The Truth About Exercise

Have you learned the truth about exercise?  If not, this post will have you change the way you look at fitness and your health and you will be excited to know that you no longer have to spend hours upon hours on the treadmill.  Just minutes a day will get you in the best shape of your life.  I'm looking forward to it.  Want to join me?

It has long been held that to achieve fitness and burn fat, long hours on the treadmill every week would do the trick.  Sustained cardio exercise is what most people think is best.  I don't know about you but this has never been something that I looked forward to.   

Doing time on the treadmill had two strikes against it in my opinion.  For one, it's just plain boring and you find yourself knowing things that you never wanted to know like how many tiles or holes are in the celing?  It's so boring that's why  TVs are put in front of the equipment at gyms and why you need a headset.  Does anyone know what I'm talking about? 

And the second strike against it is that not only is it boring but it is just down right time consuming.  There's only 24 hours in a day and if you have an hour's travel time to and from work that leaves little time for family and other important things like preparing healthy meals.  

So for these reasons, I have not found the desire to exercise but I was excited to learn the truth about exercise and to know that the two biggest strikes against it has been eliminated, plus knowing that it is better for you than longer workouts made it all the more attractive. 

With a shorter workout with greater intensity you can get better results than the long cardio workouts on treadmills or ellipticals.  This type of exercise will boost your metabolism long after you are done, which is the key to effective weight loss. 

 This method of exercise is for everyone, for those who are in poor health to those who are the most fit.  I learned this from a class led by my chiropractor, Dr. Rob Meadows of Meadows Chiropractic in Auburn, Alabama.  Surprisingly, long cardio exercises can raise stress hormones like cortisol and endorphins.  Cortisol stimulates appetite, has catabolic properties, increases fat storage (this was a shocker), and slows down and inhibits exercise recovery.  

The problem too with sustained cardio exercise is that with this type of exercise you are in a slow fat burning mode only during the length of the exercise.  What is really needed is an exercise that keeps you in the fat burning mode long after the exercise is finished.  This is called metabolic conditioning and it stimulates the Human Growth Hormone with an after-burn effect of 24-48 hours post exercise.  Humane Growth Hormone is a vital hormone that is key for health and longevity preventing heart disease and other diseases.

Metabolic conditioning is achieved by short bursts of high intense exercise of only 20 seconds with a 20 second rest.  This would all be accomplished in 12 minutes per day making it a 6 minute workout with a 6 minute rest.   Every day can be different so that you will never get bored.  For instance, you may have each day of the week set aside to work on a different type of exercise such as endurance, coordination, flexibility, speed, strength, or balance.

I bought the DVD called Max T3 but you do not have to purchase this to implement this program.  You do not need any specific exercise equipment either but here are a few suggestions that you might like to have.  You can actually do this without any equipment.  All you have to do is choose any exercise.  It can be weight lifting, marching in place, working out with an exercise ball, steps, lunges, swimming, bicycling, dancing, jumping jacks, push ups, etc., anything at all, even just sitting in place lifting cans or weights in hands for those who have bad knees or backs. 

The 3T in Max T3 stands for Time, Type, and Tempo.  I have discussed the Time and Type.  The Tempo is such that you want to do the 20 second sessions by going all out - really work at it - do it to the MAX.  Don't despair if you can't give it your MAX but just do it with as much intensity as you can.  Many times I fall short of making it the full 20 seconds with full intensity but I just keep going as best as I can.  With time, I'll be able to make it the full 20 and I know you will too.  I started today.  Want to join me?  Here's our program in a nutshell:

1.  Do any exercise for 20 seconds with much fervor and to the MAX.  Put your whole heart into it.
2,  Rest for 20 seconds.
3.  Repeat steps 1 and 2 two more times doing the same exercise (total time = 2 minutes).

The above is considered a round.  Change to a different exercise and repeat the round until you have done 6 rounds for a total of 12 minutes, that's it, 12 minutes and you are done with it!

Plan to do this about 3 times per week. 

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