DON’T blame bad genetics or busy schedules — Australia’s worsening obesity crisis comes down to people not wanting to say no.
That’s the view of Shannan Ponton, a fitness industry veteran with more than 20 years experience, and star of Network Ten reality series The Biggest Loser Families.
Are you struggling to balance your increasingly hectic lifestyle with your health and fitness goals? It’s time to banish those excuses – be smart, take charge and incorporate HIIT workouts into your fitness regime.
What is HIIT?
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) describes any workout that alternates between intense bursts of activity and fixed periods of less-intense activity or even complete rest. For example, a simple HIIT session could involve a 1 minute sprint followed by a 2 minute jog. You can repeat this 3 minute set 5 times for an intense 15 minute fat burning session. This type of training gets and keeps your heart rate up and burns more calories in less time.
What are the benefits?
Regardless of age, gender and fitness level, one of the keys to safe participation of HIIT training is to adjust the intensity of your sessions to your own ability. Safety should always be the top priority, and you should focus more on finding your own optimal training intensity rather than keeping up with others. Never sacrifice technique for weight or speed.
Remember that HIIT workouts are more exhausting than steady workouts so ensure that you take time to allow your body to rest and recover. Stagger your HIIT workouts over the week and only incorporate more workouts if your body feels up to it.
Simply put, HIIT should accomplish two goals: it will help accelerate fat loss and improve aerobic and anaerobic capacity. HIIT tends produce fast, noticeable results in a short period of time, particularly if it’s new to you.
So don’t delay – get ready to mix things up, join me and start your HIIT routine now at your local Anytime!
My Favourite HIIT Workout.
30 sec hard effort. 10 seconds recovery. Repeate for 4 sets before changing exercise.
The Exercises: Rower, Ball Slams, DB Push Press, TRX Row/Push Up, Burpee, Battle Ropes, Tread Mill, Skipping, Wall Ball, Box Jump.
Shannan Ponton has opened up about the unexpected cancer scare that left him fearing for his life.
The 42-year-old fitness guru and father-of-two discovered, by chance, a melanoma on his upper back leg near the crease of his backside in 2010.
‘It’s not about me dying now but about me being alive for my kids,’ Shannan told Daily Mail Australia on Friday, revealing his is now vigilant about checking himself.
I know just as well as anyone that when the winter weather hits and the chill enters the air, it becomes harder to get out of bed, or go via the gym in the afternoon and fit in that workout!
The warmth under the covers, and cosy couch awaiting us can seem much more appealing at times. However, don’t let the cool weather fool you because warmer months are ahead. Remember the benefits you get when you exercise. You don’t just look great, you feel great! It’s that feeling I get from exercise that keeps me going and I hope that motivates you too.
Working out with your mates and feeling that adrenaline rush really can’t be beaten. Inside my local Anytime Fitness gym it’s warm and once you get there I promise you’ll be glad.
Here are my tips to help you stay motivated when the cooler weather hits!
Exercise and a healthy diet are the best thing you can do for your heart health. Exercise helps your heart to work better and can help prevent cardiovascular disease. When you exercise your heart rate increases. It then adapts to this and doesn’t need to work as hard for the rest of the day. This means your fitness levels improve and your heart has less pressure on it. It also reduces your resting blood pressure, which helps to keep your heart stress low.
Your heart needs exercise so it can pump blood around the body to the best of its ability. Our bodies lose strength, flexibility and fitness without regular physical activity. Physical activity can help prevent heart disease, lower the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke and can help cardiac rehabilitation in those who might have damaged their hearts. Aerobic exercise is great for strengthening your heart and cardiovascular system. It will improve your circulation and help your body use oxygen more efficiently.
Aerobic activity is steady physical activity using large muscle groups which strengthen our heart and lungs. Our body craves exercise and our bodies were designed for movement and activity, so get moving.
The best placed training is a system of progressive overloads. That means if the Dr has told you that your cholesterol and blood pressure are high and you need to start exercising, don’t shoot out of his office, buy a brand new pair of Asics and run a marathon. You need to ease into training and build a solid strength and cardio vascular fitness base. If you’ve never (or not in recent memory) exercised be guided by your GP or specialist but regular, consistent walking is a great place to start. Head to your local ATF and jump on the tread mill starting at a comfortable pace for you. DO NOT look at everyone else and in a moment of blind bravado decide you need to blow out the cob webs at 15km/h. Walk consistently for 20 min at least 5 days per week. Once this becomes comfortable increase your time to 30 min. Remember the key is progressive overloads, once walking 5 times per week for 30 min becomes comfortable, increase your speed to a fast walk or slow jog. Once you’re jogging consistently, try some intervals of fast running, followed be a recovery period. Say 30 sec hard, 30 sec easy. The tread mill is just an example of the equipment available at ATF you can also try the X trainer, Rowers or bikes.
Remember heart health is best controlled by regular exercise and regular healthy diet. Try dietary supplementation of Krill or Fish Oil and Vitamin E to enhance your progress.
Listening to music when you hit the gym to improve your workout isn’t exactly a new concept. But understanding how your favourite tunes enhance your exercise is a little less obvious.
Just hearing your favourite song can transport you to a headspace filled with power and passion. It can make you forget about the trying day you’ve had, bring you into the moment and help provide some clarity and focus.
It’s proven that not just listening, but controlling and creating music in time to your own workout had an awesome and improved effect. Listening to your favourite song can trick your mind into feeling less tired and help you pump out those extra reps.
Download your favourite song and make a playlist. Everyone has that go-to song that gets you “in the zone,” and there’s science to why it works. We associate certain songs with memories, often relating to the context in which we originally heard them, such as the first time you watched Rocky. Channeling that memory, or even just the emotion of the singer boosts your motivation, and has been shown to improve physical performance.
People often listen to music as a way to change their mood and find self-awareness. Listening to music allowed them to think about themselves, who they wanted to be and give them an escape from the present. No matter what happened an hour ago, you can use your tunes to help you escape negativity and power you through your workout — and you know you’ll feel great when it’s over.
The best thing to do is match the style of music with the exercise routine you’re doing. If you want to be calm and focused before a yoga class, try Jack Johnson; if you want your heart to pump faster before a marathon, try Avicii.
You can take this sports science one step further and use the BPM (beats per minute) of your music as a metronome. The faster the beat the faster you go. When the beat slows down add some resistance to keep the intensity up (on cardio machines). Another great way to use music as a training tool and motivator is to work steadily through the verse and then flat out sprint in chorus.
My favourite songs for a good sweat session are;
When life gets busy and we find ourselves rushing around, it’s often our exercise and healthy eating routines that can fall behind. We don’t mean to but we start to give ourselves small excuses each day, and before we know it we have completely fallen out of our habits. During summer, it’s easy to stay active. We all love getting outside and moving around when the sun is shining and it’s nice and warm. However, summer is over and the colder weather is coming. The year is well and truly underway and many of us are simply getting busier by the day.
We all have commitments, but let’s remind ourselves about the benefits of exercise. Increased strength, stamina, flexibility, fitness and better overall health! Let’s take a minute to step back and analyse our lives.
Question whether you really don’t have enough time. Why not replace watching TV or spending time on the computer with exercise? Are you making excuses where there aren’t excuses to make? Many of us think we are busier than we really are because we believe we need more time to get the results we’re after. In reality, we can actually get results a lot quicker than we realise. If you’re time poor, then I’ve got some exercise and eating tips which could save you a lot of time!
Research has shown that extremely hard, intermittent exercise is just as effective as a standard workout which can take up several hours a week. The trick is extreme intensity. Give it 110% for a short amount of time, with a small break and you will find the benefits are just as good!
Shannan Fitness and Diet Tips
I know better than anyone that it is important to maintain a healthy diet. Diet and exercise are what I do for a living. I live my life being healthy and promoting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. When you eat well, you feel well! What I do understand and see all the time, is that when people are pushed for time they resort to the quickest and easiest thing they can find. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the best option for them and their healthy lifestyle flies out the window. I want to change this and have put together some quick and easy food tips for when you’re a busy person on the go!
Breakfast
Morning Tea
Lunch Fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. Try:
Afternoon Tea My fav go anywhere, eat anytime high protein snack. A tin of tuna Dinner It’s very important to heavily limit carbs at night. I’m a mad fan of a nightly BBQ. Stick to lean cuts of your favourite meats pork, chicken, heart smart lamb / veal. With a crisp fresh salad. Dessert/Treats A scoop of Peters ‘no added sugar’ ice cream with diet choc sauce. A very tasty little treat that doesn’t do too much damage to you calorie intake. |
Whether your injury is big or small, it is always a pain!! No matter what you have done to yourself, it will cause you to slow down. I know this feeling well, as I recently had another shoulder reconstruction myself, my fourth. It’s important to take the time to recover even I was out of action for a week! However, there is no reason to cease activity completely, and after you’ve seen your doctor and received medical clearance, there are ways you can work out around your injury and continue to keep up your fitness levels. I was back boxing two and a half weeks post surgery with my bad arm strapped to my body.
Find excuses to work around your injury. Do not use it as an excuse!
There’s no need to stay indoors or ride the couch for weeks! Follow my simple tips for ways to stay active when you have an injury.
An injury will be far tougher psychologically than it will be physically.
Your head will give you a myriad of reasons not to train. It will test your character and show you what you’re really made of. I have had to start back right on the bottom rung of fitness.
It’s disheartening and frustrating but I managed to turn those feelings into fire and fight and use them to push on through the grind.
I needed to change the way I was feeling, stop feeling sorry for myself, thinking about where I used to be and start being thankful for what I had, not what I DIDN’T.
With courage, determination and time my injury will heal which is far more than a lot of people have to chance to do. So it’s time to Harden Up. Train….Don’t Complain. Be thankful for what you HAVE not what you DON’T!
Shannan Ponton had a Biggest Loser-style pep talk at the ready at the caesarean birth of his new daughter, Milla.
“I knew Kylie had her heart set on a girl,” Shannan tells New Idea as he relaxes at his home in Sydney’s northern beaches.
