What To Avoid At The Gym If You Want A Six Pack

I get endless amounts of questions from people asking me what type of workout works best and how much needs to be done to achieve fat loss. Lets face it, most gym members participate in unproductive exercise programmes that they endlessly seem to do year after year without achieving results, they hope of waking one day with the body of their dreams. They put their heart and soul into the same programme without ever changing it one iota. The absence of learning or trying different training principles will never work in the long run. Copying what the latest celebrity is doing or puts their name to don’t work either.

The most common myth that never dies is that lengthy cardio training will shift unwanted body fat. I have years of experience of witnessing the lack of results people achieve doing such workouts. I also have dozens of opinions through research and personal experience to back it up. People often turn to me for advice after wasting years doing similar programmes. If you go into any gym in the world you are guaranteed to see members beating themselves up on the cardio equipment, now if you were to go back a year later you would likely see the same members on the same machines doing the same workout with still the same body shape. But this time they will look even more tired and stressed if they haven’t already quit through a lack of results. People don't understand that exercise is a stress to the body and doing more exercise than the body can cope with breaks the body down together with health. The body needs to be in a stress free state to build muscle or lose body fat effectively. There isn’t any relationship between training duration and achieving results. The type of exercises you perform and the intensity of the workout will also determine if you get results or not.

The advantage of resistance training for fat loss over traditional cardio training out weighs the other by far. Done a certain way resistance training will create a cardiovascular response, killing two birds with one stone and saving heaps of time. One of the numerous benefits includes the functional benefit, which has a carry over effect to daily living and most sports. More importantly it will shape the body making it more aesthetically pleasing at the same time as building lean muscle tissue and strength. Traditional cardio exercises don’t have enough resistance to create an increase in lean muscle. Anything that increases lean muscle tissue is good news for both men and women; more muscle means a faster metabolism and a lower body fat percentage. You can get very strong and lean without looking like a bodybuilder. One more thing worth mentioning is that resistance training will elevate the metabolism for longer after a workout compared to traditional cardio exercise.

Workouts should be intense and short; whatever method you use it should keep your heart rate elevated and breathing increased whilst resting between exercises or circuits. Workouts should also be structured and directed towards your goals. Neglecting rest outside the gym can have a negative side effect to fat loss too. It is just as important as the workout in order to progress and reach your goal. Rushing around stressed all day will do you no good especially if you are training the same day. How can you train hard if your body hasn’t rested from the last workout or your mind is focused on stressful issues?

Finally don’t reward workouts with a treat, could you imagine giving a recovering alcoholic a bar job and paying them with free drinks from behind the bar, it wouldn’t work, neither does eating junk food after a workout for someone on a fat loss programme. Exercise doesn’t turn bad calories into good calories. The body needs the best nutrition at frequent times throughout the day for optimum fat loss. Yes there is room for a cheat here and there even if you do want to look your best, but going for a pizza on the way home from the gym is a recipe for getting nowhere.

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