When is best to train?

Well I know it has been a little while, we have had some great public holiday long weekends hit us.

 

This has made me lazy… BUT only lazy for the blog, not for the FITNESS!

 

I made sure that I utilised the sleep ins and the time off work to work out without having to get up super early to fit my fitness in.

 

But that has me thinking.

 

What is better? Morning, Noon or night?

 

There are so many 24 hr gyms about and one of the biggest catch cry’s is, Player 1 – “yeah but I could go to the gym at 2AM if I wanted!”, Player 2 – “yeah, but who goes to the gym at 2AM?”.

 

My workout starts at about 5:30 most mornings during the working week. This fits my schedule better.

I also train on a Tuesday arvo (bit of cardio).

But it wasn’t always like this, I used to mainly do my exercise in the afternoons after work. Heck at one point I was session-ing it up in the mornings and then hitting it again in the arvo.

 

On the weekend my workout normally occurs a bit later in the mornings to fit with my gyms opening times. Some days I won’t train on a Saturday until after lunch.

 

Besides dodging the hordes of gym goers that tackle peak times, there can be other reasons for choosing particular training times.

Morning is best for fat loss targeting as you can get to the gym PRE breakfast and burn extra fat. Some people also struggle to work out on a fuller stomach so hitting the gym pre breaky can avoid that.

 

Afternoon might be better for some as they gain momentum with fuelling up during the day. It can also be a great way to alleviate the days stress’!

 

What about the midday workout? Harder to do if you are working, but this can be achieved if you have a no work day, work at night or just don’t work… have a sleep in, have breaky, even have lunch, then BAM gym time!

 

No matter which time you choose to train, can train, or happen to train, it really doesn’t matter, as long as you are training.

 

NEWS: SOLID STATE CARDIO IS DEAD!

They say that solid state cardio is DEAD for fat loss.

And I couldn’t agree more.

You want to run a marathon, no worries; solid state cardio is going to get you there. Conditioning your body for a marathon is different to building strength and leads to a different shape for the body and muscle units involved. But a lot of people get it in their heads when they start the fat loss mission that running for long periods of time will lose the weight.

Wrong! It will for a little while, but then slowly but surely the body WILL catch up and beat you at this game. Your half hour treadmill drone jogs will slowly become less efficient at burning the calories because your body is your worst enemy and will figure out your plan.

Solution? You HAVE TO KEEP CHALLENGING YOURSELF!

One way to do this is by resistance training; here you can always up the ante by adding more weights, staggering the repetitions, trying different moves etc. Then while your body is at rest you are STILL burning fat as your body recovers and stays in a anabolic state for longer than what cardio can provide.

Another way to lose the pounds is by utilizing the latest buzz word HIIT (high intensity interval training). Now you can do this in a few ways, many gyms now run one of the biggest HIIT training programs in the world, Les Mills Grit. This is a half hour of HELL on earth that will test your medal and have you burning up the calorie monster where it stands. Again the principle of using weighted bars means that you can be forever increasing your challenge weight, and with new launches constantly varying the routines you will be forever in a state of challenge any way.

Les Mills RPM and other spin classes are another great HIIT inspired class that gives you less of an upper body workout and more cardio and legs. But with the ability to always challenge your last personal best by altering the gear or resistance on the bikes wheel you will never get ahead of yourself. Best thing is, these HIIT classes are normally only around half an hour long and are super effective for those who are time poor and looking for fitness that will ACTUALLY work.

You can also create your own HIIT if you don’t fancy the classes by hitting the footpath, treadmill or bikes and cranking up some loud tunes. Simply increase your speed or resistance in an alternating fashion, listen to the music for the cues of when to start a sprint or when to leave the seat and STOMP up a make believe hill. Don’t spend too long on the exercise; 30 to 40 minutes would be ample. Then wait for the weight to fall off (along with great nutrition OBVIOUSLY).

Don’t let your stale routine of half an hour on the treadmill catch you and your body out! Beat your body and keep challenging yourself.

Don't burn that candle from both ends!

Eat, sleep, train - repeat!

You want results?

You gotta work for them, right?

Well, yes AND no. 

Here is the deal;

Need to train hard to get results, need energy to train, need rest to get energy (plus nutrition) need to train hard to get results and there is the loop. 

Some people ONLY train hard and struggle with the whole REST thing. You feel bad when you miss a day of training or you don't know if one day is enough or three is too many. 

Listen to your body and build your rest days around events or times where you can really rest, recover and relax. 

Sometimes you will need one day, other times you might require a whole week.  It won't undo all of your hard work. In fact it will most likely enchance your gains and it will get you ready for your next session.

So for me, a week of workouts and early mornings will be recovered upon over the two days of the weekend. Relaxing, catching up with friends and eating healthy to regain my strength, ready for another week of hard training!