Cross-Training for Fitness and Fat Loss
I know I am not the only one that has gotten on the scale and that is the number that they base their health on. Obviously, as a Nutritionist and Trainer, I no longer have that same reaction. But plenty of people still do. And the relationship between their health, fitness, and fat loss is just as troubled as their relationship with the scale is. While there are many different ways to approach this, today we will talk about Cross-Training and its effects on fitness and fat loss.
The numbers on your scale do not indicate whether you are fit or fat. The composition of your body tissue is far more significant than your body weight. If a man's fatty tissue is bigger than 14% to 15% of his body mass, or if a woman's fatty tissue is more than 20% to 22%, he or she is overweight, or more precisely, overfat.
A small amount of fat is needed for padding the internal organs and as insulation under the skin. Excess fat leads to such diseases as diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and gallbladder problems. There are very few, very fat people. The reason is that the fittest, not the fattest, survive.
Fitness vs. Fat Loss
The problem now is focused on how to resolve the problem. The problem with most people who want to lose weight is that they have the propensity to concentrate more on getting those numbers lower than what they are seeing now. What happens next is that they strive harder to achieve a lower weight, according to the ìever reliable result of the weighing scale.
It would be more important to think of the human body as a heat-exchange engine that works on the basic principles of energy physics. The caloric balance equals the total calorie intake minus the total calorie expenditure.
Some of the calories people ingest are used for basal metabolism. As people get old, their bodies require fewer calories for this basic upkeep. Some calories are excreted as waste products. Some go into ìwork metabolism,î the energy expenditure required for any physical activity.
Hence, if people take in more calories than are used by these functions, there is a definite caloric excess. By the laws of physics, energy is transformed rather than destroyed. In this case, each excess of 3,500 calories is changed into a pound of fat. If people want to reverse this process, they have to burn up 3,500 calories to lose a single pound.
Winning the War Against Fat
When you think of fighting fat with exercise, you probably think of hours of hard, sweaty exertion. If this is the case, then, you will not get any farther. This is because people who are so much into losing more by exerting more effort tend to get bored easily.
Why? Because experts contend that when people exert more effort than what they are capable of doing creates a tendency to develop weariness and ennui. Hence, they give up, stop doing their routine exercises, and end up sulking in the corner with a bag of chips that seems to have all the bad calories in this world.
Now, you might ask, "What should be done instead?" The answer: cross-training.
After some intensive studies and experimentations, health experts were able to come up with the concept of incorporating cross-training in order to overcome or break the monotony or dullness in an exercise program.
Cross-training refers to the integration of diverse movements or activities into a personís conventional exercise routine. The main purpose of incorporating cross-training into an exercise program is to avoid overdoing excess muscle damages and to put a stop to an imminent boredom.
Three of the most commonly used activities whenever a person decides to engage in cross-training are swimming, running, and cycling.
In cross-training, distance is one way to extend your activity as your condition improves. For this reason, you need to traverse a measured distance.
If possible, swim the course and measure the distance. If you will be using a running track, such courses usually are a quarter-mile per lap for a complete circuit.
Cross-training offers a variety of benefits for fitness and fat loss. It builds up the strength and endurance of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels. It has also some tranquilizing effect on the nerves, and it burns up calories as much as it makes your "losing weight" more bearable.
Cross-training has three basic components:
- Endurance exercises to condition the heart, lungs, and blood vessels and to induce relaxation. These begin with a careful planned walking and jogging regimen, depending on fitness level.
- Exercises to strengthen the muscles, particularly those important to good posture. These include some activities that are selected to encourage some people who are already burnt out with a particular routine.
- Exercises to improve joint mobility and prevent or relieve aches and pains. These consist of a series of static stretching positions that are safe and effective for most of the people who wish to try to lose some fat.
Indeed, cross-training is a great way to modify the concept of exercising and losing fat without having to endure monotonous activities. In fact, the idea of exercising is to like what you are doing! Hence, if you engage in cross-training, you will be aware of it that you have already achieved your desired weight. Boiled down, cross-training is, certainly, one way of having fun.
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