. This type of training also utilizes many muscle groups simultaneously instead of isolating a specific muscle. It is most effective because it continues pushing and overloading the body aerobically and challenging the strength of the body simultaneously while engaging both aerobic and anaerobic muscles.

Summary

If your goals include loss of body fat and a toning of muscles then an understanding of how calorie intake verses calorie expenditure is necessary. Becoming obsessive about counting calories can lead to a loss in muscle mass as well if not properly observed so be aware but not obsessed will created better results. Also, to increase your metabolic rate you must engage in a resistance program where you will create muscle density and mass as well as a program utilizing the correct RER. This is where interval training and the training programs I have outlined in pervious articles are so effective. They target both necessary components of fat loss and muscle gain quickly.

Have fun and contact me to let me know how the workouts are going, how many goals you have achieved, and to suggest any future articles. More information about achieving your goals, fitness or otherwise, can be found at my web site www.sdrinspire.com and I can be reached directly at shawndross@sdrinspire.com.