Now you're really ready to
get down to business and torch some serious calories! You now understand how to
eat for weight loss AND efficient exercising. We just need to mix things up a
little bit.
Many people start running
at an easy pace and stick to it; every workout is more or less the same. This
is fine to begin with but can lead to people getting stuck in a rut and worse,
the weight loss slows or even stops completely. You may have read that to burn
fat, you need to be in the 'fat burning zone' which is usually exercising at a
low intensity for a sustained period.
These long slow runs do
have a place. They help you develop aerobic fitness and endurance. The trouble
is, as you become fitter, you don't have to work as hard as you did at the
start. The result is a gradual slowing of your weight loss.
The key is to vary your
routine a little buy varying intensity, duration and the type of workout. By
exercising at a higher intensity you burn carbohydrates instead of fat because
they're more readily converted into energy. However, the overall total of
calories burned will be higher and that's the ultimate aim: a calorie deficit.
Try adding these workouts
to your routine. Warm up and cool down as usual.
Intervals
Interval training
alternates periods of running at your max speed with periods of jogging at a
steady pace for what is sometimes termed 'active recovery'. Sprinting forces
you to work much harder therefore burning more calories.
At the track: If you can't
manage a full lap at top speed, start with 100m at max speed, recover for 100m
and so on. Then progress to 200m sprints with 200m recovery, then to 400m with
400m recovery. You can mix up these intervals as you wish so that the total
distance is 1.6km or 1 mile.
At the gym: modern
treadmills have an interval program on them. Just set your max pace and your
recovery pace.
Where you live: use
landmarks such as trees or buildings to measure out your distances.
Gradually increase you
intervals so that you have a workout that lasts around 30 minutes.
Hills
The idea of running hills
may strike fear into you but they needn't be scary. Adding hills to your
routine will turbo-boost your fitness, increase strength, improve your speed on
flat runs and most importantly they annihilate calories!
Find a hill up to 80m long.
After warming up, run up that hill as fast as you can. Jog down slowly to
recover, run up the hill again and so on. Increase the number of repetitions so
you have a workout that lasts 20 minutes.
Long run at increased intensity
If you're currently running
4 miles as your weekly long run, increasing the intensity of this run will make
you work harder and burn more calories. If you have a running watch use this to
set your pace. If you find sustaining an increased pace throughout your long
run, which you may well do you try to finish your run faster than the rest of
your run.
For example, let's say you
know the distance from the last turn of your run to your front door is 400m.
Run that last 400m at around 80% of your maximum. The next time you do that
run, do the last 500m at 80% and so on. This way you gradually increase your
pace over your long run and therefore calories burned.
Tempo runs
A tempo run is 20 to 30
minutes long and is done at a pace that is faster than your easy pace but not flat
out. Let's say your easy pace is the pace that allows you to continue a
conversation. Your tempo pace means you can only say a few words at a time
before needing to catch your breath again. Tempo runs are used to improve
fitness and leg speed. They also make you work much harder which means you burn
more calories.
Begin with a five minute
warm up and then pick up the speed until you reach your tempo pace, maintain
this pace for 20 minutes, then slow down and cool down for around five minutes.
If you can't maintain your tempo pace for 20 minutes, start with five minutes
with one minute walks for recovery and gradually build up.
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Section summary:
Your
body will adapt to the training you're doing. It is therefore important to
keep pushing forwards, no matter what training program you follow. Increase
your calories burned using the suggestions above.
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