I am going to come straight out of the gate and say it….

YOU WILL NEVER GET AS LEAN AS YOU WANT UNLESS YOU DO SERIOUS AMOUNTS OF WEIGHT TRAINING.

And I have to say, I am getting tired of hearing the statements, I need more cardio….

Bootcamps cater to fat loss. And what we do at The Bootcamp Effect is the most efficient method to achieve this goal.

I do not believe that blasting you with endless amounts of cardio because that is what you think you need. I have played with this idea before. Do I give you what you want or what you need… It’s one thing to run people into the ground on a workout, but it’s another thing to be elegant with it, and get a training effect with impeccable form and injury resilience, while building metabolic muscle and working a specific energy system.

This may be a new outlook for you. But this is coming from someone who cares and wants you to get the best results possible. I have to look you in the eye everyday, I am not going to steer you wrong. A lot of what you hear on television and in magazines is to sell stuff from faceless companies and souless individuals. The science wasn’t there in the 70’s to support the aerobic’s craze and it still manages to linger around today. I hope you know and trust this though because it has been proven in scientific studies over and over again: resistance training is far superior for fat loss.

So stop thinking short term and calorie burn. This is a long term game and it will be the consistent chipping away at your goals which will ultimately yield that amazing body.

All you need to go is 2 things.

1. BUILD AS MUCH MUSCLE AS YOU CAN
2. EXERCISE AS HARD AS YOU CAN

We train for strength. Eat for fat loss. It’s a simple formula overlooked and overcomplicated. It’s a formula that when you fully accept and adopt it, will change your body.

Here is the Hiearchy of Fat Loss:

1. Metabolic Resistance Training (weight training)
2. High intensity anaerobic interval training (all out cardio for 5-20 secs)
3. High intensity aerobic interval training (interval training when you are not going your hardest but are going for a short timeframe)
4. Steady state high intensity aerobic training (cardio at a constant pace like running for 10 mins straight)
5. Steady state low intensity aerobic training (going for a walk)

At The Bootcamp Effect, we dont waste your time with exercises that are not the best for you! We use #1 and #2. But, unfortunately, most people want to or end up in #3 and #4

Here are #1 and #2 Explained:

#1 – Metabolic Resistance Training

This is the most important thing we can do in the gym and is the type of training that burns calories, elevates metabolism, maintains and promotes muscle, and… this is pretty much all I ever do. I exercise almost exclusively using metabolic resistance training.

The majority of the calories that you burn will be determined by your resting metabolic rate. Your resting metabolic rate is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body and how hard it works. Therefore adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will elevate your resting metabolic rate.

This type of training at The Bootcamp Effect can be done in a superset (back to back), tri-set (back to back to back), and circuit format in a rep range that generates lactic acid (lactic acid is generated around 30-60 secs of exercise at a high intensity. My preferred rep range for this is 6-12 reps. Although if you are a beginner you can lift 12-20 reps.

#2 – High Intensity Interval anaerobic training

These are cardio exercises that burn calories and elevate metabolism. This is your quick bursts of exercise – sled pushes, sprints, high knees, burpees, rope waves, mb slams, etc. They burn a lot of calories and increase EPOC. EPOC (Exercise post oxygen consumption) happens after intense exercise and your metabolism can be raised for up to 48 hours after a workout, which will keep you burning more calories after the workout. These intervals are hard to do, and you need to do them! Interval training will make you lose much more fat than cardio training at a constant pace. You need to push yourself to make it anaerobic. Anaerobic means no oxygen – these are quick bouts of exercise 5-20 seconds in duration. And after an intense bout of 20 secs you will need a ton of rest!

In my experience, many individuals do not push themselves hard enough to consider their efforts anaerobic. Anaerobic means without oxygen. After this type of exercise, you have an oxygen debt you need to pay after these short bursts, and it may feel a little uncomfortable, but it won’t kill you.

Oxygen debt is the additional oxygen that must be taken into the body after exercise to restore all systems to their normal states (cause you are shocking your body!)

Breathing hard after exercise does not mean you are out of shape. It means you are working the best energy system for fat loss! You should expect to be breathing hard after your hardest for 20 secs. And you should definitely not feel ready to do another round of this 20 secs later.

The Bootcamp Effect workouts are designed for you to be in these 2 zones. Please do not try to conserve energy. WORKING HARD AND WORKING LONG ARE NOT THE SAME. When performing resistance or interval training, if you are not going your hardest, you are most likely on the bottom part of this list, and that is one of the reasons you may not get results.

If you have 3-5 hours to exercise in a week, use #1-2 (like say, come to bootcamp 3-5 times per week because we’ve got you covered for those).
If you have #5-6 hours to exercise in a week, add lower intensity interval training by coming into the gym during a bootcamp and doing intervals like 30 on 30 off for 10-30 min.
If you have 6-8 hours in a week to exercise, then you can add in the #4-5, but you should be getting in a solid 5 hours of metabolic resistance training and high intensity interval training before considering this.

The human body is essentially resistant to change, we have to challenge it by increasing weight and intensity.

And remember, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

BE intensity. BE change.
Josh Saunders
The Bootcamp Effect