Sculpting Your Workouts to Tone Your Body

Lose Fats Fast! How Hard Should I Workout?

Posted by on Apr 3rd, 2010 | no comments home title

Do you know how much effort you should invest in each of your workout in order to ensure each session counts towards achieving your desired results? I have completely no inkling on this previously as I had always thought that no matter what, it beats being a couch potato and surely it should help me burn some calories if i get my butt off that couch?

That proved to be wrong when my personal trainer shared with me that getting the most out of your training does not always mean working harder and faster. The best way to improve your fitness level and achieve optimal results is through working out at the right intensity.

So you may ask what constitutes the right intensity? In order for your cardiovascular exercise to burn off those extra fats effectively, frequency of cardio exercise together with intensity and duration is the winning formula. Let us look into more details below:-

Maximum Heart Rate (MHR): This measures your heart beat for as fast as it can go. It varies from person to person. If you know what is your MHR, you can then determine which intensity you should gear for so that you will reduce the chances of over-training or not putting in enough effort to see the best results. Generally, the guide to determine your MHR is 220 minus your age. e.g. if you are 22 years old, your MHR will be 220-22=198
Basically, the intensity level can be broadly divided into high intensity, medium intensity and low intensity. We shall further examine based on the MHR, how should this be applied to the various intensity levels?

High intensity:- when you exercise at a high intensity level, you should be targeting at working out at the range of between 80% to 90% of your MHR. Using the same example above, for a 22 year old who wants a high intensity workout, the heart rate zone will be 198 X 90% =178. If you exceed 178, you are over-training (could be dangerous as your heart will be beating too fast) and anything below 178, you are not working hard enough.

Medium intensity:- Still on the same example, a 22 year old will need to target at working out at a range between 60% to 70% of the MHR, i.e. 198 X 70%=139;

Low intensity:- the targeted heart rate zone would be in the range of between 40% to 50% of the MHR. Therefore, it would be 198 X 50%=99.
For a start, if you need to lose weight fast, you will need to exercise consistently at a high intensity level. You get to burn more calories per minute in this zone as compared to the other 2 intensity level because you are covering more distance per minute. However, it will be a good idea to maybe fit in one or two medium or low intensity session to allow your body to recover from intense training.

So the next time you hop on that cardio equipement in the gym, train your eye to watch out for the heart rate to help guide you on your level of effort exerted. For some of the more serious athletes, they may opt to go for other sophisticated test in sports clinic to get precise measurement. However, if you do not wish to invest that kind of money, you can try to purchase those heart rate monitor watches available in the market to help you with it.

On the other hand, if you do not wish to incur extra cost but would like to make the most out of your time invested in your workout, you may wish to note:-

high intensity training; conversation not possible, most likely you are unable to speak except a single word after gasping for air each time you try.
Medium intensity training; you may be breathing very hard but can still speak in short sentences.

Low intensity training; you can carry out a conversation as normal but you may be breathing a little harder than normal.

The most important thing to bear in mind is that you need consistent and focused efforts to help you achieve your desired goals in terms of fat lost!