Let’s face it! You know this to be true. Doing only crunches to reduce your waistline simply DOES NOT work. So why do so many people still fall for the late night infomercial touting sexy abs by using their new and improved abdominal trainer, fat melting creme, or fat eliminating pill? Answer: desperation, convenience… and a lack of complete understanding of how the body actually works.
Think about it… you didn’t gain the body fat you currently have in just a few short weeks. And you definitely didn’t tell it where you wanted it to be distributed when you gained it. The opposite is also true. It’s not going to go away in just a few short weeks from doing crunches or using a thigh trainer, nor will the body just burn abdominal fat while leaving all the rest to be used up another time. Your body distributes fat evenly over the body and it burns it off evenly over the entire body. Now… you may have more body fat in one area over another, but that trouble area is not the only place you have body fat.
The key to burning large amounts of body fat is working all the major muscle groups with complex, multi joint movements in a total body resistance training routine to dramatically change and effect your metabolic rate. Combined with a good, healthy supportive nutrition plan and high intensity interval training cardio plan, total body resistance training done in this fashion will not only help improve the overall metabolic demand of the workout, but will also help build and maintain lean muscle tissue that will result in a higher resting metabolic rate (calories burned at rest).
Complex, multiple joint exercises are exercises that work more than one muscle group in the same movement. In the video above, Drew demonstrates a squat press using resistance tubing which works the legs, glutes, abdominals, shoulders, and triceps. That exercise is far more effective, and efficient, than working each of those muscle groups separately. Supersetting that exercise with the pushup jackknife exercise and alternating each of them in a circuit fashion will help you complete a workout in far less time as well.
So, get up off those machines in the gym that isolate each body part and start exercising more effectively, more efficiently and more functionally! If you need more help with designing your total body resistance training routine, request a consultation with a certified Jackson Personal Trainer today.
