SPRINTING TO LOSE FAT:

Ok, so as promised, here is a routine (aerobic....eeeewwwww) which will allow you to lose fat, and guess what?  It only takes about twenty minutes or less, and is not as boring as jogging!

The great thing about this is you don't have to keep checking your pulse every minute either (to determine whether you are in your target heart range or what not).  How?  Easy, sprinting.  Now I know everyone has heard that it takes at least 12-20 minutes of low impact aerobics to get into fat burning mode or whatever blah blah blah....bottom line is, how many long distance runners do you know that look like body builders, and how many sprinters do you know that do?  Obviously, the sprinters have the more "built" look, and they also look more chiseled or cut as well.  The routine in itself is actually quite simple, and it consists of doing these sprints four times a week, say M, Tu, Th, and Fri. 

The sprint itself is only 10 seconds.  So after warming up and doing some leg stretching exercises, what you do is run as fast and as hard as you can for 10 seconds, and that's it.  Remember, you are running for time here, not distance, so you may want to time yourself the first few times with a stop watch.  After the sprint, walk briskly for about a minute, and then repeat the 10 second sprint.  Do this ten times, and that is it for your fat burning workout.

As is the case in everything else that I have said, this kind of routine needs some getting used to, so you may want to start off with only 6-8 cycles the first week (ie 6-8 sprints), and increase it by one each week until you are actually doing 10.  You are probably going to be sore after the first few workouts (I know I WAS!) which means that you need to take time off...but after a month, you should really be able to do it four times per week.  I also recommend doing these as soon as you get up and before you eat anything, the reason being that during the night, your glycogen stores have been reduced to practically nothing, so when you hit your body with this kind of training before eating anything, your body has nothing else to use for energy but fat.

You can also increase the intensity of each sprint by increasing the time...for example, from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.  Do these as you see fit...

In summary, the key points are:

• Slowly ease your way into this routine...work to hard at first, and you are just going to quit.
• Do stretch out before starting, or you will give yourself a first class injury.  This isn't jogging, this is running, and believe me, your body is going to feel it more.
• At first, use a stop watch to time exactly 10 seconds.  After a while you get an idea of how long 10 seconds is.  You are running for time, not distance!
• Walk briskly in between sprints for about a minute (It may not seem necessary at first to take these "breathers" in between the first few sprints, but by the sixth or eighth, I guarantee that you are going to be looking at your stop watch in disbelief at how fast one minute can pass:-)
• Try to do these at least 4 times per week.
• Don't eat anything for energy before doing the sprints.

Good luck!