It took me some time to figure out, and I know this may seem stupid, but all 3 elements of fitness programs must align for there to be maximum success–weight training, nutrition and cardio training. I am now kicking up my cardio training to a new level to maximize fat loss.

I have never been very good about cardio training consistency. I mean well, but I never quite accomplish my goals. I have examined my thinking and have decided to push it to another level effective immediately. I gave a lot of thought to my past efforts. I looked over logs of when I was the most consistent with my cardio and figured out the keys tom what I believe will be my success.

Not enough cardio

The first thing I noticed is that I don't do enough cardio. I am bad at completing it when I give myself a smaller cardio schedule. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but when I lighten up my cardio schedule I tend to skip it. That's why I'm going back to 6 days a week of cardio.

Increasing the cardio schedule to decrease the skipped workouts

It may not make sense at first glance, but once I explain it should be an “aha” moment for you. If I only schedule 3 or 4 sessions weekly,i can convince myself to skip one of them because my thought process is that I can always make it up on one of the other days. However, the make ups never happen.

If I load up the schedule with 6 sessions a week, I have no room for make ups, so my attitude is that I MUST complete each training session. I leave myself zero wiggle room.

My plan

I am now going to do 6 days of cardio every week, taking Sunday as a full rest day. On some days I may double up on my cardio if I feel it is required. My main objective is to get it done.

Today I completed a 2 mile morning run. It is the start of going down the right path. What are your cardio challenges?

Related Posts:

• Cardio Timing for Fat Loss
• Combat the Fat for Quick Fat Loss
• Why Y3T was my training choice
• How to Use Intensity in Weight Training
• Get A Cardio Coach for Your HIIT Workouts

Treadmill Hill Climbs are something I invented to aid with fat loss success. I got the idea from people who run up and down a local hill. I tried it a few times and found it to be an intense exercise, but too hard on my old knees.

Treadmill Hill Climbs – The History

My 16 year old son did a goalie camp last year where they did dry land exercise that included running hills. He told me about a local hill that many people meet at to run. I decided to give it a go. My son, my friend and I all headed over to the hill to run it. My first thought was that going up such a steep hill was intense. The effort to not only get up the hill, but to get back down it was so intense that it felt like my heart was trying to fly out of my chest. The three of us agreed to try this again the following week.

As the week wore on, both my friend and I (who are both over the age of 40) complained to each other about the aches in our knee joints as a result of the hill climbs. Since we had recovered by the following Friday, we ran the hill again. Once again, we both had pain in our knees. It was then that I got the idea for the treadmill hill climbs.

Cardio Intensity: High or Low?

There has been a debate raging on about which type of cardio is better–high intensity interval cardio (HIIT) or low intensity steady state cardio (LISS). I say they both have a place in your cardio plan. As I have conducted the Experiment of One throughout the years I have discovered the importance of changing things up. While this has been applied mostly to weight training, it also applies to cardio training.

HIIT will burn calories long after you stop the training, but LISS will burn more calories per session. The bigger problem is that HIIT is hard on your legs and makes it difficult to recover from leg training days. At the same time, I figured that I needed a way to make LISS sessions just a little more intense. Enter the treadmill hill climbs for fat loss success.

Executing Treadmill Hill Climbs

The theory behind treadmill hill climbs is simple–make LISS cardio more intense by constantly changing the load your body is going through. This is accomplished by manipulating speed and incline on the treadmill. I begin with a 2 minute warm up at a brisk pace and a 1.0 incline. Upon completion of the warm up, I increase the incline 0.5 every 30 seconds that pass by. I progressively increase the maximum incline each week. So, if this week calls for an 8.0 incline, I will keep increasing the incline until it reaches 8.0. Once I reach 8.0 I will begin increasing the speed by 0.1 every 30 seconds until I have done that for 10 intervals. At that point I will decrease the speed by 0.1 every 30 seconds, again for 10 intervals. Once I am back to my original speed, I begin decreasing the incline by 0.5 every 30 seconds until I am back to the 1.0 incline level again. I end the session with a nice 5 minute cool down at a slow pace.

If you do this workout in place of your LISS cardio you will see your fat loss increase. Give it a try and leave me a comment telling me what you thought of it.

Related Posts:

• Get A Cardio Coach for Your HIIT Workouts
• Cardio Timing for Fat Loss
• 8 Ways to Winterize Your Cardio
• Mission Grand Prix: 117 Days to Go — Deload Week
• Elements of Training: Intensity

The dumbbell bench press can bring about explosive chest growth when added to your chest workout routine. I personally use this movement as substitute to the flat barbell bench press.

Dumbbell Bench Press is a Compound Movement

The dumbbell bench press is a compound movement like the barbell bench press is. You work the same muscles as well. It is a tremendous mass builder for both the chest and shoulders. The triceps also benefit tremendously from this compound movement.

Getting Into Position for the Dumbbell Bench Press

You will sit at the end of a flat bench and grab two dumbbells with an overhand grip. With the dumbbells resting on your knees you will carefully lie back. You will raise the dumbbells simultaneously. Be sure your arms are at right angles before you press the dumbbells up towards the locked out position. When you reach the locked out position the dumbbells should be close together (almost touching each other).

Executing the Dumbbell Bench Press

From the locked out position, slowly lower the dumbbells under control. They should wind up at the sides of your chest. Now slowly raise the dumbbells back to the locked out position, keeping your arms close to your body. Be sure to do this movement under control.

Benefits of the Dumbbell Bench Press

The main benefit of this exercise over the flat barbell bench press is that there is a greater stretch of your chest muscles at the bottom position. In addition, there is a much better peak contraction at the top of the movement. I find that my stabilizer muscles always need some work and the dumbbell bench press does the trick for me.

Explosive Chest Development

The exercise is very good at developing mass in the middle and outer pectoral regions. This is why alot of bodybuilders opt for including this exercise in their programs. I would say that if you are interested in explosive chest growth, this exercise needs to be in your program.

Related Posts:

• How to Build Your Triceps
• 10 Ways to Increase Your Bench Press
• Build Your Upper Chest
• How to Use One Arm and Increase Intensity
• Training Lagging Body Parts

When it comes to training there are many different philosophies, but most fall into two categories: high volume or low volume. High volume training would be the typical body part split where you do 4 sets of multiple exercises to blast one part of your body daily. Low volume training would include my personal favorite, High Intensity Training.

High Intensity Training Explained

High Intensity Training's fundamentals involve the concept that exercise should be brief, infrequent and intense. By performing training that uses a high level of effort you stimulate your body to increase in both size and strength. With High Intensity Training, as your strength increases the weight you push will progressively get bigger. Because the intensity is so high in these training sessions, they are kept very short (generally under 45 minutes in total length).

Training in this manner is done full body. There are generally no body part splits utilized (although Mike Mentzer did have some body part split routines that used the HIT principles). When training in this manner you will use one set per exercise and take that set to complete failure. It is thought that by training briefly and infrequently your body will recover better.

Recovery with High Intensity Training

When utilizing the HIT principles of training you are never training on consecutive days. There is always at least 48 hours between training sessions. This gives your body an optimum amount of time to recover. To understand the reasoning behind this you have to understand what happens when you train your muscles.

A typical high volume method will have you blasting away at your muscles with a large number of sets. Each set creates micro tears in your muscles. These must be repaired in order for muscle growth to happen. Now think about creating these tears as being equivalent to digging holes in the ground and then having to fill them. The act of filling the holes back up takes energy. Your body is in the same position with high volume training. There is a huge ditch that must be filled. That is why high volume programs only have you train a particular body part once per week. However, with HIT you are not digging as large a hole, so your body takes less time to fill the hole, giving you the opportunity to hit muscle groups more than once a week.

Progression with High Intensity Training

When doing HIT your goal is to either increase the weight from your previous session or increase the repetitions performed. It is a constant competition wtih the previous training session. This forces progressive overload to happen. The strength gains most people see on HIT are tremendous. This is because the load is increased slowly, but steadily. You force your body to push the weight you are using as hard as possible. If you are aiming for 10 repetitions and are able to complete them, you just keep going to failure. This would then be an indication that it is time to increase the load. You continually do this at each training session.

Famous Advocates of High Intensity Training

There were many famous body builders who utilized the HIT principles. Among the biggest names are Dorian Yates, Mike Mentzer, Ray Mentzer, Lee Labrada, Casey Vitor and Sergio Oliva. These men had tremendous physiques.

If you are tired of pushing out set after set of bicep curls I suggest you give HIT a try. I have yet to meet someone who did not benefit from the principles described in HIT.

Related Posts:

• How to Use Intensity in Weight Training
• The Role of Time Under Tension
• Why Not Fail?
• Y3T Training System: Looking Back
• How to Succeed by Knowing Your Body