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Greetings!
We hope you had a nice 4th of July, and are enjoying the start of what finally feels like...spring??
If you missed Craig and Adam on WATD's The Dani Lynn Show a few nights ago, you can now listen online. The 30 minutes seemed to fly by, and we had a blast.
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ADVANCE for Nurses
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Back2Health co-founder Adam Reid recently had a feature article published on the ADVANCE for Nurses website about resolving the issue of back pain in nursing via MedX.
If you know any nurses, please forward this article to them. This problem runs rampant in their profession, and most simply do not know that there is a viable solution.
The reader may note that MedX was not mentioned by name due to a request by the publisher, but 'lumbar exercise with pelvic restraint' can only mean use of a MedX Lumbar machine.
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HIIT for Fat Loss
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By Adam Reid
For some reason, people equate movement with health. Meanwhile our bodies equate it with starvation...
As with my business partner Craig, I do not advocate
traditional aerobics ('cardio') for fat loss.
There is not enough return on time invested, and the potential for joint
damage is great. An individual will get
much more out of appropriate eating habits relative to one's goal along with
intense resistance training. Do note that with regard to injury, the
occasional or regular walk after dinner, or to take the dogs around the
block are fine; after all, we walk around the mall and the grocery store on a
regular basis and without issue. It's
the almost daily pounding while running on a treadmill or the sidewalk that
finds people with aching hips and knees, amongst other things.
But besides the joint impact, traditional steady-state
cardio is simply not an efficient method of fat loss. Something that an individual can do for 30
minutes-plus literally every day of the year is not challenging enough for the
body to respond in the manner people would like it to. The metabolic afterburn that is present for
up to 12 hours after brief and intense activity is almost non-existent after
steady-state, long duration cardio. In
fact, it is so easy for the body to adapt to steady-state activity that over
time fewer calories will be burned during workouts of equal duration. In other words, if an individual burns a
hypothetical 300 calories during 45 minutes of activity, after a few
weeks only 250 will be burned during same amount of time and with everything
else remaining equal.
While nutritional intake and resistance training should make
up the majority of one's assault on body fat, sometimes one requires a little
something extra to get rid of those last few pounds. An effective tool here can in fact be cardio - but not like any cardio the reader is
likely to have experienced.
Often called HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), these
sessions last 10-15 minutes maximum, and require only 1-2 sessions per week if
also performing resistance training. In
fact, I would only recommend 2 sessions per week for a limited time, 4-6 weeks
perhaps. If one is weight training 3
times per week, stick with 1 HIIT session excepting the infrequent 'shock' of a
second session during a given week.
The implementation of HIIT is fairly straight ahead. After choosing your medium (I have always
recommended a recumbent bike for reduced joint strain, although one can use any
cardio tool), warm up for approximately 2 minutes at a moderate clip. At the 2 minute mark, sprint as fast as
humanly possible, for 20 or 30 seconds.
Whatever time you chose to sprint for, double for the recovery period
(i.e., 20-second sprint, 40-second recovery; 30-second sprint, 60-second
recovery). During this recovery period,
it helps to keep moving, but at a pace similar to the warm up. Attempt 8-10 of these sprints, and then take
2-3 minutes to cool down.
If 8 sprints are not possible the very first time the user
attempts this activity, get through as many as possible and then take longer
breaks until that number has been reached.
Over time, strive to improve on this aspect, to the point that one can
make it straight through. It is
important that the sprints are 'all out' - do not hold anything back. In fact, the last few seconds of each sprint
may find the user slowing down, to the point that only half a sprint can be
completed at a high speed towards the end of a session.
Because of the demands on the body during this activity,
a high metabolic afterburn is experienced, and depending on the medium chosen,
relatively little joint strain can be encountered. Except for times of attaining peak
conditioning, it is not necessary to complete sessions of this nature year
round. Most people try to look their
best for summer or vacation, so a month or two prior to those times would be
best chosen for HIIT implementation.
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As always, we appreciate your referrals.
Sincerely,
Craig and Adam
Back2Health |
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