This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Craig Ballantyne I have his permission to share it with you.

Secret #3 – Use the stationary cycle for interval training.

I choose the stationary bike for intervals whenever possible because cycling against a resistance can help maintain muscle mass.
Cycling against a resistance also allows you to perform a large amount of mechanical work, and that is a key determinant of the Turbulence in my training.

But please note: I don’t use low-intensity, fast pedaling ’spinning’ intervals as I’m convinced that the hard, resistance based intervals are more effective for fat loss. My clients only cycle against a strong resistance in their intervals.

I really like the bike, but there are many other ways to do intervals. Use what works for you, but if you are at a plateau, try the bike.

Secret #4 – Increase meal frequency

Okay, so this isn’t really a secret to anyone that has read about fat loss. But a 2005 study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating 6 times per day was associated with eating fewer calories per day, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering post-meal insulin levels.

Combine an increased meal frequency with an increased protein and fiber intake, and you’ll see your body composition improve rapidly.

If you need more nutrition help, then you’ll love the new Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women – written by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D.

See below for more details…

Secret #5 – My Synergistic Turbulence Training Workouts

My Turbulence Training Fat Loss workouts are fast becoming the most effective way to burn fat, build muscle, and get lean. The synergistic strength training-interval training workouts are efficient and effective – getting you in and out of the gym in under an hour.

Here are some tips that you can use for an advanced training phase
- use these tips for 2 weeks then return to your normal training schedule:

a) Add 10 seconds to each interval but maintain the intensity

b) Add in some bodyweight circuits (10-20 minutes per day) done in the morning or evening (if you do your regular workout in the AM, do your bodyweight circuits after dinner; otherwise, do the bw circuits first thing in the AM, and then do your regular workout at lunch or later in the afternoon or evening)

If you are advanced, you can use squats, pushups, and bodyweight rows for your circuit.

If you are a beginner, you could use lying hip extensions, modified pushups, and stick-ups.

c) Add an extra set to each exercise in the first superset you do in each workout.

Again, use these three tips for an advanced fat loss period of two weeks, then return to a normal training schedule.

But always stick to the best fat loss nutrition plan possible.

If you have any other questions, just let me know.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne

Author, Turbulence Training

P.S. Big Nutrition Announcement!

The Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women – written by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D., is ready for you.

Here are just some of the things you’ll learn from Dr. Mohr…

1) How to calculate your calorie needs (p. 6)
2) Calorie recommendations for obese individuals (p.7)
3) The 23 types of sugar (many hidden!) to avoid (p. 9)
4) The 20 whole-grain sources to fuel your fat loss program (p9)
5) Over 60 fruits and vegetables that should be added to your diet (p. 10)
6) The 16 protein sources you should select most often (p. 13)
7) Shocking trans-fat content of 18 common foods – find out which food is the deadliest in terms of fat content (p. 16)
8 ) The 9 Fat Sources you should select most often (p. 17)
9) Dr. Mohr’s 12 Rules for Fat Loss (p. 18)
10) The TT Nutrition Plan for Men (p. 19)
11) The TT Nutrition Plan for Women (p. 23)
12) Bonus Supplement Report: The Truth About Fat Loss Pills (p. 27)

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

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This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jayson Hunter I have his permission to share it with you.

With summer quickly approaching women are breaking out their Mini Skirts and hoping they fit. Here are some of my best rapid fat loss tips for fitting into your mini skirts.

Losing weight fast is actually a simple process, but simple is not necessarily easy. There is effort involved.

Here are three weight loss keys for women to look sexy in a Mini Skirt:

1) Exercise

Women can lose weight just by following a nutrition plan on its own, but very few succeed at it and it takes much longer than when women eat properly and exercise as well. And not just getting on a treadmill for 30 minutes every other day. Though some women may lose weight this way it is not the most efficient use of your time. Nor does it maximize the ability to burn calories if you want to fit into that mini skirt.

The most effective way to lose fat is by strength training or some type of interval training utilizing strength training and cardiovascular exercises. A properly designed program can burn more overall calories in 20 minutes than 40 minutes on a treadmill. Also, the X factor in all this is that women will burn more calories per minute hours after they finished strength training because of the EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) effect. Static exercise on a treadmill doesn’t produce this X factor. Did you know that research shows that interval strength training can elevate your metabolism for up to 40 hours after you complete your workout.

This means that your metabolism is elevated all the time 24 hours a day if you exercise every day or every other day. Now that is what you want to look great in that mini skirt.

This is a good thing, a very good thing. You see speeding up your metabolism is the key to losing weight quickly and keeping it off for a lifetime. As you get older your metabolism naturally starts slowing down. Stopping this natural metabolism slowdown will keep you from gaining that 5-10 pounds every year.

2) Keep a food journal

You will be amazed at what you consume and not even realize you did it until you write it down and reflect back on the day. Keeping a food log is critical to your successful trek of fitting into your mini skirts because if modifications need to be made you are able to evaluate and analyze. If weight loss changes aren’t happening like you had hoped the answer can usually be found in the food and or exercise journal.

Make sure you record the quantities of what you eat and what you drink. Many people forget that there are calories and sometimes lots of calories in what you drink. Review your food journal at the end of every day and see what you did well and what you need to work more on. Make sure you note the changes you need to make for the next day so you can re-evaluate what you improved on the next day. This is a very important step to ensuring mini skirt success.

3) Follow the 90% rule

If you can follow a weight loss plan 90% of the time then that is enough for you to be successful. Women who find themselves breaking the rules more than 90% of the time then the chance of being successful with weight loss is not as likely. Your chances of failing increase significantly. For most women this means you are allowed to cheat on your meals 4 times per week if you are eating 5 meals a day.

These are just 3 weight loss keys to looking great in that Mini Skirt this summer. Start implementing these mini skirt weight loss keys and before you know it you will be looking great and getting comments on how great you look in that mini skirt.

Click here for more weight loss tips and how to lose weight fast.

Jayson Hunter RD, CSCS is the author of the Carb Rotation Diet. To discover the 5 absolute truths Every Serial Dieter Who Seeks Rapid-Weight loss MUST come to grips with visit The Carb Rotation Diet.

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Interval training has gained in popularity over the last few years, but it is far from a new scientific practice. I actually don’t know who first coined the term ‘interval training’ but it’s been around as long as we’ve been doing exercise (i.e. since ancient Greek/Roman times), but it wasn’t really until the 1970’s that it started to be studied in sports science laboratories.

Interval training has gained in popularity due to a number of great research articles coming out that showed shorter more intense workouts were better at burning fat and delivering fitness capacity gains than one paced cardio sessions.(steady state cardio is the actual term).

It’s because of these studies that a new type of interval training has been popularised.

It’s called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).

HIIT is the type of training that I use with a lot of my clients and in a lot of my programs as it gives great results. However, it does not mean that HIIT is the only type of interval training you can do.

Have you ever heard of Fartlek training?

It’s a Swedish word that means Speed Play.
Unlike HIIT it uses lots of different and varying levels of intensity to deliver results.

So your typical HIIT would look something like this:

Work Hard for 20 secs (resistance training or some form of cardio machine, running outdoors)

Rest 10 secs

Repeat for 4-5 minutes.

Rest 1-2 mins and then do another set of exercises.

A typical Fartlek Program might look a little like this:

5 mins easy jog

5 mins fast pace run

2 mins flat out pace run

100m strides (i.e.over striding type drills or skipping type drills), rest 30 secs x 5-10

5 mins easy jog

10 x Hill sprints with walk back recovery

Etc etc

Until you have completed a workout that lasts 30-50 minutes.

So not all of work would be carried out at a really high intensity.

You can also apply this sort of thing to a cardio workout on a fitness machine. So that you may just have small and less intense changes in the interval ‘paces’. If you are only able to walk for instance then you might do this:

Walk @ 6 km/h up a 7.5 gradient for 5 mins

Walk @ 6.5 km/h up a 5 gradient for 5 mins

Walk @ 5.5 km/h up a 10 gradient for 5 mins

Etc etc

By now you should be getting the idea that if you are not ready to do HIIT then you can still get some of the benefits by working at lower intensities. So there is no excuse to continue with your long, slow, boring, one paced cardio workout anymore.

So what's the myth I hear you say...well the myth is that interval training has to be of the high intensity type. You'll get decent results doing lower intensity intervals (maybe not as good as with HIIT) but then not everyone is at a level where they can do HIIT.

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In my last post I introduced the concept of EPOC and today I will tell you how to use it to get results

This is the key part that most people don’t know or understand and therefore do not utilise. The power that interval and resistance training can give you.

Imagine burning calories not only when you’re working out but for 24 hours after you stop. That is what happens in the body when you lift weights and do interval training.

So how does this differ from normal fat loss training. In most cases people (and some trainers) think that the best way to loose weight is to run, cross train, cycle etc. They get on the bit of cardio and workout all at the same speed for an hour.

Well in that hour the calorie consumption may have been 800 calories as opposed to only say 400 calories from doing intervals or lifting weights.

However it is the effect with in the body that is more important. The weights or interval training will set of a reaction of hormonal and physiological responses that will continue to burn fat hours after finishing the exercise where the steady pace running would only burn calories for another couple of hours.

Tomorrow I’ll describe more in depth about what each of the factors, Alwyn talks about, are.

If you want to take a closer look at ‘Afterburn’ then check it out at www.CoachCosgrove.com – he also has some great products for fitness professionals.

Until next time,
Train hard, train smart, make every rep count.

Alex

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So day 4 is a repeat of the day 2 resistance circuit.

The only changes I made today was adding some extra weight in 3 of the exercises.

I completed the backward lunge with a 40kg barbell on my shoulders.
Upped single arm row from 20kg to 25 kg.
Put 5kg dumbbells on my shoulders for the lateral lunge.

Tomorrow is my first interval training session that doesn’t involve any running.

To get your hands on your own half marathon programme then just **click here**

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Let’s face it most of us are under some type time pressure these days. For this reason people are constantly trying to come up with the fastest and most reliable ways to burn fat.

The old adage that we all want to look better naked is exploding as celebrity culture hits even bigger heights – who else wants to do a Paris Hilton ‘home’ movie??

Seriously if you want to find ways to burn fat really quickly then the best bet is to be doing a mix of weight training and interval training.

Here’s a sample workout program you can do if you have a lack of time.

Warm Up 5 mins

A1 Squats
A2 Chest Press
A3 Seated Row

Complete 10 reps of each exercise one after the other with no to little rest and continue for 15 mins.

So in the end you may well have done 10 rounds of the three exercises (completeing 10 reps each time) which would add up to a jaw dropping 300 reps – not bad for a quick 15 minute workout.

Finish with an interval cardio session like this.

Hill Sprint on Treadmill
30 secs on at 14.5 km/h up 7.5 incline
60 seconds rest
X 10

Cool down 5 mins.

Start to finish you can be done in less than 45 minutes and really given your body a boost so that you continue to burn fat for hours and hours after you have finished.

Give it a go.

Let me know your results in the comments section below.

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I have been snowed under recently and unable to get much up here.

However, I have to tell you about this great new exercise training tool that can help you shed pounds and increase your fitness level.

If you are into interval training and want to utilise some of the most up to date computer programs then you really need to check out ** Body Bot**

This is a brand new way of training, launched just this week.

My friend Ryan Lee has been working on this for some time after the success and unprecedented feedback he received for his Quattro Fitness DVD’s – **Click Here to See What the Quattro Fitness DVD’s are about**

If you want to use a fitness program that will help you burn belly fat, and get you to have six pack abs then this is most likely one of the best tools you can invest in.

Go and check out what it’s all about by visiting ** The Body Bot Page**

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