Fat Loss Tips.

The majority of the bodyweight training programs being published in books, magazines, and on the Internet only scratch the surface of what is possible with your bodyweight. If you want to experience true bodyweight training, then you should check out Circular Strength Training (CST) bodyweight exercises.

CST is a training system developed by Coach Scott Sonnon. He combines movements from dance, gymnastics, and yoga to create highly unique bodyweight movements that you will not find on YouTube, or traditional bodyweight training sources.

Everyone knows that physical activity helps reduce stress. But most people are actually adding to their already high levels of stress. Gym membership fees and the cost of expensive home gym equipment, or even the cost of a personal trainer might deter individuals from performing physical activity for fat loss and better health.

Coach Sonnon’s workouts have taught me that there are many interesting ways to express yourself through physical activity and stay in shape. And staying in shape is an absolute necessity, especially in these stressful times.

But on the flip side, when individuals are told to do bodyweight exercises, they follow programs consisted of pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats. There lies other problems and factors that come in their way. What if you are unable to perform a basic pushup, pullup, or bodyweight squat?

And for more advanced trainees, these movements start to become too easy. When your body is not challenged, you’ll become bored. You will not grow with your workouts, and hence you will not achieve your goals.

After gaining around fifteen pounds of fat, despite exercising regularly, I started looking for a better, more effective way I could get back into shape in the comfort of my own home. It was in my Junior year of college, and I’d been hitting the weight room religiously for over 6 months.

I was following a bodybuilding program I found in a muscle magazine. The goal was to…basically…look like a bodybuilder. Really, I would have been happy if I could drop mybody fat below 15%, but the lowest it ever got was 18%. I ate 6 times a day, did lots of cardio, and trained one-two muscle groups per workout.

It simply didn’t work. I actually ended up gaining weight, close 15 pounds, and looked worse then ever. I didn’t know what the problem was. Frustrated, I just stopped going to the gym and began reading everything I could get my hands on about fat loss.

There was one question in particular that I had – how was it that athletes such as sprinters, dancers, and gymnasts were able to stay lean practically year-round while bodybuilders went through extreme phases of being super lean and then super fat?

But I didn’t want to constantly get fat and get lean. I wanted to stay relatively lean all year round. That was when I started training like an athlete as opposed to like a bodybuilder. I literally started copying the training programs of sprinters and gymnasts.

If you did not know, most bodybuilders “bulk up” for around 6 months where they eat anything the can get their hands on. This allows them to put on lots of muscle mass. And the they diet like crazy and do tons of cardio to burn off the fat. Of course, this is the short version of what they do, but the idea is the same.

My current training program consists of 100% bodyweight exercises. The key to losing fat in the comfort of your own home is to perform whole-body movements such as quad hops, froggers, and side planks. I stopped splitting up my body part the way bodybuilders do.

Instead, I perform full body workouts. This allows me to engage more muscle groups at once. The more muscle mass you engage within one session, the more growth hormone and testosterone you release. These two hormones have been linked to greater fat loss.

In addition, I’ve also stopped performing lots of steady state cardio. The problem with excessive cardio is that it actually breaks down muscle mass. When bodybuilders perform lots of cardio to get ready for a competitions, they know that they’re losing some muscle mass along with the fat.

For bodybuilders, this method may work. But for people like you and I, stick to full body bodyweight workouts at home for long term fat loss.

There are a lot of places out there where you can get both bad and good exercise information, including TV, websites, books, and ebooks. Everyone seems to have the latest fitness program, gadget, and workout proven to help you drop fat.

I’ve been writing about fitness for over 2 years, and there are a lot of fads that I’ve seen come and go. The worst of these fads were those electronic belts you place around your stomach to help you drop fat. But, this article isn’t about those belts.

It’s about cardio. Specifically, the anti-cardio movements we’ve seen in the past few years. It started off very subtle. First, trainers started telling us that it’s the steady state cardio that’s a problem. Sprinting on a track is better than jogging on treadmill for fat loss.

We believed them, some of us tried it, and for most of us, high intensity sprint intervals worked. I was very impressed with the results. I used to wake up every morning and jog for 3 miles. My knees were hurting and I had stopped losing weight.

The moment I switched to sprint intervals, I ran straight through my fat loss plateau and noticed a physique I had never seen before. I liked the way I looked. But then, the trainers started talking about something else. Now, apparently, we don’t need to do ANY cardio at all to lose fat.

You would simple switch the sprint with a bodyweight exercise. For example, perform a set of pushups for 30 seconds straight, followed by 30-60 seconds rest. The theory is that these workouts would be even more effective because you were getting both a cardio and strength workout at the same time.

Well, they were right about the sprints, so I decided to see what they were talking about. The idea is that instead of cardio intervals, you would do intervals with bodyweight exercises. So, a sample sprint workout might be to do an all-out sprint for 30 seconds, followed by a 60 second rest.

It was originally thought that you needed to perform cardio and strength training at completely different times in order to burn fat. However, if I could save time and combine the two, and get the same or better results, then I was going to try this new approach to training.

I did, and the results were incredible! Well, actually, the new workouts just helped me condense my training time, so that it was now easier for me stay in shape and get my workouts in with very little time commitment. That’s the biggest payoff I’ve seen.

I’ve been training with my bodyweight for over two years. And although bodyweight training is a great way to lose fat in the comfort of your own home, it’s also just as easy to get injured as you would if you were lifting weights. When you lift weights, you need to worry about lifting too heavy, or improper form.

But with bodyweight training, the most common form of injuries are overuse injuries. Overuse injuries, or cumulative trauma disorders, is basically tissue damage caused by repetitive stress and tension placed on tissue over a period of time.

After months of performing pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats variations, I started noticing pain in my wrists, lats, hips, and knees. Once I started looking into the problem, I realized that the reason I was in pain was that my program did not have enough variation.

You see, pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats only teach your body to move up and down. Hence, you’re stressing pretty much the same muscle tissue over and over again. And although you may look better, you don’t necessarily feel better.

Overcoming Overuse InjuriesIf you want to continue to lose fat with bodyweight exercises, it’s time to find a solution to your overuse injuries. Even if you’ve never experienced such pain from bodyweight training, it’s a good idea to take some precautions so that you do not experience such a pain.

So, we established that overuse injuries come from repetitive stress on the same muscle tissues over a period of time. So what’s the solution? Start moving your body in different ways. Once I started doing more research, I realized that there are a lot of different ways that you can move your body.

Trust me, overuse injuries can vary from just slight pain to intense joint pain that prevents you from training. And if you stop training for quite some time, you start gaining weight and need to start your fat loss plan all over again. So, lets focus on what we can to do prevent overuse injuries:

In fact, there’s a training system known as Circular Strength Training (CST), developed my Coach Scott Sonnon. CST preaches that there are “6 degrees of freedom” that your body moves in. These degrees of freedom are:

• Heaving — moving up and down
• Yawing — twisting right and left
• Swaying — moving right and left
• Pitching — bending forward and backward
• Rolling — turning right and left
• Surging — moving forward and backward

So how can these CST, 6 degrees of freedom help you? Well, if you choose one exercise that trains your body to move in each of the degrees of freedom, then you’ll be working different muscle tissue. This will prevent overuse injury, give you a better, full body workout, and help you lose fat.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is for some female athletes to maintain a very lean physique? It’s because they workout at a high intensity level and have super fast metabolic rates. High intensity workouts are better at boosting your metabolic rate than lower intensity workouts.

Your metabolic rate is the rate at which your body burns calories. The faster your metabolic rate, the more fat you will lose. The best way to create high intensity workouts is to perform circuit training. Circuit training is where you perform two or more exercises back to back with little to no rest in between each exercise.

My first circuit training workouts consisted of basic pushups, pullups, and body weight squats. However, over time, I became stronger and these exercises started to become too easy for me. Hence, I started looking for some brand new exercises that I could include into my body weight workouts.

There are many resources you can use to find brand new body weight movements. For example, what I do is observe athletes that use body weight movements to create incredible bodies. Some of these athletes include dancers, gymnasts and yogis (people who practice yoga).

When you stick to your workouts, you get results. It’s as simple as that. But don’t make the same mistake I did and keep performing the same basic movements over and over again. Your body is a highly adaptable machine and needs lots of variations to keep improving.

You’ll be able to come up with some extremely interesting moves as you observe how these athletes move. My current body weight workouts are extremely unique and challenging. This helps me stick to my workouts more.

If you want to burn off a lot of fat, make sure you workout at a high intensity level. This is because high intensity workouts are better at boosting your metabolic rate than lower intensity workouts. Your metabolic rate is a measure of how fast your burn calories.

Have you ever wondered why athletes are so lean and strong? It’s because they workout at a high intensity level and have super fast metabolic rates. One of the best ways to create high intensity workouts is to organize them into circuits. Circuit training is where you perform two or more exercises back to back with little to no rest in between each exercise.

I usually construct my circuit workouts using bodyweight exercises. Some of my favorite bodyweight exercises include hip bridge, jump squat, and frogger. I started my circuit workouts off with basic pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats. However, these exercises soon became too easy for me.

Hence, the number one thing you must remember is that your workouts need to be more intense and difficult as you get stronger. There are many bodyweight variations you can try. Some other bodyweight exercises include the wall squat, shoulder roll through, and 1 leg squat.

The biggest mistake I see people make is they stick to the same workouts, even if they have become too easy for me. Easy workouts are boring. And if you’re bored with your workouts, it will be difficult to stick to your program. And if you don’t stick to your fitness program, you won’t see results.

Want to get a great, 30 minute fat burning workout using just your bodyweight that you can do at home? Then you should try interval training. Interval training is where you alternate between periods of high and low intensity.

A sample interval workout would be to perform a quad squat for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second period of rest. You can use interval training with almost any exercise imaginable. But I like to use bodyweight exercises because 1) I can do it at home, and 2) I can combine my strength and cardio workouts in one session.

Another aspect that you need to know is to keep switching up the exercises that you use in your interval workouts. When I first started with bodyweight training, I stuck to basic pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats.

I started looking for alternative, more difficult bodyweight exercises to use in my workouts. One day, as I was watching the Olympics, I noticed how incredibly lean and strong gymnasts were. That was when I started studying the movements they used in their routines, and started incorporating some gymnastics exercises into my own workouts.

However, these exercises just became to easy and boring after a while and I stopped seeing results. I needed a way to break out of my plateau and create some brand new intense fat burning workouts I could do at home.

As I began to explore, I realized that there are many other athletes who use just their bodyweight to create incredible looking bodies. These athletes are dancers and yogis (people who practice yoga). Ever since then, I’ve been studying the movements of these athletes and incorporating them into my regular bodyweight routine.