Double Kettlebell Exercises -Performance Based Fat Loss
I have never bought into the popular fitness myth that you shouldn’t train to get stronger in order to lose fat. If strength is the foundation for every physical quality, and it is (according to Russian sports scientist Dr. L. Matveev, the “father of periodization”), then why wouldn’t you train for strength to lose fat?
As strange as this concept may sound, if we simply open our eyes and look at the world of athletics, we’ll discover the answer.
Have you ever noticed that some of the world’s greatest athletes are also the strongest and the leanest?
Take middleweight Olympic Weightlifters, sprinters, and gymnasts for example. They’re all super-lean, and super-strong. Do you think there’s a correlation?
I’m here to tell you there is. I’m also here to tell you that 90% of what the fitness industry teaches about fat loss, although mildly effective, is dead wrong.
You don’t need to do high-rep sets to “burn calories” or jump around like a crazy man doing the latest “Met-Con” WOD to get lean and more importantly, strong. The two — being lean and being strong — should and do go hand-in-hand.
Sure, you probably can’t train multiple times per day like a weightlifter, a sprinter or a gymnast, but you can still train like one of them, or more importantly, all of them, and carve yourself the body you’ve always wanted. Combine that with a little tactical nutrition, and in no time at all you’ll look like you are carved out of granite.
Three Principles Of Performance Based Fat Loss
When we look at the three groups we mentioned earlier — weightlifters, sprinters, and gymnasts — they all have something in common besides training for performance:
They train in such a way to access their Type 2b/2x muscle fibers. This is important because these are the largest, strongest, most powerful muscle fibers in your body. Here’s why that’s important for fat loss: They also use the most energy per contraction. So the more you can contract these, the more energy you burn. And burning energy is the main name of the game for fat loss.
Principle 1: Train Heavy (Or Generate Maximal Tension)
Here’s what else you need to know about the Type 2b/2x fibers that pertains to fat loss: There are two ways to use them — train heavy (or generate maximal tension) and train explosively. That’s it.
When you train heavy, you produce high levels of force. This requires a lot of energy in the form of stored glucose. You ever do a heavy 5×5 on the squat? I’m talking around 80% of your max? If you have, you know that your heart rate is elevated and you’ll be left breathless. Why? You’re using A LOT of energy.
Or maybe you’ve done a set of ring dips and jumped down only to find your heart rate elevated. Why? Because you had to generate a lot of tension in order to maintain your position without collapsing — much more so than on a set of parallel bars.
This is one of the reasons why middleweight Olympic lifters, middleweight powerlifters, and gymnasts are so lean. High-tension training requires a lot of energy.
And as a former college strength and conditioning coach, I can tell you that some of the leanest athletes eat like garbage. So it’s not exactly based on what you put in your mouth — intelligent training has more to do with you results than you’d think.
Principle 2: Train / Move Explosively
Have you ever sprinted 100 meters? Or done a heavy triple on the power clean and jerk? Or maybe even gone out into a field and tossed a medicine ball around?
As short lived as those events were, if you did them the way you were supposed to — as explosively as possible, you were left [somewhat] winded.
Why?
Because explosive lifting requires a lot of energy!
That’s why sprinters and Olympic lifters are so lean. They are performing lots of maximal contractions with their Type 2b/2x fibers and as we already saw, that requires a lot of energy.
The other reason they’re really lean is we now know that explosive training increases glucose sensitivity, which means, your body can tolerate sugar — carbs, better than it can with regular forms of training. And what that means is you can actually eat more carbs than you would on one of those normal “no/low carb high-rep fat loss circuit routines.” And that’s good news because more carbs means you can produce more force, which means you use more energy and you burn more calories… See where this is going?
Principle 3: Manage Fatigue
Here’s something else most great athletes do: They manage their fatigue levels. They’re not training to race the clock like one of the ever-popular girl-named WOD’s. No, they actually rest between sets. That’s because fatigue is like the plague to your fast-twitch muscle fibers — when they’re tired, they don’t contract.
So when you take that set to or past failure, you’re not using the Type 2b/2x’s — they checked out somewhere around rep number 5 or 6 and now you’re using your Type 2a’s and even your slow-twitch Type 1’s. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you’re not using maximum amounts of energy and you’re not going to get a lot stronger doing that.
Furthermore, you’ll also decrease your recovery ability, which means you won’t be able to train as frequently and you’ll be sore too. (Soreness is a sign of muscle damage and interferes with glucose uptake and utilization by your muscles, which means you decrease your force output and therefore you energy/caloric expenditure.)
