Six Interval Training Tips to Maximize the Benefits of Your Best Exercise to Burn Fat

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Alex Ragner

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Using these simple interval training tips you’ll get impressive fat loss results – much faster than with any other workout. Don’t underestimate these tips – after all, exercising to lose weight is about achieving the best possible results without injuries, right?

If you’ve read about interval training for weight loss you’ve seen why it is the best exercise to burn fat, bar none.

If you haven’t, you should know that the secret to accelerated fat loss when doing an interval training exercise is a process called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption – EPOC for short.

What’s that, you ask?

Well, in layman’s terms, EPOC refers to the amount of oxygen needed by your body to recover from the muscular stress that the interval training session put it through.

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This extra oxygen is part of the fuel consumed to replenish intramuscular glycogen energy stores and repair the micro-tears in your muscles – experienced as muscle soreness, which occurs when you work out harder than usual. These minor ruptures inside your muscles are repaired over the next 48 hours, while your body rests after you have stopped exercising.

The resulting new muscle tissue is slightly bigger than before and better able to handle the stress that caused the initial tears – and that’s how you increase your lean muscle tissue.

As you can imagine, all this physiology requires energy. Energy obtained primarily through burning the reserves of body fat. As a result, your body continues to burn up stored fat up to 48 hours after an interval training workout.

With this in mind, one of the most important interval training tips to remember is this: use your biggest muscles during your interval training exercise. Why? Because replenishing their energy stores requires burning off more of your body fat than smaller muscles.

And here are…

…5 More Interval Training Tips

As you’ve seen, interval training is by far the best exercise to burn fat; to maximize its effectiveness, make sure you:

  1. Start according to your current fitness level, slowly developing your workouts as your physical condition improves; you should be comfortable doing 30-45 min. of cardio for a month before start doing interval training for weight loss.
  2. Always adapt your interval training exercise to your unique physical condition and fitness needs as you progress; listen to your body adjusting each interval training exercise accordingly to make sure you exercise safely.
  3. Avoid doing your workout on an empty stomach, or you won’t be able to do the workout – eat a piece of fruit or drink a protein shake about one  hour before exercising.
  4. Warm-up before and cool down after your workout to allow your neuromuscular system to adjust accordingly and prevent any injuries.
  5. Increase either the intensity OR the duration of the intervals as you become more fit, but avoid increasing both at the same time.

These Interval Training Tips Maximize the Many Benefits of Your Workout

You’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover that beyond the impressive weight loss benefit (an accelerated metabolism resulting in massive calorie and fat burning over up to 48 hours), interval training gives you many other health benefits as well:

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  • Improved heart activity and better cardiovascular health
  • Increased lung capacity and endurance
  • Decreased risk of high blood pressure
  • Lower blood cholesterol levels
  • Decreased risk of injuries that are associated with repetitive, high endurance workouts of regular cardio workouts
  • Improved speed – especially when you use sprinting and swimming as interval training workouts
  • Increased endorphin production, a neuro-chemical that triggers an intense and prolonged feeling of well-being, stress relief, greater creativity, better sleep and a positive outlook towards life challenges

And, unlike long, boring regular cardio, there’s a huge motivational benefit with an interval training exercise: you can mix up various intensity levels so you’ll never experience exercise boredom, which is a big factor in your decision to NOT exercise.

Ultimately, your leaner and toned physique, increased strength and self confidence gained with this particular type of workout will make you sexier and more attractive than you’d be with any other form of exercising… You’ll simply love the way interval training makes you feel!

Whether it is sprinting, cycling, swimming, rollerblading, skating, hiking, these interval training tips will lessen the risks for injury while maximizing your interval training exercise – including a very convenient indoor workout: treadmill interval training >>

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