Fat Loss, Fitness And Cross Training

If a man's fatty tissue is bigger than about 15% of his body mass, or if a woman's is more than about 22%, he or she is over-fat. Some fat is necessary for padding our organs and as insulation under the skin. However, excess body fat levels are linked to health problems such as diabetes, gout, and high blood pressure.

What is the best way to reduce excess body fat? The human body works on the basic principles of energy physics. The caloric balance equals the total calorie intake minus the total calorie expenditure. Some of the calories people ingest are used for base metabolism. Some calories are excreted as waste products. Some are used for "work metabolism", the energy expenditure required for any physical activity. If people take in more calories than are used by these functions, there is caloric excess. Each excess of 3,500 calories adds a pound of fat. If people want to reverse this process, they have to burn up 3,500 calories to lose a single pound.

When you think of exercising to burn fat, you probably think of long hours of steady state aerobic exercise. The problem with this is that it's boring for many people and too time consuming. People who don't enjoy or don't have time for an exercise program tend to eventually stop doing it.

Cross training is an excellent alternative. Cross training is the integration of several different activities into an exercise routine. Cross training is typically shorter in duration and higher in intensity, compared to steady-state exercise. This raises the metabolism more after the workout is over, which burns more fat. Continuing to burn fat after you're done with your workout is a great strategy. The combination of different exercises also provides "muscle confusion". If your exercise is one continuous repetitive movement, your neuromuscular system tends to become efficient at it, which eventually results in less required energy expenditure. The muscle confusion involved with a cross training routine prevents the body from getting too efficient, which keeps the energy expenditure and fat burning up. Cross training can also prevent muscle damage from excess repetition.

Cross training should incorporate three basic components:

- Exercises to strengthen the muscles.
- Endurance exercises to condition the cardiovascular
system
- Exercises to improve joint mobility and coordination

Here's an example of a great cross training workout:

- Bring a jump rope and go to the local quarter mile
High School running track
- Stretch and jog a lap or 2 to warm up
- Run 2 laps at the fastest pace that you can maintain
for that distance
- Do 3 one minute jump rope intervals, rest long
enough to recover between intervals, but no longer
- Run 3 laps at the fastest pace that you can
maintain for that distance
- Do 3 sets of pushups
- Run 1 lap at the fastest pace that you can maintain
for that distance
- Grab a bleacher step or a suitable chin up bar and
do 3 sets of chins
- Finish with 4 laps at the fastest pace that you can
maintain for that distance

This workout should take about one hour. The combination of different activities, duration and intensities will keep you sharp and focused. The muscle confusion will prevent efficiency, spike your metabolism, and keep your fat burning engine running after the workout is over. Next time; change up the mix of laps, jump rope, pushups, etc to keep the muscles confused.

Try integrating various fat burning cross training workouts into your exercise program, and you'll stay sharp, and motivated!