Low Impact Conditioning for Performance (resulting in fat loss)

One thing that I have found as I get older is that low impact conditioning for fat loss and conditioning is often necessary.

I take scheduled rest days during the week to recover, regenerate and avoid overtraining, but in general I believe in getting a sweat every day if possible.  Fat loss and maintaining low body composition requires frequent physical exertion (along with mindful eating habits).

I advocate everyone to learn how to run, climb, push and pull a heavy sled or tire, but I also have a deep respect for low-impact conditioning methods.  

My equipment piece of choice for this kind of work is the Schwinn Airdyne, particularly the large fan. 

Old-school fun.

Yes, the old school dual action arms with wind-based resistance pedal bike.  The harder you pedal, the harder the resistance.  I love it.  Schwinn hit a home run with the creation of this piece of equipment.  

I actually own one myself which I use extensively at home.  It has provided some of the toughest workouts yet, all in the comfort of my own home.

Today, I am going to be partaking in the 5-mile Airdyne ride for time.  Strangely, I am actually excited to hop and go for it today.  This workout is gut-wrenching.  Sitting on that bike and trying to put your mind elsewhere while you control your breathing is incredibly difficult.  There is no change of scenery, it's tough to hear your music (due to the fan noise) and your upper and lower body get no breaks the entire way.  

Worse yet, if you are as competitive as I am, you are well aware of what your best times in the past have been, which creates a certain sense of anxiety that you need to beat those times.  I'm sick I know, but I am grateful that I was blessed with will-power.

My heart rate commonly reaches 165-175bpm during this ride.  It will climb steadily for the first few minutes until it stabilizes around 170+.  

One of the interesting things about riding the Airdyne is paying attention to a person's fatigue.  Due to the nature of riding bike with the force production on each stroke and maintaining a high RPM for the entire duration of the ride, it is interesting to observe whether my lungs or muscles fatigue first.  

What I love about the Airdyne is that it is safe.  It is a safe modality of training that can increase performance and also create an environment that is favorable to burn fat.  Performance based training is so great because fat loss is such a large by product.  Not only am I improving cardiovascular health, I am stripping unwanted adipose tissue from my body.  Love it.

Anyways, enough talk here, time to hop on the bike.  I'll be back with my results shortly…

Results:  5-Mile Airdyne Ride

Time:  12:30

MaxHR:  170BPM (as recorded by my Polar Heart Rate Monitor) 

AvgRPM: 83

Overall not too bad.  I rode outside today.  I have touched on the beauty of training outside in other post found here.

I think that anything in the 12:30min range or faster is considered a pretty good clip for the 5-mile ride.  I know that I have seen Mike Boyle comment on this on the StrengthCoach.com forums.  He uses both big fan and little fan Airdynes, but I think that the preferred for me is the big fan.

In 15min, I was able to accomplish a large amount of work.  I think this is an important statement.  We have the time to train.  You have to make the time to train and just do it. 

Was I all smiles and high-fives at the 9 minute mark of my Airdyne ride today?  No!!!  It sucked.  It sucked bad.  But dammit I feel great right now and I know that I exerted myself for the day.  Now I can go and enjoy myself, and continue to work on my training manual, read, or whatever.

Summary:

-  Low impact conditioning is safe and provides a tremendous training effect.

-  Exert yourself progressively (don't "hail mary" your workouts).

-  Use a heart rate monitor to gauge your efforts.

-  Get outside and train whenever possible.

-  Set goals, break them, set new goals.

*  Don't be afraid of work.

If you get a chance to buy an Airdyne at a garage sale for cheap, go for it.  It will last you a lifetime if you grease the bearings and tighten the bolts.  It is a solid investment in your home gym and your health.

Cheers to old school simplicity…

Kyle G.

Tupperware for 24/7 Fat Loss

If your goal is fat loss and to be able to see your abdominals again, buy some Tupperware.

I am serious.

Tupperware is the greatest invention ever as it pertains to losing fat or maintaining your body composition.

Tupperware:  Because this lady uses it.

Let's face it, when you leave home base for the work day, you are essentially stepping out into the jungle and you are vulnerable as hell.

There are so many bad decisions waiting to happen once you leave your front door.  Next time you drive to your place of work, take notice of all of the fast-food eateries you see.  It's incredible!  Most of the time these establishments have a 2, 3 or 4 car wait in the drive-thru line!  Yikes.

Enter Tupperware.

Why is Tupperware so great?  It allows you to pre-plan your exit strategy from crappy food choices.  As I already mentioned, it is so easy to get into trouble when you get hungry and you aren't in the comfort of your own home to make a clean meal.

I use Tupperware daily, and my day-job is a perfect example of a career that requires planning.  I don't have a designated office or desk, I go from building to building, always on the go.  If I don't have my meals planned for the day, I will either starve (not literally) or be forced to eat poorly.  Tupperware allows me the incredible advantage of planning out a nutritionally loaded meal day in and day out.

Notice that I used the word "planning".  Taking an awesome vacation to the Bahamas requires planning, and eating well is no different.  Plan, plan, plan.

Sunday is the best day to plan out some meals for the week.  Now that the Summer months are upon us, grill up a bunch of meat, steam some veggies and chop up some fruit.  Throw it all in a Tupperware container and you are done.  It's not that hard!  All you are doing is making more food than what you will eat at that particular meal and saving it for the coming days.

My go-to Tupperware set can be found at Walmart for $19.86 (with $0.40 CASHBACK).

My standard set-up… It works wonders.

If nothing else, purchase some Tupperware so you can reduce your environmental impact… because you know deep down that using Zip-Loc bags daily CAN'T be doing the world any favors.




Cheers to simplicity…


Kyle G.

Here. We. Go.

Not a lot of people know that I set out on my journey to write my book about 2 years ago.

Ugh… it pains me to admit that.

As I mention in the early parts of the book, part of this delay was due to some extreme bouts of:

-  Writer's block
-  Fear of failure
-  Perfection paralysis
-  Trying to do everything all at once
-  "What will people think"?
-  "Can I create enough value"?

I forgot that building a business is a process.  Not only that, it takes raw courage.  I feel like most people may go experience similar feelings in the beginning when thinking about building something that they can check off as an accomplishment, and in some cases something that can turn out to be profitable and eventually evolve into a career.

I have come to truly love this picture...

When I got my head in the right spot, I knew that it was just a matter of breaking through my comfort zone.  There are growing pains initially when a person accepts the challenge of becoming their own boss. It sounds appealing, but I bet if you ask any successful entrepreneur, they will tell you that success on your own requires a mental resilience that some will never be able to fathom.  Controlling emotions is key.  A college hockey coach of mine used to preach…

No High's. No Low's.

Once I made the decision to put my head down and go for it, I instantly felt a weight lifted off my shoulders.  It was like I told myself either commit to it and finish it, or don't do it at all.  There is no in between.  I have a notorious habit for starting projects and then not finishing them.  Once I admitted this to myself, it became clear that finishing what I started here is a simple decision.  

Go for it.

My checklist for my work is simple…  I have a million ideas of what to write about for my book.  There have been a zillion books about fat loss, what to eat, etc.  It is almost nauseating.  I am also not here to reinvent the wheel.  There are some brilliant minds that have come before me, so I am not going to compete with their knowledge.  I decided against complicating topics that are already over-complicated by journals, magazine and the mainstream media.  

When I started to think about what I wanted to write about, I would become paralyzed.  I felt like I had a lot to say and yet it was hard to get anything out.  My head was cluttered with incomplete thoughts about complicated topics.  Then I started thinking about some of the questions that people had asked me in the past about body composition, and how to reach goals related to it.

I asked myself things like...

Do people really care about the physiological process of why/how fat is lost from the body through strength and conditioning?

Or 

Do they just care that they are getting sustainable/effective results from a program that is manageable, challenging and appropriately designed for there current physical strength and conditioning?

These are some of the questions that I had to ask myself when I was trying to organize my thoughts and put myself in the shoes of the consumer.  Just because I like to read about the details of physiological process doesn't mean they do.  I couldn't be blind to this fact.  I mean, how complicated does this process need to be?

Some of my favorite manuals that I purchased early on my career were straight to the point.  Do this and then this will happen.  Enough said.  I like this approach.  

My goal is simply to give people the information that they need.  I will provide the guidance to get the job done.  

I know that some folks absorb more as readers (the written word), some are visual learners (video), and some are both.  That being said, I know that I will have to create "an experience" so to speak.  

One avenue that I am extremely interested in is the concept of streaming workouts through mobile devices  such as iPads, iPods, and iPhones.  With the popularity of Apple TV on the rise, this is something that I am working out logistically in my head.  It would seem to provide a great bang for a person's buck with regard to training in the comfort of their own home.

This is going to be a leap of faith since I am no Hollywood actor.  My guess is it would take me a few video shoots to get the hang of it.  I'll have to remember to laugh at myself as I start looking into this route further.

Economically, training at home is the way to go.  I have a deep respect for personal trainers, but it just isn't a long-term solution for clients.  Spending that kind of money every single session gets draining on the bank account.  

On the flip side, most people who have a gym membership don't go anyways (gyms love this).  Judging by my experiences in the gym, I would guess that only 10% of the folks that do make it to the gym on a regular basis get any kind of results.  Sure, you can buzz around the Nautilus machines for a few rounds and work up a sweat stain on your shirt, but there is an entire other world of "fit" that you are missing out on.  If these people are excited by the results they are getting from a mediocre training regimen, I always wonder how they would react if I got my hands on them (not literally) and took them through a training session.

Bottom-line… I am in this to reach out to people.  Specifically, those who want to be helped and want to help themselves.  

It is going to be exciting and I am looking forward to the challenges and speed bumps. 

I am familiar with blogging, so I know that it will take a little bit for this blog to get up and running with content, but rest assure that it will be buzzing in a few weeks.  

I will leave this post with a video that I love.  I hope that it hits home with you as it did with me.  Our time is short, maybe a lot shorter than we think.  So why not try and do something incredible?  Even if it's only incredible by what you once believed was possible for you to achieve?  Nothing is impossible.

Cheers to the wanting to squeezing a little more out of life… whatever that means to you…

Kyle Garner

5/31/2012

Racy's Cafe

Eau Claire, WI