Top notch advice on cardio and resistance exercise by Kim Lyons, BS, CPT Co-trainer on The Biggest Loser. If you’re looking for a kick butt virtual trainer and haven’t visited Kim’s site, and her team of virtual personal trainer’s, then head on over to Fast Track to Fat Loss.

Importance of cardio and resistance training in your exercise program

People often ask me “what’s the big secret to losing weight?” This is a big question to tackle, and trust me, we will cover it all in my article series! But today I’d like to start with what I feel is one of the MOST important strategies toward losing fat fast and permanently, and achieving all your fitness goals: your exercise program.

Too often people get stuck in what I like to call the “one track” nutrition and exercise program. We all know the “dieters” the “joggers” and the “gym rats”, but it isn’t very often that people implement a successful balance of all three of these important components together within their exercise program.

You must do resistance training cardio exercise and eat right, in order to achieve your goals and succeed long term with your exercise program. These three components may sound overwhelming and time consuming, but if done properly, your overall exercise program will work into your daily routine and you’ll have much more energy through out the day. Most importantly, you’ll achieve much better results from your exercise program, a lot quicker.

Today we are going to focus on the importance of resistance training and cardio exercise within your exercise program. Let’s start with resistance training, also known as “weightlifting.”

The importance of resistance training in your exercise program

The purpose of resistance training in your exercise program is to increase your lean muscle mass. By adding lean muscle mass to your body, you are essentially adding horse power to your metabolism. Adding resistance training to your exercise program burns tons of calories, both during AND after your workout.

Did you know that your body continues to burn up to 25 percent more calories for hours after your exercise program? This after-burn is known as “excess post-exercise oxygen consumption” or EPOC.

EPOC represents the oxygen consumption above and beyond resting level that the body is utilizing to return itself to its pre-exercise state. This can take anywhere from 15-48 hours depending on the intensity and duration of the exercise program. What does all this mean? You’ll burn more fat throughout the day, even after your exercise program, so you can achieve the lean, firm body you’ve always wanted.

Other benefits of an effective exercise program

Adding resistance training to your exercise program will also increase your bone density, increase the strength of your muscles, tendons and ligaments decrease your blood pressure, resting heart rate, and body fat and improve your balance, posture, and coordination and last but not least, help reduce your risk of injury.

Now I realize most of you think that by adding resistance training to your exercise program you need to go to the gym and throw weights around. You’re right, that is one way, but there are many other ways to build lean, fat-burning muscle!

Before I go any further, I want to address the fear of “bulking up” by adding resistance training to your exercise program – most commonly a concern of women. I can assure you, this will not be the case. Women simply do not have the hormones needed to get “body-builder big.” Instead, when you add an effective resistance training program to your exercise program, one that’s right for you, your muscles will become more firm and shapely, to give you that “toned” look that everyone wants. And, since a pound of muscle takes up a lot less space than a pound of fat, your pant size will shrink – you’ll actually become smaller.

It is also important to keep in mind that lifting weights are not the only way to build muscle. If you can push, pull, drag, curl, or stretch something, you can build strength. Elastic bands, water, even your own body weight will give good resistance for your exercise program. The key to an effective resistance exercise program is to continue to challenge your muscles with a variety of different exercises, which we’ll help you do.

There are no excuses to skip your exercise program

There is simply no excuse not to incorporate resistance training into your exercise program. Even if you were stranded on an island without any weight-lifting equipment, you could still make great progress. You could do: Push-ups, pull-ups, dips, squats, lunges, standing leg exercises, ab crunches, and clever combinations of all the above for an effective resistance training exercise program!

I’ll go into more details on the fundamentals of resistance training in a few days, so be sure to stay tuned. And keep in mind that as a Gold member of our program, we’ll personally recommend an excellent exercise program (and nutrition too) for you – all custom-tailored to your fitness level, your goals, and the time and equipment you have (or don’t have) available, and any other special requests, concerns, or limitations we should take into account. If you’ve already joined Gold membership, your very own trainer is likely working on your nutrition and exercise program now or will do so very shortly.

Quite frankly, we’ll help you avoid any confusion with your exercise program and show you exactly how to achieve the results you want, step-by-step. By eliminating the guesswork, you’ll totally avoid the common mistakes that can waste your time and effort, so you can achieve the body YOU want, in the shortest time possible. We’ll also teach you tips, tricks, and secrets of an effective exercise program, not taught anywhere else. And because your nutrition and exercise program will be perfectly customized to you, you’ll achieve amazing results, fast – 100% guaranteed!

The importance of cardiovascular training in your exercise program

Now that you fully understand the importance of resistance training, lets’ talk a little bit about the importance of cardiovascular exercise, or “cardio training” within your exercise program. As you learned, adding resistance training to your exercise program is important for strengthening and toning up your muscles, while at the same time speeding up your metabolism.

Cardio is equally important to your exercise program for working your heart and lungs, while it burns the calories and fat. A few other benefits of adding cardio training to your exercise program include: lowering your resting heart rate, decreasing your blood pressure, reducing stress and anxiety, and it also helps in lowering your cholesterol levels.

There are four factors that influence the effectiveness of your cardio exercise program. They are Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type. This is known as the F.I.T.T principle. Of course all of these factors should be adjusted for YOUR personal goals and fitness level, which we’ll be happy to help you with.

Cardio exercise program factor #1. Your ideal Frequency is 3-5 days a week.
Cardio exercise program factor #2. Your Intensity should be between 65-85 percent of your maxim heart rate.
Cardio exercise program factor #3. The Time or length of your exercise program should be 15-60 minutes.
Cardio exercise program factor #4. And the type of exercise program you choose should be a combination of different activities that YOU enjoy, so you can avoid boredom and any frustrating plateaus.

I know this sounds a bit overwhelming, but remember, as a Gold member, your very own personal trainer will personally help you every step of the way in developing a very effective nutrition and exercise program. You’ll know exactly what to do, when to do it, how long and at what intensity – specifically for you and the results you want to achieve. We’ll map your exercise program all out for you and make sure that it’s really clear and simple. So again, I encourage you to join Gold membership so you can achieve excellent results with your exercise program very quickly – all guaranteed. You’ll be in very good hands, I assure you.

Now, in the next article I’ll help you create your healthy shopping list that’s right for YOU, your personal preferences and your fat loss goals – including really helpful tips to make sure it’s all a huge success!

Remember, the secret to a successful fat loss exercise program includes Resistance training, Cardio training, Eating right, and of course lets not forget daily accountability.

You’re off to a great start, keep up the good work with your nutrition and exercise program…

For more information on getting your own virtual personal trainer via Kim Lyon’s team of fitness trainer’s visit Fast Track to Fat Loss.

Kim Lyons, BS, CPT
Co-trainer on The Biggest Loser

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