Flavia Del Monte's Female Fitness Blog - Exercises for Women & Female Fitness

Targeted Metabolic Resistance Training Workouts: The Solution For Toned, Defined & Sexy Curves

Posted by Flavia Filed Under: Exercise Tips

Most female “fat loss workouts” are a joke, relying on high reps, solely body weight movements and “going for the burn!” Now, I’m not slamming any of these methods (each has a time and place) but in a moment you’ll see their limitations if your goal is toned, defined and sexy curves.

The popular trend in fitness, as we write, is “metabolic resistance training” (MRT) workouts which is essentially cardio with weights. I’ve heard it called “madman training” because you run around the gym huffing and puffing, sweating everywhere and trying to push your bodies ability to go longer and harder.

MRT workouts involve muscular work and conditioning work with the use of your bodyweight, dumbbells, barbells, machines, TRX, stability balls, wobble pads and I’ve even seen people running around the gym with rowing machines above their head (only Lord knows why). If you hate sitting around and resting then MRT workouts are for you because you barely get a moment to wipe the tears, I mean sweat, from your eyes!

There are DOZENS of different types of MRT workouts but here is just one example:

Full Squats x 15
Bench Presses x 15
Bent Over Rows x 15
Front Squats x 15
Burpees for 30 seconds
Throw Up, Pass out, Repeat 3-5x

This stuff is intense and over the course of an hour you can easily approach or exceed 600 calories, depending on the routine. Most traditional weight training workouts have you burning 300 calories or less. MRT workouts help us experience excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) in big increases.

“Afterburn” is the trendy way of saying EPOC and it measures the expended amount of calories that it takes for your body to return to homeostasis i.e. your normal resting rate after a workout.  The harder your workout the longer it takes you to go from Mrs. I Can’t Feel My Legs Right Now to Mrs. I Feel My Legs Again. Research shows that you can burn calories for up to 48 hours or more, so the more MRT workouts you do, the faster you’ll lose weight!

MRT workouts “stack” non-competing exercises in a circuit fashion and it’s very powerful at burning a lot of calories during the workout and increasing your metabolic rate for 48 hours AFTER the workout.  This is the good news about MRT workouts and why I love them, do them and have endorsed them.

The problems with MRT workouts:

1) You can end up looking soft & skinny, not strong & sculpted
Here’s the truth: you will lose fat with MRT workouts but because most MRT workouts promote higher reps (equating to 60-65% of your maximum effort) with minimum rest so you burn up a lot of calories during and after the workout. However, since you’re using lighter weights, research shows that very little muscle growth occurs when you work with weights that don’t solicit a 70-85% maximum effort.

Essentially, over four to six weeks of doing strictly MRT workouts, your body will give up i.e. lose muscle because the weights you’re lifting do not solicit the need for muscle on your body! Also, since your body gets used to lifting lighter weights, it gives up its strength and you become weaker. This is based on the use it or lose it principle.

As we learned yesterday, the key to developing a hard, lean and athletic looking body is to incorporate sets of heavier weights and lower reps to produce neurogenic muscle tone - the muscle tone that gives you definition when you contract it.

2) Your body adapts faster to workouts with higher reps and lighter weights
Most people find they lose fat very quickly in the first four to six weeks of doing MRT workouts and then it comes to a halt. Why? As your body adapts MRT workouts challenge your aerobic system (training with oxygen) more so than your anaerobic system (training without oxygen). Just like you become more efficient at running further distances, you become more efficient at doing circuits. The workout ends up feeling like a marathon instead of a sprint.

When you train with lighter weights for too long your brain says, “We don’t need this muscle anymore…” and you lose it if you don’t ever visit some heavier weights. If you lose muscle then your metabolism slows and you risk gaining the fat back once you stop this style of training. 

3) MRT workouts can lead to injuries…
Most MRT workouts are performed with faster repetitions which results in LESS focus on the specific muscle and simply focusing on getting through the reps. The key ingredient for gaining muscle and keeping your muscle is time under tension. This simply means that a set needs to last for 40-70 seconds with continuous tension on the muscle you’re trying to sculpt. Working with faster speeds often results in our ‘form going out the door’ and not feeling the muscle. Sure, you burned a lot of calories but you barely stimulated the muscle – instead you just smashed your joints together!

Introducing: Targeted Metabolic Resistance Training Workouts

Imagine MRT workouts targeted to a specific body part! That’s what the CURVALICIOUS Body Sculpting System is all about and for the first time, here’s a sneak peak of the 5 day system…

Here are the benefits if you’re looking for a strong and sculpted body instead of a soft and skinny body:

1. You avoid adaptation.

Your body is designed to adapt. When you keep doing the same exercises, in the same order, for the same number of reps, using the same hand grip or foot stance, the body adapts. In effect, your nervous system becomes “hardwired” to that particular routine and consequently, fewer fibers are recruited, you use less energy and fewer demands are made on the body. In short, you become a pro at that routine, and after a surprisingly short amount of time, you stop making progress.

Targeted MRT workouts shake things up by changing the stimulus, so the nervous system doesn’t adapt. What happens is that your body grows new muscle and become stronger and “harder” to survive the onslaught of your attack! Essentially we’re going to apply more direct muscle work to each body part so your body takes on a curvier shape. Hello hourglass!

2. Shifting rep ranges develops neurogenic and myogenic muscle tone.

Most individuals are hopelessly attached to the old 10-15 rep range scheme. It’s as automatic as your morning coffee and watching your favorite reality TV show each week. It’s largely habit.

Remember, every rep range targets a different group of muscle fibers and if you don’t stimulate all your muscle fibers than you’re throwing away 50% of your gains! Muscle fibers are “typed” according to their oxidative capacities and how fast they fatigue. Historically, fast-twitch fibers (the ones best suited for growth and neurogenic muscle tone) are worked by a combination of lower-rep, and heavier weight workouts. This style of training is new for most females. Except that muscles are also made up of slow-twitch fibers and contribute to myogenic muscle tone. You can’t just ignore them if you want to see your sexiest body revealed once the fat comes off.

Targeted MRT workouts will include lower rep training (i.e. reps less than 7), intermediate rep ranges (i.e 8-12 reps) and high-rep training (i.e 12-15 and even 15-20 reps) to make the best progress and develop both types of muscle tone – neurogenic and myogenic.

3. You look harder, curvier and sexier!

When you directly target a muscle group with straight sets you make average gains; when you directly target a muscle group with a bi-combo (two exercises back to back on the same body part) you can almost double your rate of progress; when you target a muscle group with a tri-combo (three exercises back to back to back on the same body part) you can almost triple your rate of progress! Fitness models of known this for years, which is why they have strong yet still feminine bodies. To date, I’ve never met a female who does solely MRT workouts and lands covers. They all do a lot of direct muscle work to give their body shape.

Targeted MRT workouts apply so stimulus directly to the body parts i.e your thighs, glutes, shoulders and back that give your body the coveted hour glass figure! By adding a few pounds of muscle to these specific body parts you’ll dramatically transform the shape of your body type and create the illusion of a much leaner and sexier body!

4. You will keep fat off for good by building new muscle

MRT workouts are like a diet and cardio to a certain degree. If you only rely on training off the fat and never dedicate anytime to adding new muscle – the only way to increase your metabolism – then you’re still working with the same slow metabolic machinery once the program is over!  This means the only way to keep the fat off is to keep doing MRT workouts despite how hard they are.

Targeted MRT workouts will give you an opportunity to actually gain new muscle to increase your daily metabolic rate. We learned the other day that every pound of muscle helps us burn an extra 50 calories a day!  The root problem of gaining weight back is a slow metabolism and the only thing to improve your metabolism is adding new muscle! In short, your fear of gaining new muscle is the number one reason you’ll always struggle with maintaining your goal weight.

I find it silly that certain females are ALWAYS following a fat loss program! If the fat loss program worked then they would have lost over 1000 pounds by now!  At some point, once the fat is off, it’s time to do a workout dedicated to gaining muscle so you don’t have to see the scale spin upwards again!

5. People will finally notice that you workout!

Getting skinny is EASY. Any girl can do that. The question is: can you get lean and defined to the point that people say, “Wow! Look at your arms! You look amazing!”

Once the fat comes off, you’re going to look HOT!  Curves! Lines! Definition! All over Sexiness! You’ll get stares on the way to the water fountain, while you’re in the grocery store and when you’re shopping for a new wardrobe!  People will want to know your secret:

Targeted MRT Workouts baby!

Conclusion

Remember, transforming your body happens incrementally. You’ll never wake up one day with an extra 5 pounds of muscle on your body! Just like you’ll never wake up and notice you lost 5 pounds of fat. Your body gains muscle in grams, not pounds. And your body loses fat in grams, not pounds. You’re in complete control of how you look so if you wake up one day and LOVE the definition you have, simply maintain what you’re doing!

If you’re interested in trying out a science-based and strategically designed system to build calorie-burning muscle and strip the fat in the same workout then check out my brand new CURVALICIOUS Body Sculpting System being released on Monday May 21st!

Questions or comments? I’m waiting for you!

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