First, understand that marketing is the driving force behind almost 90% of the fitness we see in the media. Super human like fitness instructors making their obese clients do things that are not only unnecessary but down right dangerous. Everyone promoting fad diets and a workout that leaves the person doing it looking almost dead, dripping with blood, sweat and saliva. The plug is in. They have you! The marketing ploys have sunk their teeth into you and now you're ready to do the stuff you saw "so and so" do. So you drive to the nearest commercial gym, the gym that has the cash prize competition for who can drop the most weight. The gym with all the trainers who look like they have never eaten a carb in their lives. And you sign up. Realize that in all actuality, they are marketing and NOT at all concerned with your fitness. They are concerned with your MONEY. The stuff that really works and has and always will. The stuff that hasn't never will.
Secondly, understand that there is nothing wrong with promoting health. There is actually nothing wrong with fitness classes. Circuit style training is one of the hallmarks of today's industry and studies show that those who do it can receive great results. The problem is.....its not for everyone. Yes, I said it. Its not for everyone! If you are an average 10-20lbs over weight with a pretty active lifestyle, this type of training combined with a good nutrition plan will do wonders for you!. If you are 20lbs + over your target body weight and have a slow metabolism due to being inactive, you may need to readjust your approach. Here's why.
People who train in the fitness classes are primarily training in fast tempo, upbeat classes that really drive their heart beats up to super high levels. This is the "fat loss in America" approach. But whats happening in severely overweight individuals is they are experiencing exhaustion and the quality of their workouts suffers. This is because their hearts are not able to handle the fast paced dynamic movements because the heart itself isn't strong enough yet. These overweight individuals have absolutely zero aerobic conditioning and can actually do harm than good by training at such high levels.
Quick explanation, when we are de-conditioned or "out of shape" our hearts are actually weaker than they should be. Our lungs don't have the same capacity to exchange oxygen at the proper rates and our vascular network (veins, capillaries and so-forth) isn't functioning at its maximum capacities. So in essence, the constant pushing of the heart rate causes the heart to go to levels its not prepared to handle yet. This can lead to over training and fatigue. Understand that any type of work, whether it be slow or fast paced, if its not quality is bad for you. Our exercising has to be with good form and quality movements or its not going to help. Period! Also this fast paced training causes the lungs and skeletal muscles to expand and contract past their capable levels. It would be similar to not lifting a weight for 10 years and then trying to max effort squat your first time back in the gym. A person would never do this because they realize it takes some time to build up muscular strength and conditioning before your body can perform at its maximum capacity. Well likewise, our hearts are muscles as well, frankly the most important muscle we have. By being de-conditioned and trying to compete in an environment where people are maxing out their heart rates is dangerous, even if you are going slower than the dude in the front.
When you train at super high levels, your body cannot utilize oxygen as its main energy source. It has to use glycogen stores and other enzymes. The problem is that your body can only do this for so long (seconds) before those energy stores run out. This is where aerobic conditioning comes in. If you have a good ground base of aerobic conditioning, your body will replenish and refuel itself much faster allowing you to train higher and longer. However if you don't, your body will not be able to replenish itself and you can over train. When this happens you actually work against yourself because when theres nothing left to use for energy, they body will begin to use skeletal muscle and this works against your goals. The last thing you need is for your body to start eating away at itself for energy to sustain your fat loss workouts. Think about it.
The next problem is that these overweight individuals aren't strong enough muscularly yet . Our bodies are made up of both slow and fast twitch muscle fibers. In a de-conditioned person, their fast twitch muscles are not as capable as leaner individuals because they have too much fat and water surrounding those muscles. The bottom line is that the leaner you are, the better your fast twitch muscles will operate. The reason athletes like high jumpers and basketball players can jump so high is because the vast majority of them are super lean, and have great relative body strength. Relative body strength is when you are able to execute strength exercises using your body weight but at its best levels. Push-ups, sit-ups, jumping and so-forth. So when you see the instructor jumping high, throwing faster punches and doing a gazillion push-ups with blinking, its because they have a greater relative body strength.
What you need to do if you're severely over weight is take a different approach. Realize that your aerobic system is the fuel and the back bone of all your work. Your aerobic system has the ability to take you from a couch potato to a 5k or 10k runner or even more! Training this system will also help you develop your slow twitch muscle and shed excess body weight. Many people have been scared away from aerobic training because they think it will make them flabby and weak. The truth is it would take years of OVER running to have muscle atrophy and flab set in. So you need not be scared of aerobic training, in fact, this training will be the fuel for your higher level training when your heart and body are ready to handle that type of training.
Your next order of business is to simply weight train. Yes, develop a ground base of muscle. If you cannot do a push-up, you got no business training a cardio boot camp class. Slow it down and get stronger. No since sitting out of 3/4 of the class because you're too out of shape or weak to complete it. Squat, bench, lat pull-downs, lunges etc. Just get stronger and you'll then be able to handle the more dynamic demands of fast twitch work.
Your week should resemble this.
Cardio train 3x's a week 60-90minutes (run, bike, swim etc.) - Keep your heart rate from 130-150 for the entire duration of the workout.
Strength train 2-3 days a week. Full body exercises like Squats, bench press, step-ups, rows etc. Work all the major areas or your body and challenge yourself to keep good form. Increase weights slowly and push yourself.
Lastly clean up your diet. Stay away from the fatty foods and the late night eating. READ THIS!
This isn't to insult or demean anyone, its simply educational. I'm not against cardio fitness classes, just make sure if you're going to go, you get something out of it. Try to follow a more traditional approach for a few weeks and as you are ready move slowly into the faster paced work.
Hope this helps someone!
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