Melt Fat Away Using HIIT

Sprinting Towards Single Digit Body Fat Percentages With High Intensity Training

The relationship between sprinting and a rock-solid physique is why strength coach Erick Minor put together the program in this article. He thinks it’s such a damn shame that so few bodybuilders actually sprint anymore. It’s one of the few fat burning activities that can actually build muscle tissue instead of catabolizing it, and it’s easy to do; just find a track and run! Well, and maybe read this first…

Look around a track and field event sometime and you’ll notice the relationship between sprinters and bodybuilders actually goes both ways, meaning a lot of full-time sprinters also have damn impressive bodies!

Not surprisingly, their training off the track is remarkably similar to that of a hard-lifting bodybuilder.

Okay, quiz time….

What’s the most foolproof way to increase an athlete’s performance?

“Increase his VO2 max?” Nope. “Uh, improve one-arm Kettlebell snatch on a Bosu ball performance?” Hell no.

Well…

The most reliable way to increase any athlete’s performance is to improve his or her strength-to-weight ratio, which is a fancy way of saying minimizing the amount of bodyfat the athlete carries while maintaining or adding lean body mass.

Typically, any athlete with a favorable muscle to fat ratio is likely to have higher relative strength.

High levels of relative strength are necessary in many sports for world-class success. The same rules apply for recreational athletes or guys who just want to look good naked. With the exception of a handful of pure strength sports, a leaner body will perform better and faster, not to mention look better when the clothes come off. So when an athlete or weekend warrior rolls into my facility, how do I go about improving anaerobic performance, maintaining and/or increasing maximal strength, and reducing body fat?

Well, the first thing you have to understand is what I don’t do. Some of you may know that I don’t recommend steady-state “aerobic” exercise for the conditioning of any athlete.

Let me be blunt here:

The only athletes that should perform low intensity cardio such as jogging are distance runners, tri-athletes, or someone needing to lose muscle tissue. Yes, you read right, unless your goal is to have LESS lean muscle mass, the hamster wheel approach to energy system work is not for you. For maximum body composition and anaerobic performance improvements, the modality of choice is sprinting.

A well-designed sprint program will create significant losses of body fat and at the same time increase your anaerobic work capacity and posterior chain development. So less fat, better lungs, and a dead-sexy butt that will make the nymphets and cougars come crawling. What more could you ask for?

The Sprinter’s Body – Nature vs. Nurture

Pound for pound, sprinters are some of the leanest and strongest athletes on the planet. They possess the perfect storm of fast-twitch dominance, exceptional reaction time, great work capacity, and a favorable endocrine profile. Physically, they look pretty damn good too. Now you may suspect that a sprinter’s physical characteristics are all a product of awesome genetics, but that’s only one aspect of the resultant physical outcome. Yes, a certain body type is preferential for success in sprinting, but training, lifestyle, and diet all have a big impact on the expression of physical qualities. To understand my point, just attend a collegiate level track meet and you’ll note that certain track events develop specific physical characteristics in their participants.

For example, even the guy or girl who places dead last in the 200 or 400m sprint will still typically have well developed glutes, hamstrings, and fairly low body fat levels. Even though they may not have what it takes to win even a Junior College track meet, their body resembles that of a world-class athlete. I attribute this to the training.