It's time to build a great new body and lose belly fat. There are great ways you can achieve this, season to season. By exercising three to five times a week for at least 30 minutes, you can have the body you want in no time.
Winter: Base-Building and Boredom-Busting
You have to build a solid foundation of strength and cardiovascular health before you can move on to more intense and more fun activities. Start here.
Be Spontaneous - You can do anything you feel like, for 30 minutes to an hour. For cardio, follow the guidelines outlined above. For strength, keep your weights low, or just do one set of each exercise, mixing them as you please without thinking about what's coming next.
Schedule Breaks - Avoid burnout. Every 4 weeks ease up during the last week. That will give your body time to absorb the work you've been doing. Your muscles get time to repair themselves, and you'll be more ready for the workouts to come.
Spring: High-Intensity Fat-Burning
The party starts when winter is over. Now you can kick your program into gear by increasing your intensity. Here's how to ramp up your routine.
Climb High - Try pyramid intervals to push your body to new levels of intensity. You can do them as running sprints, on a treadmill, bike, or elliptical. Warm up, then do a short burst of 15 seconds, and slow down your intensity for 30 seconds. Next, sprint for 30 seconds, then jog for 45 seconds, sprint for a minute, then jog for a minute. Then take the time sets back down again. Repeat for 15 to 30 minutes.
Speed-Up Sets - Alternate between cardio and strength training in 5-minute bouts. Use a different cardio machine each time and alternate between two different strength exercises for 5 minutes. For example, do 10 to 15 reps of a bench press and then 10 to 15 squats. Without resting, head back to the bench press for another set. After 5 minutes, get on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes before tackling two more alternating strength exercises.
Summer: Maintenance
This is when you make time for those long, leisurely outdoor workouts by cutting out one or two heavy sweat sessions. It's fine to cut back on your frequency, but to maintain your fitness level you have to maintain your intensity with at least two high-intensity workouts a week.
Take 10 - Ten minutes may not be enough for staff meetings or back massages, but it's all you need if you want to jog on the beach, because you can burn twice as many calories working in the sand.
Fall: Preholiday Prep
As the season changes, you'll want to step up your routine by adding at least another day of exercise, so you're training 3 to 5 days a week again. You also might want to add some intensity before the holidays eat up all your time.
Pump Out Those Endorphins - Multiple studies show that aerobic exercise helps beat and prevent depression because it causes you to release endorphins. So squeeze in at least three good cardio workouts each week to stay happy.
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