In Kenya there is a running ‘Mecca’ area called the Rift Valley. Here elite runners from all over Africa gather to live and train at the world’s most successful running training camps. Runners literally wake up, run hard for 2 hrs, eat, rest, eat, sleep, train hard for another 2 hrs, eat & sleep. 7 days per week for periods of 4-6 months. 80% of the world’s top performing runners come from these camps or ones like them! This is the ultimate example of what the body can achieve under optimum work/rest conditions. (Yes genetics, BMI, daily life and altitude play a large part too but these camps maximise these other traits). By this I mean the human body’s ability to perform at optimum function is dependent on the balance between the necessary hard work required and the essential food, rest & sleep that allows the body to recover, replenish, rebuild and realise the gains from those efforts!

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the real world does not make this type of work/rest ratio possible. We have the demands of work, looking after the kids, running a household, having some degree of social life and than trying to fit in some exercise and look after ourselves! Getting enough rest and sleep to complement the day to day stresses is difficult let alone recovering from hard physical exercise.

Like everything in life if you want to improve your exercise or sports performance or you want to train enough to lose those extra kilos it comes down to balance. A balance between work & exercise, home life & eating well, social life & sleep and stress & relaxation. Your body can only do so much for so long before it breaks down and the returns start diminishing, performance drops and the weight starts to increase!

And then you turn 40!

When you are in your 20’s or even early 30’s it seems you can do it all. Work hard, party hard, train hard and still looks good, perform well and do it again tomorrow. My experience with hundreds of clients is that once you get to about 40 or early 40’s you can’t do that anymore. Something has to give! You can’t expect to work long hours, have a great social life, manage home life and still offset it with training hard enough to perform at your peak and still look the way you want used to!

You find it takes longer to warm up each day during training and you cant back up hard sessions day after day without injury, fatigue, waning performance & heaven forbid a body revolt which starts to hold onto weight. There is a price to pay if you don’t let your body recover. It is about this time you need to be smarter with your work/rest ratio.

But there is hope!

I have found that people simply have to ‘tweak’ their work/rest ratio. You have to start listening to your body more and make smart choices about what the body is telling you. You have to balance your hard training days with the right type of recovery and adequate sleep & rest. The surprising result is that if done smartly you can arrest the serious decline in performance (even possibly continue to improve) and keep the body looking fantastic long past 40!

Of course, you cant out train 'father time' forever but you can definitely push that 'tipping point' back quite a few years. You just have to get that work/rest ratio right!

I have been helping busy high stress career executives balance looking & feeling good with business success for 27 years. I understand the demands but I also continually see the results of years of physical and mental neglect. It is never too late to get the balance back!

There is life and leanness after 40 so good luck!

Matt Crowe

Almost two decades ago a French scientist by the name of Veronique Billat developed a running formula which changed the way runners went about trying to improve their VO2max (the then bench mark for cardiovascular performance).

In all my 25 years as a ‘cardio coach’ conducting 40000+ personal training sessions and doing 300+ races myself I can tell you there is still no better method to improve fitness than this one designed by Madame Billat. This drill has been proven to effectively enhance all 7 major fitness variables that cardio training can influence. Most notably vVO2max and lactate threshold or in simple terms the fastest pace you can sustain without ‘blowing up’, ‘hitting the wall’ or ‘throwing up’!

Better still it is very simple (notice I didn’t say easy) and you can use it on any piece of cardio in the gym… runner, cross trainer, rower, stepper, cycle…everything works!

So are you ready for it?

Here it is… Run 3 minutes really fast then 3 minutes half pace and do it 5 x in row!

Yep it is that simple! Originally Madame Billat developed the drill as 30 sec fast and 30sec slow for as many repeats as you can do before fatigue. 1min/1min also works but if you can dot it the real ‘money’ is at 3min fast and 3min half pace!

To be precise the drill you should do is:

A 3 minute interval at a speed equivalent to your 6min race speed followed by 3minutes recovery at 50% of your interval speed. Repeat 5 sets.

Explanation: If I can run 16kmhr for 6minutes in a race i.e. maximal effort, I should do my 3 min repeats at 16kmhr with 3min jog recovery at 8kmhr.

The whole workout takes 30minutes plus I would recommend a 10min warm and 10min cool down of the same cardio. If time doesn’t permit make sure you do at least 5min both ends.

You will get more ‘bang for your buck’ from this single drill then any other work/rest combination on the planet! The key is that your hard efforts must be hard on each interval and you have to maintain 50% on your recovery.

And it strips body fat!

If your intensity is right it will get you fit…very fit! Better still it is also my number one drill for fat loss! We now know how intensity is the key to stripping fat fast and since this drill is definitely intense it is a great calorie burner and  ‘stoker of metabolism’ keeping your internal fire (calories you burn in following hours) raging long after you stop the training!

So if you truly want to get fit and get lean there is simply no better work/rest ratio drill then the Billat 3min on - 3min off cardio drill. Give it a go and you will see why it works so well!

For more awesome drills contact me at info@lifefit.com.au

Matt Crowe

 You think you eat well, you don’t drink too much and you exercise reasonably consistently… yet you still can’t move that last few kilos! Or worse still the waist line is heading north!

There are a few reasons that might cause the above but in today’s world it will be a fair bet that your levels of stress are at the heart of the problem. Fat gain or lack of fat loss have been well linked with consistently high stress levels in many studies over the years.

The Brief Science

There are some key hormones that get released when you are in a stressed state. Adrenaline surges into the system to tap energy stores ready for fight or flight and cortisol is also released which is a hormone that tells your body to replenish energy and that you haven’t really burnt off.

Cortisol has long been targeted as the problem hormone but the science is not that simple. On one hand cortisol encourages your body to store fat (especially visceral fat or fat around the organs) and also reduces testosterone production which diminishes muscle mass and hence your metabolism. On the other hand cortisol aids lipolysis or the breakdown of fat to be used as fuel.

Other fitness experts will point to the issue not being cortisol itself but the hunger it creates in combination with another stress initiated hormone called ghrelin which drives your satiety.

So stress in simply terms makes you very hungry!

So do you reach for apples when this happens? Of course you don’t. You want ‘feel good’ foods that are generally high in sugar, fat and calories because these release pleasure chemicals that make you feel temporarily better!

Well you know what happens next? Just look down!

The issue it seems is not in short term stress (in fact intense exercise bursts are a form of stress and these are proven fat busters) but rather in chronic stress. In other words, when stress is prolonged over a period of weeks the cortisol flooding the body starts to promote fat storgae whilst at the same time increasing appetite for ‘feel good’ (high sugar, fat etc) foods which further increases the likelihood of weight gain!

So What To Do?

I would love to tell you there is a secret single remedy but there is not. You simply have to do the many things that you already know. But start with these:

• Just Move – exercise is without doubt your best remedy for stress! Not only is movement proven to reduce the levels of mental stress you feel, a catharsis is you like, but exercise directly increases blood flow which helps flush cortisol out of the system!

• Eat Mindfully – this sounds a little ‘airy fairy’ but all it really means is slow down your eating, savour the down time (clear your mind) and let your feelings of fullness (there is generally a 15min lag) catch up with the amount you are eating so you eat less!

• Reduce coffee – sorry to tell you this but research has shown that caffeine not only boosts cortisol levels by up to 30% but it keeps cortisol levels elevated for longer so the negative effects stick around!

• Sleep is King – anyone that ever listens to me will hear me say that “sleep is single best thing you can do for optimal health & wellbeing”. Well that is particularly pertinent when it comes to stress. People that sleep less than 6.5 hours per day have a much greater chance of higher cortisol levels, increased appetite and weight gain! If you can sleep 7-8 hours the body can rest, restore, replenish, rejuvenate, rebuild and regenerate so that you feel amazing!

Bottom line is that stress does in deed make and/or keep you fat! Exercise & good diets are awesome but sometimes they are not enough! You cannot expect to look amazing and perform at your optimum unless you balance your lifestyle and keep stress under control.

By Matt Crowe