I’ve written before about the two things you can do to get and stay in shape. For those of you just joining the class, you need to be active and eat well.

In this post, I’m going to write about the four steps to being active and how to get the most out of it.

As with most endeavors in life, working out effectively is actually very simple, but requires a lot of hard work, discipline, and dedication. You only need to do four things:

• develop training goals;
• lift weights;
• do high-intensity cardio;
• enjoy your favorite activity.

Of course, there are zillions of variations and theories within these, but most of them are BS, and are ways to avoid actually doing the hard stuff.

Develop specific training goals.

While goals aren’t absolutely necessary to a successful fitness plan, they sure make it a lot easier. Each person’s going to have different goals. Some people are motivated to get in shape to look good, others to fit in a pair of jeans, others simply because the doctor told them.

I enjoy hiking, climbing and skiing, so that’s what I train for. Even though I don’t get outdoors as often as I’d like to, thinking about trips and routes I’d like to do helps me stay motivated and focuses my training. Although my ulterior goal is to stay in shape, I find that simply “being in shape” isn’t very motivating, and generally results in an unfocused, ineffective training regimen.

I’ve found that it helps to have two types of goals. First, are your standard SMART goals, which you can measure and accomplish. Second, I like to have something big and vision-like that inspires me, something that I can visualize while busting my ass at the gym and on the trail.

Lift weights.

The single most effective thing you can do to get in shape is to lift weights. It’s far more effective than doing cardio. Although you may burn quite a lot of calories doing a cardio workout, you’ll stop burning them as soon as you stop. By lifting weights, you’ll build muscle, which burns calories throughout the day.

Focus on large muscle groups. These include your back, your chest and your legs. Large muscles are, like the name says, large. When you get more of these muscles, you burn a lot more calories. Guys tend to focus on biceps (curls), while women focus on other, random muscles. Like their calves. These are both small muscle groups and won’t build a lot of muscle.

After you’ve been lifting for a while, you should incorporate different lifts and focus on sport-specific muscles and supporting muscles (now for those smaller muscles). You should also get a trainer.

Do natural lifts instead of isolated lifts. These exercises will work all your muscles, not just one or two. Do the bench press or push ups instead of that machine that focuses on your chest - you’ll incorporate your triceps and your abs. Do leg presses instead of leg extensions - you’ll use your calves, your quads and your thighs. Do rows or pullups instead of some random thing that focuses on a small back muscle - you’ll use your biceps and abs as well as a lot of back muscles.

Lift a decent amount of weight. You don’t want to injure yourself, but the goal here is to build muscle. You aren’t going to build muscle by lifting a small weight 87 times. You’re going to build muscle by lifting a big weight ten or twelve times.

Will I bulk up? Some people–women in particular–are concerned that they will “bulk up” if they lift weights, and end up looking like people in body-building magazines.

THIS IS WRONG! When I hear this, I have a hard time to keep from laughing. Unless you’re taking steroids or testosterone, lifting weights everyday and eating a ton, this is just not going to happen. What’s going to happen is that you’ll replace a lot of fat with less muscle and you’ll look toned and sexy (and yes, you might put on some muscle in areas where there wasn’t anything before, but you aren’t going to look like a weightlifter).

Don’t worry too much about abs. You’ll be hitting them a lot in your other stuff. I do planks or other static things because they are appropriate for my training goals. But it’s well-established that spot training doesn’t work, and doing eighty zillion sit ups isn’t going to help you get to that flat stomach any faster than following a well-rounded routine.

Do high-intensity cardio.

Don’t waste your time doing wussy cardio! We’ve already talked about the fact that you burn calories through lifting weights. So why do cardio? Certainly not to lose fat. You do it so you can accomplish your training goals! Do it so you don’t get tired! And you aren’t going to get there by chillin’ out on the bike for an hour or two.

Focus on improving your key metrics. The key things you want to focus on are improving your maximum heartrate and lowering your resting heartrate. You’ll do this by doing high intensity cardio: basically by doing intervals. Go as hard as you can for a minute or two, then go easy for a few minutes. Then go as hard as you can. Repeat.

I do hill sprints. The hardest thing I can imagine doing is sprinting up a steep hill. When I’m in shape, I’ll do four of these. They suck. But they get my heart rate way up, increase my metabolism for the whole day and really improve my cardio shape. Once I can do these for ten minutes at sea level, hiking for ten hours above 10,000 feet is easy. Seriously.

Cardio-wise, I also:

• Run up stairs wearing a weight-vest (usually 25lbs);
• Do intervals on the elliptical machine or stair climber (not as hard as outside, but still hard);
• Intervals on the treadmill, putting it at 15 degrees slope (even harder);
• Sometimes I bike and watch a bad tv show (an occasional long workout doesn’t hurt).

I don’t do distance running much because my knees hurt after a couple miles or so. I find that running uphill doesn’t hurt as much.

Do your thing.

Finally, we get back to the training goals you set for yourself. For me, that’s hiking and climbing. There’s nothing like hiking for 15-20 miles, camping and then climbing a mountain.

The more actual sport training you do, the better. I climb at the gym twice a week, and try to walk with a weight vest as much as possible. The gym is no substitute for actual activity - the more you’re able to do what you want, the less time you’ll have to spend preparing to do it.

Get a trainer!

Wait, this wasn’t in your list, Josh. Well, good luck doing all this stuff on your own. I know I can’t. I work out with a trainer twice a week. That may be too much for some, but it’s so much easier to stay focused when you’re paying someone to make sure it’s happening.

Good luck and have fun.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Blog, Training & Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.