There is more than one way to skin a cat

Post by Amy Freeman

As the saying goes, ’There is more than one way to skin a cat’, the same goes for fat loss and improving body composition. Just recently social media seems to be more swamped than usual with opinions on what works and what doesn’t and the funny thing about the fitness industry is that many of the people and trainers that have an opinion, believe that their way is the right way and the only way to get results.

I try to remain open minded, as fat loss and improving body composition isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ protocol, just like nutritional requirements will vary person to person. But, in my experience I have found that the German Body Composition Training is a good place to start. Now, like I said at the start, there are many people that have achieved massive results in a variety of ways but for the purpose of this blog, I’m going to talk about what I find works and if you are needing to change up your routine, or looking for some direction in the gym, then this may help.

German Body Composition (GBC for short) isn’t for the faint hearted. With that being said, everyone has to start somewhere so you can adjust exercises and rest times until you increase your lactate threshold and are able to handle more. Usually during a session of GBC I experience a high heart rate, I might feel a little queasy and am left dripping with sweat, but that’s the beauty of this little gem. You can achieve a lot in a short period of time you just have to tackle it head on and full heartedly.

GBC is good at increasing fat loss, increasing muscle mass (when you decrease fat and increase muscle, it results in that common term ‘toning’) and its also good for increasing muscular endurance. I also found it also took my anaerobic fitness to the next level.

Typically for GBC you will use compound movements to maximize muscle recruitment. When you train in this style it creates a lot of latic acid in the muscles which as a result releases more growth hormone. That is the ideal situation to be in for both woman and men when trying to lean out.

There are a few ways it can be programmed but for the purposes of this post I’m going to give an example super-setting an upper and lower body exercise for a full body workout. At first glance a lot of people will have a “That’s it?” look on their face but trust me, if you keep to the tempo, the rest time and use the correct weight and reps, you should have the same response as myself and my clients feel after a session, which is: ‘OOOOOOOOMMMMGGGGGGGGG’

Here is an example of what a Full Body GBC session might look like:

The reason for these exercises is that they are compound exercises, meaning that they recruit a lot of muscles within the one movement resulting in more blood flow, a higher heart rate, more lactic acid, more growth hormone release and finally a high metabolic response for increased fat loss, muscle growth and fitness.

This should take you around 45-50min

Notes:

-The superset is indicated by the coupled lettered exercises for example: A1 and A2 are the first superset.

-The sets are how many times you repeat each superset, before moving to the next superset, which in this case is 3.

-The reps are repetitions of each exercise and depending on your individual level I have given you a range. For example in A1- Squats you can do between 10 and 12 reps.

- Tempo is the time it takes you to move through the movement for example for the squats you have 4 seconds on the eccentric phases (downward phase for the squat) and 1 second on the concentric phase (upward phase of the squat). The 0 represent that there is no pause at the bottom or the top of the movement.

If the tempo looks like 3-0-1-1 like it does in the Lat Pulldown then it is 3 seconds on the eccentric phase, 1 second on the concentric phases and 1 second pause at the top of the movement.

The rest period is 1 min for each exercise and between supersets the rest will be as long as it takes you to set up for the next superset. Try and move through the work as fast as possible.

Good luck, I hope you enjoy.

Happy Training Kuwait

Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.

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