Youth Incorporated Magazine

Summer time is right around the corner and who doesn’t want to have a nice muscular and toned body when attending parties, weddings, or a day at the beach?

Here are three very powerful and effective ways to sculpt the body you desire.

First, feed your muscles.

The more muscle that you have, the higher your metabolism is and the easier it is to burn fat. Muscles can only be built and maintained with protein.

Protein provides the building blocks necessary for your muscles. Many people are simply not getting in enough protein daily to support their fitness goals. I have seen clients drastically improve muscle tone, strength, and definition once they replaced other foods with good protein sources. Plus, they felt better.

Simply make sure that you are feeding your muscles with protein in every meal and snack. Protein can come in a variety of sources such as animal products, vegetarian sources and even supplements.

You can choose from products such as poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, seafood or lean cuts of lamb, bison, or pork.

If you are a vegetarian, you can look into eating foods such as tofu (fermented), black beans, black eyed peas, chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, and white beans.

It works best, especially for vegetarians, to use as much variety as possible to get a good combination of protein sources to give your body a broad range of amino acids (building blocks of protein).

Second, resistance (strength) train for your whole body.

I have seen many people and clients make breakthroughs once they started resistance training. Resistance training with bodyweight movements, weights, resistance bands, and even machines can skyrocket your progress in getting leaner, stronger, and healthier.

Resistance (Strength) training stimulates your muscles to grow stronger. Muscle is active tissue and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn all day long. This is why it is a key to consistent and permanent weight loss.

In addition to burning calories during a resistance training session, you also burn a significant number of calories after the workout as the body is using energy to rebuild your muscles and recover.

It is best to follow a structured resistance training program that targets all of the major muscle groups. You may see plenty of people out there that only train their upper body or only train their legs. But, it’s best to train the whole body to stay healthy, look your best, and receive the best response in terms of big metabolism boost.

Be sure to use perfect form for the best results and to prevent injury.

For guidance you can go to a trained professional or invest in an online training program that will give you a structured program to give you safe, fun and effective routines.

Third, use interval training.

If you want a sure-fire method so to scorch body fat and increase fitness levels faster than normal traditional cardio, then look no further than the use of intervals.

Interval training is basically alternating between higher intensity cardio and lower intensity cardio. It’s similar to a driving a car and slamming on the gas pedal and then easing off a little and then repeating.

The use of interval training causes your body to use a ton of energy (calories) both during the workout and long after your session as your body attempts to recover. The technical term for this is EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption).

There are endless ways to implement intervals. You can perform them on treadmills, stationary bikes, rower machines, stair climbers or ellipticals. My favorite way to do them are outside on the road or track with a series of long running sprints. If you walk, run, swim, or bike outside then try mixing in periods of higher intensity intervals.

If you are new to interval training then start easy and build speed over time. For example, you could take your typical 30 minute run and add in two 60 second intervals of faster than normal running. As you progress you can increase the number of intervals, the speed, and/or the length of the intervals.

Intervals can be done with a variety of distances and times. I have seen people receive great results in 30-90 second fast intervals with 1-3 minutes of easier intervals mixed in.

There has been countless studies showing that interval training burns fat and increases fitness levels much faster than traditional cardio and most people find it a lot more fun. You will not need to do as nearly as much cardio to get the same benefits when you implement intervals.

For further information on training, nutrition, and motivation visit www.superfitt.com and let us know how we can help you.