Hey everyone!
I’m sure you guys have come across the situation, when you wanted to put on your favorite spring pants after the winter and found that you’re not able to zip them. It happens to me every year and March is a month, when I start getting rid of my winter fat. I managed to gain about 10 kg over the winter, which is my record, but I’m not proud of this record at all, haha:)
As I returned to my beloved Blue Orange, where it feels like home (but this time not as a trainer but as a client haha), I decided to hit the beast mode and drop this 10-kilo winter supply. I set three months as the time range and it’s my priority now, so I’ll do everything for it. I’m in the third week and I’m about three kilos lighter already. You were wondering what my training program looks like, so here it is! 🙂
Because I kept working out over the winter, my muscles remained. So I don’t have to grow them again, which is a big plus. It’s all about fat loss, which is much easier than building up muscle mass.
I exercise 4-5 times a week and every training day is different. At the end of each workout, I always do my abs and core, but not more than 3 exercises. Fifteen minutes of working on abs makes no sense at all.
1st DAY — legs & butt strength workout
And when I say strength, I mean strength. No two-kilo dumbbells. For some reason, girls are afraid of most of the strength training, but I repeat it again and again, that there is no need to worry about it. The fact that you do squats with twenty kilos on your back does NOT mean that you are gonna get giant muscles immediately – when you take it easy on the food. If you eat a kilo of meat each day, your muscles will grow eventually. Surely not as much as if you were a guy, but it would grow.
However, if you keep your diet at an optimum level, strength training will help you to get the sporty and lean kind of a body. If you only do cardio, pancake butt and flabby arms are guaranteed! If you do only light body-weight training, you won’t improve and won’t burn as many calories as during a strength training, which can burn around 1000 kcal! Just for comparison, you burn about 400 kcal by an hour of running on the treadmill, and in my opinion, one hour of running is incredibly boring.
Anyway, in strength training, I would stick to 10-15 repetitions. The exercises include squats, lunges, hip thrusts, kettleball swings, Romanian dead lifts, etc. You can find some inspiration for those kind of exercises in my butt-workout video.
2nd DAY — cardio
But here comes the first hitch. Cardio is more effective if you do it in the morning and with an empty stomach. That means breakfast after workout.
And what do I mean by cardio? Running, jogging, uphill walking, rowing, cycling, skating, stepper, elliptical trainer, and so on. I’m not a big fan of running, and to be honest it’s quite hard to run with 10 kilos more, so I choose a much more comfortable option and that is fast uphill walking.
It’s good to keep the heart rate at about 70% of the maximum heart rate. For me it’s around 130-140. If the heart rate is higher, you don’t burn fat, but you tend to train your physical condition and endurance. If it’s lower, you don’t burn as much as you could.
At the end of every cardio workout, do three exercises for your abs and core.
3rd DAY — upper body strength workout
Which is the same as day 1, just with the difference, that you focus on your back, chest, shoulders, triceps and biceps. They can include pull-ups, any kind of rows, side lateral raises, shoulder press-ups, triceps rope pushdown, biceps curls, dead lifts, etc. The number of reps should be around 10-15.
4th DAY — cardio
Also try to modify the cardio in order for the body not to get used to the same one so easily. I usually alternate uphill walking with stepper. Even within one training session, you can divide the cardio into 20 minutes of treadmill, 20 minutes of stationary bike and 20 minutes of stepper. Or run for 30 minutes and then walk for another 30 minutes.
Like the previous cardio day, at the end of the session, do three exercises for the abs and core.
5th DAY — full bodyweight workout
On day 5, take it easy and do some exercises just with your own weight. But because the bodyweight training is much easier than the strength training, you need to increase the number of reps by half, or even more – depending how much you can handle. It seems simple, but 40 squats at once is not quite a fairytale. And because it’s a bit boring for me to do squats and other exercises with my own weight, I usually try to think of new creations within this training. But always with your own weight.
I even work on my balance or isometry (that means holding in one position), I use a lot of bosu ball and combine different exercises together. Examples of such exercises can be found in my video about combining exercises or dynamic training.
6th DAY — cardio
Which can be any weekend activity, including hiking in the mountains or rollerblade skating.
And then the whole cycle repeats from day one, but the principle is still the same – every second day just pure cardio, which is unfortunately the key to burning fat. When it comes to a rest day, it’s the best to have it after day 1 (legs & butt strength training) because it’s the hardest day and will make your body suffer the most.
I’ll tell you about my diet (which is also super-imortant) in the next article, so stay tuneddddd! 🙂 And if you have any questions about my fat-loss training program, please write me in the comments, I’ll be thrilled to help! 🙂
E.
