As a fitness instructor, martial arts instructor and strength and conditioning coach I often have people ask me “why am I not seeing results in my fitness training?” I can truly answer the question with just one word INTENSITY! Yet, not to sound rude I usually ask them to tell me how they workout. Well, the answer is usually the same “I train really hard an hour on the thread mill and an hour lifting weights.” I recently had someone that is not getting the results that she wants tell me that she trains for 2 ½ hours, 1 hour on the treadmill, 1 hour on the elliptical machine and 30 minutes hitting the weights. The bottom line is that if you are training for more than an hour at a time you are not training hard or with intensity. Unless you are in the condition of a world class athlete an Olympian you can not withstand intense training for more than 45 minutes.
Stop making excuses if you don’t see significant change in your physic you are not pushing hard enough. Walk into any gym in the world and you’ll see a few unfit people on a treadmill reading a book, talking on the phone or with a friend. I recently noticed a lady at a gym working out on a thigh adductor machine reading a book. If you are doing anything other than the exercise when you are working out you are not focusing. If you are not focusing your workout will not be intense. By now you might be wondering what training with intensity really means?
Intensity is how much effort you put in your workout. Training with intensity is training out of your comfort zone. It is giving it all you got in each and every set and rep that you do each and ever day. You must give maximum effort in every workout you do if you want to lose weight, burn fat, build muscle or see any positive change in your body.
A perfect example of working out with intensity is your warrior’s instinct. 100’s of years ago man was a warrior and/or a hunter. To survive as hunters and warriors we had to drive through pain barriers with an explosive force of will, never surrendering or giving up until we gained the victory in battle or hunted our food. Dig deep inside of you and workout like if your life depended on it pushing your body to your limits. Here is an example of what I tell my fitness clients and martial arts students. If when you taught you had finished your set of exercise they put a gun to your head and you were told that if you did not perform 5 more reps they would shoot you or a family member I’m sure that you would pump out 5 or possibly even 10 more repetitions.
Let me give you another example of how your body can change with intense training. Look at the body of an Olympic sprinter VS an Olympic marathon runner. A sprinters race is short and intense. The marathon runner has to pace himself to jogs for hours to complete the grueling 26 mile race. Look at the sprinters body the males have muscular legs, wide shoulders and chiseled abdominals. The women that compete in sprinting have hard feminine bodies. Now let’s look at the marathoners’ body. The males have very little muscularity with narrow shoulders and frail looking bodies. The women marathon runners also look frail, losing their hips and famine lines
Keep your workouts no longer than an hour, preferably 45 minutes since your testosterone and other hormone level starts dropping after 45 minutes. Testosterone is hormone that your body uses to grow muscle. I remember in the late 70’s Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cardio Guru Richard Simmons were guest on the Tonight Show. At the end they asked booth of them why someone should follow their training methods as oppose to the other persons. Arnold’s answer was do you want to have a body like me or hair like Richard? So my question to you is do you want to look like a sprinter or a marathon runner? If your answer is sprinter cut your workout time and workout with intensity.