You can do ab-exercises until the cows come home, but your midsection will never look any better as long as it’s covered in cheeseburgers and soft drinks. Don’t believe what the TV infomercials tell you because the reason people slim up with the equipment they sell is the low calorie eating plan that comes with it. Diet is easily about 50-75% of your weight loss success, but there are some really effective things we can do in the gym to help those kilos fly right off. It is called high intensity training and today we’ll go through a variation called 20-Second Turnarounds.
High intensity training or burst training (as it is also called) is so effective because it creates something called an oxygen deficit in our system, which leaves your body burning more fat (and more energy overall) for up to 36h. AND, the workouts are normally shorter as well, around 15-20 minutes in fact. The only “catch” (if any) is that you need to bring your A-game to these sessions, as intensity is key. If you go easy you will not trigger the oxygen deficit effect properly and instead you basically did a short and semi-effective cardio workout.
20-Second Turnarounds are best done on a rowing machine because you can easily shift between burst and recovery, see the time and enjoy next-to-zero impact on your joints. In these intervals you will go as hard as you possibly can (I mean flat out!) for 8 seconds and then go slow for 12 seconds. You keep this up for 15-20 minutes. Each minute will look exactly like this:
00-08 seconds – Go hard! 08-20 seconds – Slow down, but don’t stop. 20-28 seconds – Go hard! 28-40 seconds – Slow down, but don’t stop. 40-48 seconds – Go hard! 48-60 seconds – Slow down, but don’t stop.
If you are not used to this kind of training you can work your way up to the 15-20 minutes by having a 2-minute break every five minutes. But as you get fit enough to keep going without breaks your target will be to increase your efforts a little every session. You will be able to measure this progress in how far you get (in meters) on the rower at the end of your workout.
You can do these workouts by themselves or add a 10-minute version to the end of your weight session (works really well with legs or back). But I wouldn’t do more than 2-3 per week with at least one full days’ rest in between as they are pretty taxing when done right.
Anders N W Lindgreen is a Certified Australian Fitness Specialist. Visit his website for free articles and e-books featuring the unbiased truth on Personal Fitness Training and Corporate Health and Fitness.