Can Stepping On A Treadmill Can Lead To Sickness, Injury Or Fat Burning Disaster?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The majority of exercisers today still rely on long duration moderate paced aerobic exercise as their primary routine for burning fat. But there are several reasons why this is a bad move, as it can actually keep you from burning fat and reduce your ability to handle stress. But there are a couple of other reasons why you should think twice, or three times, before stepping foot on a treadmill again.

A few years ago, I was spending a lot of time with aerobic exercise on an elliptical machine, trying to burn fat fast. I was doing the usual 30-45 minutes per session for about 3 times per week. I was getting in better cardiovascular shape, or so I thought, but I didn’t notice any difference in my physique. So I followed the “more is better” thinking that surrounds this type of exercise and added a fourth day.

After a few weeks I added a fifth day as I still didn’t see the results I wanted. I was watching my diet too, so I figured that was the only thing that would do it. Well, it wasn’t very long before I began to get worn out.

This might seem obvious, but I was so focused on my goals of burning maximum fat that I didn’t want that to get in the way, so I pressed onward. Not many more days passed by and I got a cold. What I realized later was that my immune system was so worn down that I was very susceptible to catching a virus, and I did.

Guess what? I didn’t stop. I continued with my sessions and ended up with a horrible sinus infection that put me out for about a week and a half. I was miserable, and I can tell you I hadn't burned much fat either. I had to take several days off of work to recover. I learned an important lesson, however; one that you should never have to: listen to your body.

If you are feeling drained, take a day or two off until you’re really feeling ready to get back to it. I also learned that aerobic exercise just doesn’t cut it when trying to transform your body for the better or burn fat fast. If 5 days per week didn’t work, I certainly don’t think 6 or 7 days would. And even if it did, would spending that much time in the gym be worth it to you?

I eventually discovered that the aerobics were training my body to actually store body fat to have available for the next workout…yikes! And I also found out that I was actually reducing my body’s ability handle work and stress. I was becoming more efficient and handling easy work, but it made me pant like a race horse when trying anything that was marginally more intense...even something like climbing a long flight of stairs. And I wasn't burning any fat either.

The other concern I have with aerobic exercise is that of overuse injuries and muscle imbalances. These are common in competitive athletes that perform the same monotonous motion over and over and over again.

The muscles primarily involved in these activities also receive the brunt of the work while the rest of your body is neglected. This can be true for any of the aerobic movements recommended by many fitness professionals to burn fat because it is a repetitive motion continued for long time periods for several times each week, affecting the same muscle groups.

Runners are a prime example. The pounding that this activity gives the joints associated (knees, etc.) can lead to injury from overusing that area. And because the lower body receives the brunt of the work, you are creating severe imbalances with other areas of your body. You’ll have to add more exercise to make up for this, and before you know it, you’ll be spending too much of your time devoted to workouts that were supposed to burn fat fast.

The good news is that you can avoid these problems entirely, and spend an average of 15-20 minutes, 2-3 days per week performing properly conducted intense resistance training to burn fat like you want to.

Students of my Fat Burning Furnace system know this and simultaneously burn fat, build muscle, strength, and lasting health with their efforts. So get off of the treadmill and get intense with resistance training…your body will show you the difference in your fat burning success, and thank you for it down the road.

A Simple Change In Mindset Will Burn More Fat Fast

Most people that I talk to about health and fitness talk about “getting in shape”. But I don’t think they realize that their words are actually counterproductive to their aspirations of burning fat. You hear a lot of people lamenting about being out of shape and saying, “I need to get in shape and burn fat”, or, “I want to get in shape and burn fat.” What you don’t hear them saying is, “I want to get in shape, burn fat, and stay that way.”

They may want to stay in shape, but their mindset is focused on getting in shape. This makes you more susceptible to the fad diets and latest exercise gimmick on the market. You’re so focused on getting in shape that you’ll try almost anything regardless of how silly or difficult to follow it might seem, because you’re entirely focused on the short term goal.

A simple change in the “quick fix” mindset to one of long term success will steer you down the correct path. You’ll be less enticed by the late night TV hype, and more focused on doing the right things most of the time. Wouldn’t you agree that life long health and fitness is what’s most important?

Of course creating an environment in your body that allows you to burn fat fast is essential to this goal. A person who is in shape in their 50s and 60s is a lot more impressive to me than someone who is lean and fit in their 20s and 30s. That’s because the dedication to maintaining the proper exercise plan and a sensible nutrition strategy for the rest of your life is rare to find. It’s a rare mindset.

If you really want to transform your physique and your health for good, you must make it a lifestyle, a habit. And that starts in your mind. That’s what the people who are lean for life do. In fact, if I think about all of the people I personally know that are in great shape and have been for a while, I start to understand that they have their minds on staying in shape.

They think about it day and night, not obsessively, but with each thing they do…they subconsciously think, “Is this going to positively or negatively impact my long term health and fitness?”. "Am I doing everything I reasonable can to burn fat and live a healthy lifestyle?".

The good news is that research shows you can develop simple habits like those involved in eating and exercising properly in under a month…sometimes even sooner. And with the type of exercise and diet tips I recommend to my Fat Burning Furnace students, you don’t need o give up your life’s pursuits so that you are working out every day, nor do you need to follow a wacky diet you can’t reasonably make a lifestyle out of.

And after a few months of practicing these methods, I’ve found that your body will start telling you it wants to keep exercising and eating right…you just won’t feel right with out it. Why? Because your body naturally wants to be healthy and lean.

So I urge you to forgo the “get in shape” mindset, and instead embrace the idea of staying in shape and creating that fat burning furnace that is so essential to life long health and fitness.

Imagine yourself in the body of your dreams, today, tomorrow, and 5, 10, 20 or more years from now. What will you be doing then, in your lean, strong, and healthy body? Chances are, you won’t be trying to “get in shape”. Instead, you'll be burning fat 24/7, and enjoying life as you should...full of vitality and passion.

The Best Way To Fire Up Your Metabolism, Burn Fat Fast & Developing Lasting Health

Ask ten people what type of exercise they should be doing to burn fat and fire up their metabolism and they’ll all probably tell you the same thing. They’ll tell you that you need to do 30-40 minutes of moderately-paced aerobic exercise on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair climber, etc. for 3-5 times per week.

They’ll probably also tell you that more is better…4 times per week would be better than 3, and 5 times per week would be even better.

People will tell you this because that’s been and continues to be the mainstream recommendation for fat burning by many fitness professionals. Get in a certain target heart rate and stay at that heart rate for 30 minutes or so, several times per week. I am here to tell you there is a better way.

Sure, you’ll burn some calories while you’re running to nowhere on a treadmill, but you won’t make a complete physique transformation with this type of exercise alone.

In fact, this type of exercise can actually be counterproductive to burning fat. Here are just a couple of reasons:

Long duration, lower intensity aerobics calls upon your stored body fat for energy during the sessions. While this may sound good, this can actually cause your body to create more body fat in reserve after the workout is over to have ready for your next workout. Yikes!

What's worse, this type of exercise when done frequently as typically suggested, trains your cardiovascular system to be efficient. Again, while this sounds good, your heart and lungs can actually reduce their capacity for work as they are getting more efficient at doing easy work (your long duration, low intensity aerobic workouts), which reduces their ability to handle stress.

This can lead to a host of other problems including higher change of heart attack. You are only working within your current aerobic capacity because you're never challenging it to go beyond what it's capable of. And anything that is easy will not yield results even close to what’s challenging for the body to accomplish.

Instead, you should be challenging the body to increase its capacity, so that it is stronger and able to deal with stress more easily. How is this done?

The fastest and most efficient way to rev up your metabolism, burn fat faster, and develop lifelong health and fitness is to add lean muscle to your body through resistance training - period. You want life changing results in the quickest possible time? Get stronger and build some muscle. When you add lean muscle to your body you’ll be literally turning your body into a fat burning machine!

Let’s say that you were eating the amount of calories that allow you to maintain your current bodyweight, but began to add lean muscle to your body through proper resistance training…you’ll need to use some of those calories you’re eating to feed the new muscle, creating a calorie deficit in your body.

In addition, when you stimulate your body with proper resistance training like I teach my students, the repair and growth process will call upon your stored body fat for energy. This calorie deficit combined with the repair and growth process will allow you to burn fat all day long, every day. You’ll even get these fat burning effects when you’re sitting around doing nothing at all.

Also, properly conducted resistance training actually increases your heart and lung's capacity for work. By placing intense demands on your body, it is forced into being ready for anything you throw at it. This makes you more resistant to cardiovascular health problems that plague most people...even those that exercise with aerobics frequently.

And the beauty is I’ve discovered that you don’t have to spend much time working out to get the fat loss effects, and strength and muscle gains that will create this environment…you can actually get it done with 2 or 3 weekly workouts that last between 20 and 30 minutes, and even less time at an advanced level.

And it’s easy to make this type of exercise part of your life because of its efficiency…and it will help keep you lean and healthy for the rest of it...muscle is the stuff that fat burning furnaces are made of! That I can promise you.

Seeing Is Believing If You Want To Burn Fat - Or Is It?

As with a good majority of the things we do in life, we rely heavily on our vision or eyesight as the determining factor in whether or not we believe something. And this is unfortunately the case in trying to burn fat as well. What’s the old cliché? A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Well, when we lock our eyes onto that photo of that buff guy or buxom bombshell on the cover of the latest fitness or weight loss product, something happens. We get excited. We may even get very excited!

Unfortunately, this is something that many in the fitness industry are preying on. They know this and use it to their huge advantage. The process is simple: put a great looking and in-shape guy or girl on a product and it will sell. They don’t even have to tell you you’ll look like that person - they already know your subconscious will assume it will happen. When you're desperate to burn fat, this is an easy game for the fitness industry to play.

And of course a few weeks later if it doesn’t, you may start to lose hope and realize that it’s going to be tough to keep up with the unrealistic and overly strict guidelines. You’ve got a life, right? Sure, you want to burn fat, but you’ve got a job, maybe a family, and other interests in life. Don’t get me wrong, I love a great fat burning workout, but I know you don’t want to spend every waking hour for the rest of your life working out!

All of this happened to me several times over as a young man. I wasn’t happy with my weight, wanted to burn fat, and was in search of the most efficient way to get lean, strong, and healthy, but while not spending too much time in the gym, or having to follow crazy diet plans for long periods of time.

After more than a decade of experimenting on myself, friends, relatives, and perfect strangers, I assembled some of the secrets that I found to work best at burning fat and in the shortest amount of time, on myself and the others that I worked with. Now, what led me to do this was an incredible amount of frustration that I know thousands of others are going through right now.

Why? To answer that, I want you to understand the psychological aspects of what we are up against in the world of health and fitness.

What do you call doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? OK, I’ll answer this one…Insanity! In some ways, the fitness industry is making you insane in your quest to burn fat and get a lean, strong, and healthy body. Their promises are too good to be true and often they can’t typically deliver on them. They are over-promising and under-delivering in many cases.

It’s a big psychological game that the fitness industry is playing with us, and it dates back to our childhood. When we were kids, we were all taught in school that we could do anything we wanted to do when we grew up. Your parents might have even told you that you can achieve anything you want if you believe in it strongly enough. I know mine did.

While this can provide great inspiration in life’s pursuits, it can also be used against you by others, and without you knowing. You are largely a product of your genetic makeup. Just as Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies could never play in the NBA, a guy like Woody Allen could never win a heavyweight bodybuilding competition.

The reality is that these two guys can burn fat and get in the best shape of their life, but our genes are responsible for much of what we end up looking like when in that best shape. But this isn’t what the fitness industry will typically tell you - they want you thinking that anyone can look like a genetic freak of nature…if you just follow their programs, that is.

Please know that I am not saying you are doomed by your genes…everyone can make amazing improvements in their physiques with proper exercise and nutrition habits. It’s when we start comparing ourselves to the guys or gals in the magazines that we get into trouble, and get lost in that vicious cycle of hype and sensationalism all too prevalent in fitness and fat burning today.

As I mentioned before, you’ve got a life. You’re a busy person. We all are. We live in a fast-paced society, the information age, where we have so many tasks to complete and so little time to complete them. I don’t know about you, but I find myself trying to cram everything I do into those few hours between waking up and going to sleep. It’s not easy.

Then comes along the fitness gurus telling you that to burn fat and get in great shape you’ve got to workout everyday or close to it. You’ve got to do aerobics or cardiovascular exercise to burn fat, several times a week. You’ve got to weight train several other days each week, so that you are literally working out 5-6 days each week, every week. If you want it, you’ve got to do it, they say.

I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth! Many of these programs will also tell you that you’ve got to follow some crazy diet to burn fat. This might include cutting all or most of your carbs, ingesting loads of supplements or other magic weight loss potions. On top of that, when their programs don’t deliver, they’ll tell you that everyone is different and that you’ve got to find what works right for you. Wait a minute...weren’t they just telling you that their program promises the body on the cover?

What they are doing is keeping you in that fitness insanity that I mentioned earlier. They keep you doing the same thing (trying then next hot product or workout and diet regimen) and promising the same great fat burning results. If it doesn’t work, they recommend the next great thing. And too many people go on to that next miracle product or promise and the fitness industry uses this to their advantage!

Unfortunately the fitness industry, in many ways, has become a cycle of hype and sensationalism. Sure, there are some good-hearted trainers and professionals out there, but even some of them are being controlled by the fitness center owners, magazine publishers, and supplement companies. That’s where the money is! Even if they are trying to help you, they can become unwitting victims to the machine.

They advertise their products, programs, and diets by using the cream of the crop in the genetic gene pool. Hey, if it worked for that guy or gal with the amazing physique, it will work for me. I fell for it, too, many times, until I did some serious research and experimentation as I mentioned before.

Then one day I finally woke up and discovered for myself the secrets that few people are aware of. Secrets that will never dominate the fitness industry’s general recommendations because they are unpopular with the people that control the industry. Why?

Because these principles won’t sell loads of crazy exercise gimmicks, gadgets, or magic potions. My Fat Burning Furnace students are schooled in the proper application of brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest.

But our subconscious mind is powerful, and you have to watch out…even today, I can get sucked in to a compelling late night TV ad, even though I know better. So you’ve got to stay on guard.



If people would pay more attention to proven principles like those I teach my students, and spend less time with the latest “butt buster” or “fat stripper” on the market, we’d all be healthier, leaner, stronger, and happier for it. And we'd also be burning a heck of a lot more fat in the process.

Are You Caught Up In A Cycle Of Fat Loss & Fitness Confusion?

As a member of a popular fitness center for a few years, I noticed countless others frustrated with their fat burning exercise routines and eating practices, working so hard and long but with virtually no improvement to show for it.

Several of my own friends and relatives would mention this new program or product they had just shelled out cash for that was the answer to their fat loss or fitness goals. They were so excited about it and couldn’t wait to get started.

Then, a few weeks later, the same happy-go-lucky people that were once jumping with joy about their new plan to burn fat and get a new body became downright discouraged. It was hard to watch.

I’d ask them how their fat burning plan was working and they’d tell me that it seemed pretty good at first, but they didn’t get the results they were expecting or they felt were promised. They quickly became tired of following the daily workouts and found following the strict eating guidelines almost maddening at times. So they hopped onto the next plan.

Even worse, they became so frustrated with following these so-called exercise gurus’ programs, that they fell even deeper into unhealthy eating habits once they stopped the program. Binging became their only form of satisfaction. Forget about maximum fat burning, and talk about moving in the wrong direction.

What’s worse is that all of these people were following the typically recommended exercise and fad diets that were all the rage. They were doing what everyone else was doing to burn fat fast.

After speaking with many of these friends and inquiring about their exercise routines, I noticed one common theme that kept popping up in our discussions…they were focused on the short term…their approach was wrong. They weren't thinking of lifelong health and fitness, but instead they were thinking about burning fat and getting in shape for “swimsuit season”.

More specifically, they were also performing their exercise in a less than optimal manner. And then I noticed this with many others at the fitness center I worked out in. They just seemed to lack the fire or intensity in their fat burning workouts which I knew could turn their programs from nothing to something literally overnight.

But you know, you can hardly blame them, and you certainly shouldn’t blame yourself if you’ve fallen into the cycle of fad exercise and diet programs. We all want to achieve what we know in our hearts we’re capable of so badly, and that’s why we’re such easy prey to this “get fit quick” mentality.

Most people are approaching health and fitness in the exact opposite way that they should be, and they're not going to burn fat because of it. If you continually think of using exercise and nutrition as ways to lose a couple of pounds, or get in shape for summer, you're going to be disappointed with your results.

If you think of exercise, nutrition, and rest as separate things, you're going to be disappointed with your fat burning and fitness results. If you think you need to spend hours a week in the gym or adhere to some strange unnatural eating strategy, you're going to be disappointed with your results.

What all of these approaches will do, is put you into the fat burning and fitness cycle of confusion that so many are stuck in these days. If instead, you choose to forget what you thought you knew, and start off with the right approach, the approach that focuses on making changes in your lifestyle long term, you'll instantly improve your results by 1000%.

When your approach includes combining proper exercise that takes very little of your time, nutrition the way nature intended you to eat that is simple to understand and follow, and the rest and recovery that is vital to lifelong vitality and energy, you'll experience an awakening of both body and mind. Plus you'll burn more fat, too.

If you choose the path most often taken by those looking to improve upon them selves, you'll most likely end up like most of them. Confused, frustrated, unhappy, burnt out, injured, sick, or worse. Did I mention very uhappy with their fat burning progress as well?

Instead, you can choose to embrace a lifestyle that includes brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest. But know that when you do so, you'll be joining the select few who understand that one of the true secrets to life long fat burning and fitness is not found on a fad diet or in a bottle on the shelf of your local health store.

Is Your Fat Burning Exercise Routine Keeping You Fat And Unhealthy?

The majority of exercisers today still rely on long duration moderate paced aerobic exercise as their primary routine to burn fat fast. But recent studies have shown that this is a big, I mean big mistake. In fact, you could say that the whole aerobics explosion of a few decades past was one of the biggest mistakes in the health and fitness industry. Why?

There are several reasons, but I’ll focus on the two main issues here. When you exercise at a moderate pace for extended periods of time (as in the typically recommended percent of your target heart rate), your body is burning fat during the exercise. While this may sound good, it’s actually bad news.

This sends a signal to your body to keep a certain amount of stored fat available for your next workout. You’re essentially telling it that it needs fat available to burn, ‘because you’ll be doing this exercise again. So while we may be burning some calories during this exercise, after the exercise is over, our body begins storing up some fat for the next workout. Obviously not what we’re looking for in terms of maximum ability to burn fat fast.

The other big concern with moderately paced aerobic exercise performed several times per week is that it trains your body (heart, lungs, muscles, etc.) to become efficient. Again, this may sound good, but what is actually happening is bad for long term health. You are working only within your existing aerobic limits, without improving your aerobic capacity.

This is important because your aerobic capacity is what determines how your body responds in times of physical, emotional, and mental stress. If you reduce your capacity for work, as you do in this type of exercise, you’re reducing your long term health, no to mention a poor chance of burning fat.

The good news is, you can reverse these effects by instead focusing your workouts on high intensity resistance training, with workouts that last 15-20 minutes on average, and can only be performed 2-3 times per week.

These workouts will burn carbohydrates instead of fat during the workout, and will cause your body to use its fat stores to replenish the burned carbs over the next 24 hours, after the workout is done! This type of work will also increase your reserve capacity and thus your ability to handle all types of stress, leading to lasting health and fitness...and 24/7 fat burning. Nice!

But the exercise must be performed correctly to be effective, and that means using sufficient intensity, and keeping your rest periods between exercises and sets down to 60 seconds or less.

The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method know this, and are reaping the benefits. When you think about how little time you have to spend compared to the typically recommended methods to get these fat burning and health creating results, it’s almost magical.