Just for the moment we are going to presume that your diet is fantastic. If it is not, then check out our diet section for more tips, as this post is going to concentrate on the exercise side of losing weight.

Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

Weight loss is a loose description of what is actually required from working out at the gym. It should actually be referred to as fat loss and muscle gain. We need to reduce the body’s fat % to a “safe” level (minimizing body wobble – Beeble) which needs to be less than 25% for men and less than 30% for women (give or take a couple of % depending on body type of the individual).

Muscle gain has to be increased, but that does not mean that we have to all become bodybuilders. Far from it, you can gain muscle mass without bulking up and it all comes down to your training techniques, which of course is what this post is all about (picture a long distance runner rather than, the far more muscular, sprinters body). Just a quick explanation: it is vital that you understand the importance of increasing your muscle mass, which means that the more muscle you have the higher your metabolic rate. Basically your body needs to be able to maintain its new weight. If you just reduce your body fat but don’t increase your muscle mass you will find it very difficult to maintain that new weight. I have written a post on this subject which covers it in more detail, read it here.

Your Goals

So here you are, standing in the gym about to commence your usual workout, but before you do you really need to know what to do to achieve your goals. There are some basic rules to follow to help reduce weight and one of the most important is to understand your body’s energy system. To help reduce your body fat percentage it helps to use the fat up as energy. This is possible during your exercise program by working at a cardiovascular level which means using oxygen as part of the energy system. Now this may sound silly but for short burst power exercise we hardly use any oxygen, whereas for longer periods of exercise we use much more.

What level should I workout at?

To find out what level you should be working at, it is a good idea to have a heart rate monitor to give you the most accurate reading, but you can also use your own perceived rate of exertion (PRE). I wrote a section about this which you can read in more detail here. To gain the most benefits from the gym for weight loss you need to be working out at around 70 to 80 % of your max heart rate. (max heart rate = (220 – your age) x 0.7 for 70% or multiply by 0.8 for 80%) It is no good getting your heart rate up to this level and then only lasting for 3 minutes. You need to keep it going for 45 minutes at the very minimum. You are probably going to be panicking now and picturing yourself on a treadmill for 45 minutes. Don’t fret, it is okay because it doesn’t mean that you have to stay on the same piece of equipment for 45 minutes. In fact you can move from equipment to equipment every minute as long as your heart rate remains at the higher percentage.

Cardiovascular equipment

Cardiovascular equipment includes machines like the treadmill, stepper, stationary bike, cross-trainer, rower and other pieces of equipment where you maintain a constant motion. It is easy to maintain a particular heart rate on cardiovascular equipment as you can just up the resistance on the machine if your heart rate drops too low and reduce the resistance if your heart rate goes too high. Alternatively on these machines, rather than changing the resistance you can change the speed you travel at. The faster you go, the more you will increase your heart rate and the slower you go the lower your heart rate will be. Just make sure you maintain a speed that keeps your heart rate at the desired level. As far as time goes aim for a total of around 20 to 30 minutes per workout. That does not all have to be the same machine, it can be 2 different machines at 10 minutes each as long as the rest gap is negligible and your heart rate doesn’t drop too much then it is okay.

Weights

It is slightly different for weight based machines and exercises as they don’t generally promote movement for long periods of time. Here we generally use a repetition count to follow progress and each chosen amount of repetitions equals one set and so you can decide how many sets of the exercise you do. As a guide you should complete 15 repetitions in each set. How many sets you do is really up to you as long as through your week’s exercise you have trained all major muscle parts. I realize this is quite open-ended, but I think it shows the premise behind this style of training. It doesn’t matter because the most important part is to keep the effort level up.

Rest Periods

Rest periods for this kind of training should be as short as possible. Even if you are just starting out and your fitness levels are not that high, you should still be able to keep the rest periods down because the level of your training will be that much less. It is all proportional and if you are completely exhausted after an exercise then you pushed yourself too hard. Between each exercise you should leave no more than 30 seconds, this will allow you to be constantly on the move and thus getting the best results for your goal.

Variety

If you monitor your progress on your heart rate monitor over some time you will begin to notice that it takes that much more effort to get your heart rate up. That is because your heart is getting stronger. However, if you use just the treadmill then you might be surprised that when you finally pick up the courage to use another piece of equipment, it will make your heart rate increase much faster. Don’t worry this will be due to the fact that the exercise is new to your body. Far from being a bad thing it is a good thing as it is challenging your body that much more and so you will see a greater improvement than by just sticking to the same old routine.

And a warning…..

If you know that you suffer from high blood pressure or you would consider yourself obese or very unfit then I highly recommend that firstly you check with your doctor about taking up exercise.

Get your exercise monitored by a qualified member of staff at the gym.

Buy yourself a heart rate monitor so that you know that you are not pushing yourself too hard (click here for heart rate monitor information).

Do not push yourself too hard, aim for about 60% max heart rate to start with as this is a life-long journey and not a race. You can always increase as you get fitter.

Summary

Pushing yourself in the gym is very important for progress and getting you to your goals, however all of this is pointless if you are putting your health at risk.

Be safe with your training and if you are unsure about changing your routine always check with your doctor. If you are unsure that your program is pushing yourself enough please do check with a gym instructor or personal trainer. They really know what they are talking about and as you can probably guess it is not a subject you can just learn from magazines and hearsay. Use their knowledge to build up your understanding so that you can get the best possible results.

Good luck and if you have any questions then please just send them through to me and I will answer them as best I can.

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Tags: Exercise, fat loss, fitness, gym, hints, Tips, weight loss, workouts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Exercise, Top Tips, Training Styles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.