fitness

Which Burns More Calories – Kettlebells or Jillian Michaels ?

November 3, 2009 By John Kuzora

by John Kuzora – Kuzora Personal Training Raleigh

One of my clients came to me last month and asked me if I could take her through Jillian Michaels workout plan from her book Making the Cut. For those of you who are not familiar with Jillian, she is a Team Trainer from the hit TV show “The Biggest Loser.”

Typically this would not be something I would do for a number of reasons. First of all, most of the celebrity trainers I have encountered in the past are more celebrity than trainer. Put bluntly their workouts usually suck.

Second, I’m a big believer in personalizing workouts to the individual. No generic book can give you a program designed specifically for your personal strengths, goals, and limitations.

But Joy is a great person and a great client so I told her I would look the book over and if I didn’t think it was total garbage I would help push her through the workouts.

After looking over the book I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was a program focused on compound weight training exercises done in circuit fashion with cardio intervals at the end of most of the circuits. For those of you who are familiar with my training style this is pretty similar to how I train most clients who have general fitness/body composition goals.

I typically utilize more kettlebell exercises, sled drags, waiter walks, and similar high calorie demand exercises and some of the moves Jillian utilized would be what I consider “entertainment” exercises (i.e. movements that more closely resemble a circus trick than exercise) but overall I was pleased with the contents of the book and agreed to take Joy through the 30 day program.

Here’s where the story gets interesting: Joy wears a heart rate monitor during her workouts that track calories burned. During the course of the 30 day program, the typical workout would take between 45 and 50 minutes and would burn 350 calories. The most she ever burned was 400 calories.

We finished up the program and after a few days off Joy came back ready for a new challenge. She wanted to repeat the program but in my experience repeating the same workout never produces the same results as the first time through so we compromised. Two days a week we would do the routines outlined in Jillian’s book and the other two days we would do kettlebell only training.

Today was our first kettlebell workout and we were both amazed by the results. In 42 minutes (shorter than any of the workouts in the book) Joy burned 444 calories! This is 11% more calories than the hardest workout in the book and 26% higher than the average workout! Plus I am sure this number will go up significantly because almost 20 minutes of today’s session was teaching proper technique.

If you would like more information about kettlebell training there are many useful and free resources available on the internet. Some of the better sites include:

http://www.mikemahler.com/ – lots of great free articles

http://www.irontamer.com/ – a useful blog and a kettlebell e-book

http://www.dragondoor.com/ – the original kettlebell resource

Here at Kuzora Personal Training – Raleigh we are offering a “Learn to Use Kettlebells” package that includes:

One 60 minute one on one orientation session ($70 value)

During these sessions you will learn two foundational movements: the swing and the Turkish get-up. With these two exercises alone you will build a strong core, tone and tighten your glutes, inner thighs, and hamstrings, burn calories and bodyfat, and develop strong, healthy shoulders.

Your own kettlebell ($40 value)

Want to try kettlebells but didn’t know what size and weight you should start with? We take the guess work out. During your orientation our trainers will assess your strength and fitness levels and send you home with an appropriately sized kettlebell of your own.

A personalized eight week training plan ($199 value)

After your orientation, we will email you a personalized workout plan you can do in the privacy of your own home.

Three bi-weekly follow-up sessions ($135 value)

These 30 minute follow-up “accountability” sessions will be used to keep your kettlebell fitness plan on track. We will correct and perfect technique on the basic movements as well as teach you more advanced exercises such as the snatch, windmill, and clean & press.

We are currently offering this package for $299. (There is an additional charge for kettlebells over 20 lbs.) This is a great way to learn how to integrate the fat burning power of kettlebells into your current routine.

Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption – Kuzora Personal Training Raleigh

October 12, 2009 By John Kuzora

Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption

by John Kuzora of Kuzora Personal Training Raleigh Wake Forest NC

There are two ways that physical activity can help you lose body fat. First, you burn calories while you are actually doing the activity and create a calorie deficit. This one is pretty self explanatory. If you walk for 30 minutes and burn 300 calories you have created a calorie deficit. Theoretically if you eat the same and create this 300 calorie per day deficit you would lose approximately 2.5 pounds per month. Of course things rarely work out that way for a number of reasons. Your body adapts the stress of the exercise, you subconsciously eat more to compensate for the calories you are burning, or the intensity of the exercise simply isn’t high enough to force your body out of homeostasis.

But there is a second, more powerful way that exercise can help you lose body fat. You continue to burn calories for a period of time after exercise. This known as excess post exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, and maximizing this metabolic boost can be a powerful tool in body composition.

EPOC is the calories expended above resting values after exercise. After activity, the body needs to perform several metabolic functions to return to a rested state. These include replenishment of oxygen stores, resynthesis of phosphagen, removal of lactic acid, among other things. Studies show that it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours for the body to fully recover. Most studies show that the intensity of exercise has more effect on EPOC than duration. In other words, working really hard for shorter amounts of time seems to increase your metabolism longer than slowly pounding away on a treadmill at 2.5 mph.

(For a more detailed discussion of EPOC please visit http://www.drlenkravitz.com/Articles/epoc.html)

The following workout fits the bill perfectly for maximizing EPOC and boosting your metabolism to new heights:

The 60 yard shuttle

The 60 yard shuttle is a simple yet brutally effective anaerobic conditioning workout. It will improve your VO2 max, agility, and speed while burning calories and speeding up your metabolism.

To perform the workout, set up three cones 5 yards apart. The participant starts from one end, runs 5 yards and back to the start, 10 yards and back, then 15 yards and finishes at the start line. A total of 60 yards is completed. The person is required to touch the line with their hand at each turn, for a total of five touches.

Make sure you warm-up before starting this workout. Some general cardio (jogging or jumping rope for five minutes) and some dynamic flexibility exercises (leg swings and marching inch worms) will do. Start with anywhere from 6 to 12 repetitions. For example, someone new to interval training may start with 6 reps completed in 30 seconds followed by 90 seconds rest. At 30 seconds, you will be running, not sprinting, but this may be appropriate if your body is not used to 100% efforts. In this example progress first by decreasing you rest, the increase your speed, and finally add reps.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you are already in great shape and are looking for an intense challenge try completing 12 reps in 12 minutes each under 12 seconds. The intensity of this 12 minutes workout will amaze you.