Jogging, sit ups, stretching and aerobics is a waste of your valuable time and is not neccessary to get you into the best shape of your life!

I know what you are thinking, "you've got to be kidding, no aerobics, no jogging, can't be true".

Let me explain..... if your priority is simply general health and fitness and a little fat reduction, not sport specific training, you are wasting your time with the typical training protocols presented by most health clubs and trainers. 

Let me begin with jogging....if you are overweight or very deconditioned, the recommendation to begin jogging to lose weight is not very prudent as the trauma to the joints, especially the knees, can be very uncomfortable and even debilitating.

While one mile of running will burn about 100 to 140 calories or so based on your weight.. ..your joints are subjected to approximately 1500 plyometric reps at 2-5 x your bodyweight!

Ouch! This is what I call drudgery for the beginner who is overweight and probably has laxity in their joints to begin with. This recommendation only leads to sore knees and back and a dislike of exercise.

Add to the fact that most aerobic activity, including jogging, barely taps into the fat stores the first 30 to 45 minutes as the glycogen stores (sugar) in the muscles must be used up first. This is not widely recognized and is one of the reasons for the frustration exercisers have with months of aerobics classes with little results. The science behind this is  explained clearly in our book "2 Days To Fitness".

Aerobics being a low intensity, long duration type activity may be a challenge to the very deconditioned initially but soon leads to a plateau as most people only perform this activity for 45 to 60 minutes, again barely tapping into the fat stores.

This is the trap of "aerobics" seeing results initially then being frustrated for months afterward seeing little or no results for all the time invested. For some not seeing results leads to an increase in the amount of time and days spent exercising and though this may initialy work again, rarely can you keep up this pace which usually leads to quitting the program altogether. There is a better way.

And "sit ups"...well if you don't have a bad back now, you certainly will if you continue performing not only sit ups but many other core exercises recommended by many so called professionals.

We have known for a long time that even the bent knee sit up imposes loads on the spine that can aggravate the back yet trainers are still presenting and recommending full sit ups and leg raises when there are so many more safe options! 

 As importantly I still see trainers spending way too much time on core exercises period, leading the uninformed client to believe they are going to lose all that belly fat with this protocol.

 This time could be better spent on demanding exercises that challenge the largest muscles of the body burning more calories during the workout and more importantly requiring large amounts of energy after the workout when the muscles are recovering.

That leaves "stretching" and if you think stretching is going to get the weight off, you are living in "lala land". My point is that exercise alone performed properly will improve your flexibility without stretching. This leaves more time for an effective, fat burning workout. Now don't get me wrong, stretching feels good and if you are playing competitive sports you may need to stretch, but as most of my clients have limited time and are only concerned with general health and fitness, I am sure not going to waste their time by spending 20 minutes on the floor stretching.

An important point....as most overweight, de-conditioned Americans have laxity in their joints to begin with, it is not prudent to focus on flexibility without stabilizing their joints first.

My phylosophy as a trainer is to never sacrifice the integrity of a joint for flexibility! Proper training will take care of both.

What you will learn and perform is dynamic stretching which is more effective at warming up the muscles and actually stabilizes the joints for an effective workout.

The fact is that most of the clients I work with do not have the time to spend five or six days a week in the gym, nor do they want to.

This point is critical in developing an effective exercise program.

When time is limited it is important to develop a plan that will give you the most bang for your buck, an exercise program that stimulates the metabolism to work for you even when you are not exercising.

The traditional focus to losing weight is on the amount of calories you burn while working out and limiting the calories you take in.

 "2 Days To Fitness" does a 180 from other programs emphasizing plenty of the right kind of foods and an exercise program that challenges the largest muscles of the body to evoke a hormonal response that will step up the metabolism. This hormonal response is one of what we call the "Primal Triggers" of the body. 

You see our bodies are genetically wired for adversity, hardship, famine and respond very effectively through many mechanisms such as our endocrine system.

It should make sense right...using the largest muscles of the body allows us to handle larger loads or resistance which challenges our nervous system, affecting the thyroid, pituitary, hypothalumus and more  which can create this "primal trigger". Using the smaller muscles of the body such as the biceps or triceps or abdominal exercises and other isolation exercises, will not evoke this "primal trigger". Post workout these larger muscles demand much more energy stimulating protein synthesis to maintain and develop muscle.  

Where is this energy for this protein synthesis going to come from?...your fat stores, that's right your fat stores.

As long as you are eating properly the extra energy for this process of protein synthesis will come from the fat stores as this process is very metabolically expensive, and this is 7 days a week, not just the days you are working out.

The typical game plan of walking or riding an exercise bike for 30-60 minutes daily, along with a few "toning" exercises will probably not do the job. If you do get some results it will  be the result of a tremendous cost in time and energy which eventually leads to giving it up and weight gain.

Many trainers mistakenly equate using undemanding exercises in a non stop fashion, so that a client is constantly out of breath, as an effective way to lose weight. You will burn calories this way but because you are going at a non stop pace with little recovery time....the loads on the muscles are not sufficient enough to stimulate a hormonal response and protein synthesis.

Our "2 Days To Fitness" program explains why high intensity, short duration exercise has a stimulating effect on the metabolism whereas the body perceives long duration workouts as an unrelenting stressor, a cue to shut down metabolic activity and hormonal output to conserve (the same shut down caused by fasting or even low calorie diets).

In other words 2DF workouts are designed to be invigorating, not overwhelming, long and fatiguing. Most trainers believe that a client must be completely spent, sopping wet or wore out when they leave the gym. This misconception about exercise is frustrating clients as the results for the time spent is not near what you get by stimulating the largest muscles of the body to fatigue in the 8-15 rep range.

2DF is about quality not quantity!

The fact is if you are not somewhat comfortable with your exercise program, if it is too overwhelming, if it requires so much time and effort that it adds stress to your already stressed life, the likelyhood of you sticking with your program is slim to none.

2DF is designed to give those of you that are only interested in general health and fitness, just what you need to get back in shape without all the "fluff" you don't need with your limited time.

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