With Memorial Day weekend denoting the beginning of summer and millions of Americans heading to nearby beaches for sun-soaked days of leisure and recreation, many of my Mia Brazilia customers have expressed apprehension about putting on a summer bikini or one-piece. As an experienced trainer, this feedback is commonplace and understandable, considering the revealing nature of the modern-day swimsuit. However, there need not be such trepidation, provided you develop a dedicated workout regimen right now that facilitates weight loss and a leaner, meaner physical profile. With the right workout routine, you can confidently re-shape and sculpt your body in a remarkably short period of time. The following five workout concepts offer the best opportunity for weight loss:
1.) Weight Training
1.) Weight Training
- Weight training is indispensable to any successful weight-loss program. That is because it is crucial for your body to build lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass elevates the body's metabolic rate, availing it to marshal the ability to burn fat at a more rapid, efficient rate than before. Thus, even when you are NOT working out, your body will be burning more calories than before weight training. Whether you incorporate functional weight training or traditional free weights and machines, the marked improvement in your strength from week to week will allow you to go even harder each successive training session and put up even more weight resistance, delivering a greater afterburn effect. This afterburn effect will signal for the body to efficiently process the kinetic energy derived from your dietary intake and eliminate any waste, without that waste being stored in the adipose tissue of the body and re-converted to fat. Although I am kept quite busy during the week managing Mia Brazilia, I always insist on fitting in at least three weight training sessions per week to optimize and preserve my strength and durability. It is also important to diversify your weight training routine so that you don't expose your body to the same movements and exercises over an extended period of time. For example, if you have been training at a gym by utilizing weight machines and benches, why not mix your weight training regimen up by alternating with functional training stations that rely upon your body weight and gravity instead? Keeping your body "confused" from week to week will achieve the best results for strength training.
- Running is one of the most common workout resources utilized by people looking to lose weight for a reason: it works! The simplicity of running or jogging is that it requires next to nothing to begin: put on pair of running shoes, step out of the house, and you're off! Before hosting a Mia Brazilia pop-up show, I will often select a nearby path or hill to take an early-morning jog. Not surprisingly, the more challenging nature of hill running also offers the most optimal, high-intensity weight loss results. Hill running requires the engagement of your quad and hamstring muscles in addition to your glutes. The glutes and legs are significant reservoirs of energy expenditure, thus necessitating more calorie-burning to compensate. If you can't run outdoors, visiting a gym instead and running on the treadmill is an ideal alternative. Be sure to challenge yourself with a demanding incline level that will provoke your body and optimize your VO2 or maximal oxygen output.
- Visit any shopping plaza recently in Southern California and what do you notice? The opening of yet-another interval training fitness studio. Whether the studio is an OrangeTheory or F45, the concept is the same: interval training as the supreme training method for weight loss. Why does this timeless concept succeed when so many fitness "gimmicks" have failed before? Well, the periodic "spiking" of your heart rate alternating with "down cycles" creates a physiological "shock therapy" on your body's stamina and endurance that upgrades the muscles of the heart and lungs, allowing greater efficiency of oxygen intake. Most high-intensity interval training studios incorporate a scheduled program that includes going hard for a prescribed period of time, followed by a pre-set period of active rest, before returning back to a hard period and so forth. After only a few weeks of interval training, you will marvel at the overall improvement in your athletic performance and the re-shaping of your body's figure. If you prefer cycling, then sign up instead for one of the many interval training cycling studios that are opening across the nation. I have been blessed with hosting Mia Brazilia trunk shows at several, Southern California Rush Cycle locations and was invited to join one of their exemplary interval training cycling sessions. The cycling session was exhilarating and challenging, requiring me to fire a whole range of dormant muscle groups in my body while also working my quads, hamstrings, core, and glute muscles. Firing up previously unused muscle groups enabled me to use even more energy, producing even higher calorie-burning results.
- Another popular fitness advocation for weight loss is the boot camp. Modern boot camps blend two of the aforementioned weight-loss regimens: weight training and interval training. The boot camp instructor will alternate between more cardio-focused exercise stations and strength-based exercise stations, with short bursts of time devoted to going all-out followed up by short periods of rest. A good instructor will be able to monitor each participant's performance and skill level to recommend when to modify or elevate intensity or resistance levels. Boot camps also foster social bonding among class participants as each member can feed off the energy and support of other members responding to identical commands from the instructor. The affirmative, social context of the boot camp environment is often a serendipitous inducement to continue pursuing a weight-loss, workout regimen.
- Before I launched Mia Brazilia, one of my unadulterated joys in life was working as a martial arts trainer. Many of my martial arts training clients came to me after becoming disenchanted or "burned out" from the traditional gym workout of weight lifting or jogging on the treadmill. It never ceased to amaze how often my clients' physical profiles radically improved after only a month of martial arts training. Whether it was the boxing or kicking components of the martial arts workout regimen, the activation of long-dormant muscle groups (especially the core muscle groups) enabled my clients to show rapid improvement in cardiac output, strength, and endurance. Since martial arts workouts often mimic interval training sessions, your body's calorie-burning mechanisms will accelerate and raise your active AND resting metabolic rates to unseen territory.