The Women's Health Big Book of 15-Minute Workouts: A Leaner, Sexier, Healthier You--In 15 Minutes a Day! (32 page)
Authors: Selene Yeager,Editors of Women's Health
Tags: #Exercise & Fitness, #Weight Training, #Men's Health, #Quick Workouts, #Mind & Body, #Health
B
• Squeeze your lower back and glutes to raise your legs, holding the contraction for as long as you can at the top of the movement.
• Lower your legs until they lightly touch the floor.
REPS:
Do 10 to 20.
The Perfect Crunch Circle Crunch
A
• Lie faceup with your knees bent, your feet flat on the floor, and your hands behind your head with your fingers lightly touching.
• Lift your shoulders off the floor until you feel a tight contraction.
B
• Curl your torso around in a small, clockwise circular motion (starting from 6 to 9 to 12 to 3 and back down to 6).
• For the next rep, repeat in the opposite, counterclockwise direction.
REPS:
Do 10 to 20.
TIP:
To make this exercise harder, raise your legs with your knees bent at 90 degrees and your calves parallel to floor as you perform each rep.
Chapter 8:
15-Minute Fat-Burning HIIT Workouts
HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING, OR HIIT, IS YOUR WEEKLY SECRET WEAPON FOR TRIMMING AND TIGHTENING YOUR BODY.
Superfast Interval Training Workouts
The next time you’re in the gym, look at the dashboard of your treadmill (or elliptical or stationary bike). You see that colored bar chart showing what your heart rate should be to put you in the “fat-burning zone?” Ever wonder why reaching that rate was so easy (or why it seemed to take an endless amount of time to burn a decent amount of calories)? That type of training, where you slog along slowly for hours on end in the hopes of burning more stored fat, is like cooking a roast in a slow cooker—great if you have all day to do it, but nowhere near as efficient as firing up the grill and searing the sucker. And that’s exactly what you’ll be doing to your fat with our superfast fat-burning workouts, which use high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
As you learned in
Chapter 1
, HIIT workouts are built for speed. So they tap into every single muscle fiber, scorch tons of calories, and rev up your metabolism for hours (even days) afterwards. With these workouts you'll be burning fat almost from the get-go by going faster and harder than your normal cardio rate. Sound intimidating? Don't worry. You'll only be doing these "sprints" briefly, for 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Then you'll slow down to a normal speed. It's an incredibly efficient way to get rid of extra pounds, explains Jason Talanian, PhD, who researched HIIT at the University of Guelph, Ontario. "HIIT elicits rapid skeletal muscle remodeling and increases your total exercise capacity—the ability to use oxygen and burn fat—in a fraction of the time than if you work out less intensely," he says. That means you also make more muscle tissue and generate more fat-burning enzymes and hormones.
We've taken the HIIT principles and applied them to all of your favorite forms of cardio to create our superfast fat-burning workouts. Do one a week as the
plan
recommends. If you're inspired, you can do more, but remember, these workouts are strong medicine, so cap them at three times a week, allowing a day of recovery in between. During the exercise, alternate between short high-intensity bursts, where you're exerting yourself at, say, level 8 or 9 on a 1 to 10 scale, and longer medium-intensity sessions, where your effort will be more like a 6 on that same scale.
FIND IT QUICK:
YOUR 15-MINUTE HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING PLAN
SPRINT AWAY FROM DIABETES
A study in Norway found that a high-intensity interval exercise program can reverse metabolic syndrome, the precursor to type 2 diabetes. Researchers compared 45 minutes of moderate exercise to an interval training program in which participants performed four 4-minute bouts at 90 percent of their maximum heart rate and found that HIIT workouts are more beneficial than the longer, slower exercise routines at preventing obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems.
TREADMILL WORKOUTS
There are two ways to turn up the intensity on the treadmill: push the pace or jack up the incline. Here are two HIIT workouts to get it done whichever way you like best.
Workout #1: The Speed Demon
The Speed Demon uses sprints to fry fat, but we still recommend putting the incline at 1 (when it’s 0, it’s like you’re running downhill.) As you get fitter, you can increase the speed even more to make the workout harder, or add a percent or two to the incline. If you’re a beginner, you can lower the speeds by 1 mph, or as much as you need to stay within the recommended effort range.
Workout #2: HIIT the Hills
This workout uses the treadmill’s incline to simulate the challenge of hills. If you find it a little too high to start, simply take each one down by 1. As you become fitter and stronger, crank up the incline to conquer mountains (of calories!).
RUNNING WORKOUTS
When you run long distances, your body actually becomes more efficient, so you burn fewer calories. These hard-hitting workouts help you shed pounds with minimal mileage by forcing your body out of its comfort zone and making it work in ways it rarely does. It not only boosts your speed and fitness, but also takes a quarter of the time! These workouts are designed to be done on a track (try your local high school or college).
Workout #1: Dash It Off
The 200-meter dash (that’s halfway around the track) is the perfect leg-searing distance because you don’t have to hold back to finish. It’s just flat-out full throttle the whole time, followed by a recovery jog for one lap. Seasoned runners will be a little quicker; novice runners may take a little longer.
MISERY LOVES COMPANY
If you’re finding that HIIT workouts are a real pain in the butt, recruit some friends. Researchers at the University of Oxford found that people who train in groups can boost their pain tolerance more than those who work out alone. The scientists speculate that group dynamics during exercise may contribute to an underlying endorphin surge. We think people feed off the energy of others, which may be the same thing.
Workout #2: Flying Laps
These one-lap wonders will challenge all your energy systems to the max. Unlike the half-laps, where you’re going full steam from the get-go, for these keep a little energy in reserve, just enough so that you don’t find yourself flagging at the end of the interval, but rather can finish a little stronger than you started. Seasoned runners will be a little quicker; novice runners may take a little longer.
