Exercise To Get Rid Of Love HandlesIt’s no secret that your going to have to exercise to get rid of love handles. There is simply no way of getting around this fact. Exercise is going to be one half of your key success factors for getting rid of those love handles. There’s no question about it; for permanent body fat loss, proper diet and exercise will be your answer.
Why is exercise so important in getting rid of fat and those love handles around your waist? • Exercise- specifically aerobics and weight training is very important for burning not only calories but “fat” calories. Aerobic exercise requires a lot of fuel and favours stored fat as its fuel source. It uses the quick energy supply of glucose to get the body moving in the first minutes of exercise, but then it turns to the body’s fat supply, a more plentiful and denser fuel that needs a lot of oxygen in order to be burned. • As your fitness increases through aerobics and weight training, your basal metabolic rate increases as well. Your basically turning your body into a fat burning machine. The body becomes more efficient at utilizing calories as energy all through the day. This way, your body becomes less inclined to storing fat and more likely to burn calories for energy even while you are sitting around. • Your metabolism is tuned up with weight bearing exercise such as weight training. Weight training will increase your active muscle tissue, which is a really good thing. Your body will actually burn more calories as opposed to breaking down muscle tissue for fuel. This way, you develop your muscle all the while stripping of the fat that covers it. • Exercise creates more of the special enzymes that break down stored fat into fatty acids and transfer them to the metabolically active muscle tissue where they are burned as energy. So, you can see why exercise is needed to help get rid of those love handles around your waist, as well as the fat around your body. I think for most people, the hardest part of exercising is getting yourself on a proper program that is conducive to burning fat. However, you might be just finishing off a mass building program and are looking to define your hard earned muscles. It that case, you will simply need to adjust your training program. Instead of hitting the heavy weight for most of your exercise, your going to be using a lighter weight and you really want to pump the muscle up. You will be incorporating a lot more aerobic exercise into your program. But, if you are looking to get back into shape and have never used a training program before, than you’ll need to understand what sort of program you will need in order to get rid of the fat. Since we are interested in burning fat and keeping muscle, we will need to incorporate heavy cardio activity into our weight training programs. Unlike a mass building routine, you won’t be moving a lot of heavy iron. Of course, we will be using some heavy poundages for some of the compound lifts, but our main focus will be on using moderate weight and concentrating on pumping the muscle up. We will break down our training into two components, weight training and aerobic exercise. Both of these exercises will help get rid of those love handles and will play an integral part of your training. Just remember, our main focus at this point is to burn as much fat as possible while retaining as much muscle mass as possible. This means using your current workloads and concentrating on form while pumping the muscle up. The kind of exercise you choose to get rid of those love handles will depend in part on the facilities available to you. Whether there is a track, jogging route, swimming pool, gym, or whatever, just remember, you have to use what’s available to you. For our purpose, we want to use weight bearing equipment such as weights and use some form of aerobic exercise such as a treadmill, bike, walking, jogging, rope skipping, elliptical trainer, stair stepping etc...Just remember that you must do both. The following program is meant to give you guidance. Like any other program, it’s not a one-size-fits-all routine and should be used as a starting point. Once you have gotten used to the program, you can customize it to your personal preferences. Alright, let’s take a look at the exercises. The main focus here is to maintain your current strength levels. Your rep range should be between 8 to 12 reps per set. You will be training 3 times per week, however, the speed at which you perform your exercise will increase. That is, the tempo of your exercise will increase and your resting periods between each set will decrease. This will increase the intensity of each exercise. This program is more of an advanced program and should not be attempted by complete beginners. For beginners new to the iron game, I strongly suggest you go to building muscle 101's beginner routine here. The following program will be a split program using the following format: Monday: Chest - Arms - Abs Tuesday: Aerobics Wednesday: Legs - Calves - Abs Thursday: Aerobics Friday: Back - Shoulders - Abs Saturday: Aerobics Sunday: Rest Each exercise will use 3 to 4 sets per body part. This workout is similar to the mass building workout in the advanced sections of building muscle 101's routine section, however, there are two main differences: 1) The speed at which you perform the exercises will increase - That is, your tempo will increase with shorter rest periods between sets; 2) Your repetition range will increase between 10 and 12 reps. • Always warm up prior to starting your weight training sessions. I suggest you take 5 to 10 minutes and perform some light cardio prior to weight training. I usually ride the exercise bike for 10 minutes to get the blood flowing. • Take 5 minutes and perform some stretches. • Drink at least two glass of water prior to exercising. Do not go into a training session dehydrated. Drink at least one cup of water every 15 minutes during your training session - more if you are training in a hot environment. Drink another 2 to 3 glasses of water within two hours of completing your weight lifting session. See building muscle 101's drinking water for health and building muscle section here • Train each body part once per week. You should train for no more than 3 times per week. I know, it may not seem like much but trust me, if your diet is down and your getting enough rest, you’ll keep a lot of the muscle and burn off the fat. • Get at least 8 hours of sleep per night. • Monitor your progress on an ongoing basis. Keep a training diary handy and record everything that you do. Remember, record your progress on a daily basis - This means recording weights and repetitions. • Always take your body measurements and it at all possible, body fat measurements every week, preferably at the same time during the day. • Have a protein drink as soon as you’ve finished training. • No need to go to failure on all exercises. You should be nearing 80% of your max on your compound lifts. As you decrease your caloric intake, you won’t have as much calories to help you power through the lifts. Taking your training to failure while you are restricting calories opens your body up to injury. Remember - No negatives! • On your cardio days, start off slowly and work your way up. You want to really get the oxygen going so your going to have to do a lot of cardio. If you’re a complete beginner, aim for 10 minutes for the first week or so and increase by 5 minutes each week until you are up to 45 minutes. At this point, you should be working up a good sweat on the cardio. • Do 5 to 10 minutes of light aerobics after your weight training sessions. • Nutrition will be the key to your success to fat loss. If you want to get rid of those love handles, than your going to have to eat right. For more information on this subject, see building muscle 101's food to eat on a diet here. Here’s a sample training session on some exercises to get rid of love handles. If you’re a beginner and are not comfortable using this routine, try going to building muscle 101's beginner weight lifting routine here. Day one (Monday): Chest - Arms - Abs Warm up: Stationary bike/elliptical/treadmill 5 to 10 minutes Stretching 5 to 10 minutes Chest: Bench press: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by set four. Click here to see an illustration of the bench press Incline bench press: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 75% of your max by set four. Click here to see an illustration of the incline press Flat bench dumbbell fly: Set one: 12 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 35 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the flat bench fly Biceps Standing barbell curls: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 40 to 50 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by set four. Click here to see an illustration of the standing barbell curl Preacher curl: Set one: 1 x 12 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 45 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the preacher curl Triceps Close grip bench press: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 60 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by set four Click here to see an illustration of the close grip bench press Standing cable press downs: Set one: 1 x 12 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the standing cable press down Abs: Crunches: Set one: 1 x 20 repetitions Click here to see an illustration of the crunch Cool down: 10 to 15 minutes of light aerobic exercise Day two (Tuesday): Aerobics Aerobic activity for 20 minutes to start. I strongly recommend that you do your aerobic activity first thing in the morning. As you start to condition your body, you will need to add more time to your aerobic exercise. Your goal should be to reach 45 minutes on your aerobic exercise. Day three (Wednesday): Legs - Calves - Abs Warm up: Stationary bike/elliptical/treadmill 5 to 10 minutes Stretching 5 to 10 minutes Quadriceps Leg extensions: Warm up: 20 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 45 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the leg extension Squats: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 60 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by set four. Click here to see an illustration of the squat Leg press: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Increase weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by set three. Click here to see an illustration of the leg press Hamstrings: Lying leg curl: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the leg curl Calves Standing calf raises: Warm up: 20 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 45 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the standing calf raise Cool down: 10 to 15 minutes of light aerobic exercise Day four (Thursday): Aerobics Aerobic activity for 20 minutes to start. I strongly recommend that you do your aerobic activity first thing in the morning. As you start to condition your body, you will need to add more time to your aerobic exercise. Your goal should be to reach 45 minutes on your aerobic exercise. Day five (Friday): Back - Shoulders - Abs Warm up: Stationary bike/elliptical/treadmill 5 to 10 minutes Stretching 5 to 10 minutes Back Lat machine pull downs: Warm up: 20 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Try and increase the weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 75% of your max by the third set. Click here to see an illustration of the lat machine pull down Barbell bent over rowing: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds Try and increase the weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by the third set. Click here to see an illustration of the bent over row Low pulley cable rowing: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest between sets: 50 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the low cable pulley row Shrugs: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds. Click here to see an illustration of the dumbbell shrug Shoulders Press behind the neck: Warm up: 20 repetitions Try and increase the weight by 10 to 15 percent with each successive set. You should be nearing 80% of your max by the third set. Click here to see an illustration of the press behing the neck Seated dumbbell press: Warm up: 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 50 seconds click here to see an illustration of the seated dumbbell press Side lateral raises: Set one: 1 x 12 to 15 repetitions Rest periods between sets: 30 seconds Click here to see an illustration of the side lateral raise Abs Crunches: Set one: 1 x 20 repetitions Click here to see an illustration of the crunch Cool down: 10 to 15 minutes of light aerobic exercise Day six (Saturday): Aerobics Aerobic activity for 20 minutes to start. I strongly recommend that you do your aerobic activity first thing in the morning. As you start to condition your body, you will need to add more time to your aerobic exercise. Your goal should be to reach 45 minutes on your aerobic exercise. Day seven (Sunday): Rest There you have it - Exercise to get rid of love handles. If you are consistent with your training program and you have complete control over your diet, you will lose the body fat. Just remember, keep at it and don’t give up - It may seem a little weird for the first couple of weeks but trust me, after the this initial period, everything will come naturally to you. Really, the only difference in your training routine will be the tempo at which you perform the exercise and the weight being used. To get the most from this routine, you will need to cut down on the rest periods and lighten the load. Remember, pump the muscle up. Click here to return to how to get rid of love handles Click here to return to building muscle 101's weight lifting article page Click here to return to building muscle 101 home page |