Get your copy of  TurboFire Click Here

What is HIIT?

TurboFire is based around a concept called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. HIIT has been somewhat popular since the ’90s, when a study suggested that you could burn up to 9 times more body fat using short but very high-intensity intervals than you could using old-school steady-state aerobic training. HIIT’s popularity had been cultish, mainly because HIIT training had two perceived negatives associated with it. First, it’s hard; as in full-bore, maxed-out cross-eyed hard. (The Tabata study from ‘96 forced subjects to 170% of VO2 max, or the maximum capacity for the body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise.) Second, it can only be effective when done in short cycles. But Chalene was intrigued with HIIT’s time-efficient structure, which promised great results, so we decided to see if we could create a training program based around it.

The AfterBurn Effect

Our decision to focus on HIIT wasn’t based on just one study. Additional studies have showed similar results, using variations of the HIIT protocol. A 2001 study concluded that HIIT training increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR) for the 24 hours following a workout due to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, which explains how a short interval workout can have a longer-lasting effect on body composition change than a much longer cardio session.

We termed this phenomenon the AfterBurn Effect and began assembling a series of workouts that could maximize HIIT across many training platforms. Increases in post-exercise oxygen consumption are not unique to HIIT. No other style of training has HIIT’s peak numbers, but they can be done for longer periods of time. There is science behind the saying “For every action, there is a reaction.” All that intense HIIT training comes at a cost; the body breaks down quickly and it can’t be sustained for very long.

Numerous studies were on the same page in showing that fitness gains made with HIIT training begin to plateau sometime after the third week. Therefore, the key to creating a fitness program using the HIIT modality required us to figure out how to either get the body to recover for another round of HIIT training as quickly as possible, or look at other training modalities that could work in conjunction with HIIT that also yielded results.

The Periodizational Approach

In basic terms, periodizational training means finding a way to alter training over time to maximize results; sort of like basic cross-training, but with a more well-defined plan. If you’re familiar with Beachbody’s fitness programs, you’ve seen this before. All our programs have a schedule that changes over time. The two factors that control how much change occurs are time and intensity. Essentially, over time everyone should alter their approach to training, and the fitter you are, the more your approach needs to change, to continually cause something called the adaptation response. For those of you who’ve done P90X^®, the TurboFire schedule should look familiar.

But TurboFire, as Chalene says, “is not P90X for girls.” It’s a HIIT-focused training program, where all the other training is designed to prepare you to get the best results possible during your HIIT training phases. And while both P90X and TurboFire have a somewhat complex periodizational structure, their schedules are quite different. TurboFire combines both of the philosophies you’ll hear Chalene espouse in her other programs, Turbo Jam and ChaLEAN Extreme.

Muscle Burns Fat^®

The tagline from ChaLEAN Extreme, Muscle Burns Fat^®, doesn’t get chucked out the window just because we created some HIIT routines. The physiological principle that adding muscle to your frame increases your metabolism and leads to changes in body composition is valid, and you’ll find that resistance work is a major component of TurboFire.

In ChaLEAN Extreme, you’ll often hear Chalene say you should do resistance training three times per week for the rest of your life. It’s not just talk, and TurboFire holds you to it. In fact, in an homage to the P90X tagline, Muscle Confusion™, as part of the TurboFire program, you’ll receive a schedule for a hybrid program that combines ChaLEAN Extreme and TurboFire. When you combine the two programs, you get a periodizational schedule that’ll keep challenging your body’s adaptation response for nearly a year!

Advanced Cardio Conditioning

TurboFire, in fact, is not as much of a HIIT program as it is a Chalene program. Her workouts are unique, and TurboFire is very much an extension of her first Beachbody program, Turbo Jam, which was a home version of her health club training class, Turbo Kick. She termed her first vision of TurboFire “the next level of Turbo Kick,” and that’s pretty much what we’ve got here. The program has the look and feel of being in an exercise class at the gym—Chalene’s preferred environment.

Chalene likes the class environment because “it’s fun and provides motivation.” But there’s more than fun at the root of her classes. Cardio is an umbrella term that covers a lot of different styles of training, from easy aerobic to intense HIIT. No matter where between these extremes your workout falls, you’re going to be targeting different human energy systems that have different physiological benefits. For the TurboFire system, Chalene created different cardio classes to make sure each of these energy systems were being targeted, to achieve an effect she calls Cardio Confusion, a play on words referencing P90X’s Muscle Confusion.

Cardio Confusion is more than a slogan. The cardio phases of the TurboFire program combine different styles of interval training with recovery-oriented aerobic training to create a steady growth curve in your fitness levels. This accelerates your body’s ability to get ready for your next round of HIIT, but it also takes advantage of the AfterBurn Effect by targeting different energy systems.

Recovery

Targeted recovery is not a by-product of TurboFire, but an essential part of the program. That you only get stronger at rest is a gym cliché that, as many do, holds a lot of truth. Active recovery helps your body grow strong much more quickly than does rest alone. All high-level training programs work better if they contain targeted rest and recovery phases. During these periods, you target the body’s aerobic system, stabilizer muscles, and use techniques, which stretches out overworked muscle fibers and heals connective tissue microtrauma.

A program for one. A program for all.

It’s often difficult to find one fitness program that would work for everyone, and it’s generally not best to recommend that everyone do the same program, rather than steering each person toward the program that best fits their needs. Reality, though, has taught us that people often want to do what inspires them, whether it fits their ability level or not. Beachbody’s high-level programs P90X and INSANITY^® are meant to be “graduate” programs only; each comes with a fitness test that, if you can’t complete it, recommends you do a lower-level program first instead. While our beginning-level customers should pay attention to this advice, and would usually get better results with an easier program, we’ve learned that they don’t always do what we recommend.

With TurboFire, however, we’ve done our best to allow nearly anyone to attempt the program safely. In fact, we included a 2-month preparatory schedule for anyone who thinks they may not be ready for the rigors of HIIT training. Not only that, every move in the program comes with a modified version that almost anyone should be able to follow. Furthermore, Chalene recognized that some men can be rhythm-challenged, so she purposely made the choreography a lot easier to follow than it is in Turbo Jam and her health club classes.

Diet

The final element of the program is diet, another element where TurboFire has evolved beyond other Beachbody programs. TurboFire has gone in the opposite direction from P90X, which has a phased eating plan that some of our customers have found to be complex. Instead, TurboFire’s diet has expanded on the Beachbody Step by Step Nutrition Guide and tried to give you a variety of different ways to alter your eating habits, with the same end purpose as our other plans: a balanced diet that fuels exercise recovery.

Essentially, the entire TurboFire program has a singular focus: that getting fit can be fun, and that eating healthy doesn’t need to be a complex task. And while there’s a lot of science behind what you’ll see as you follow along, our goal was to make it as simple as the original Beachbody^® tagline: Just Push Play.

Issue: #178, July 08, 2010 by Steve Edwards

GET MORE FREE INFORMATION ON SHAKEOLOGY.

GET YOUR COPY OF INSANITY TODAY CLICK HERE

The whole Beachbody^® community is buzzing about Shakeology^® and all the great health benefits it provides. Now Steve Edwards answers your questions about how best to incorporate Shakeology into your P90X^® regimen.

Get your Beachbody Business started Today Click here.

Justine Holberg from Team Beachbody gives five ways to break through weight loss plateaus.  This article is good for anyone that workout for 3 or more month and has not seen any change in their body.

You’re tracking calories, working out each day, then bam! For a week or two, the scale refuses to budge . . . and you realize you’ve hit a dreaded weight loss plateau. Now what?

Even though it’s completely normal to hit a snag in your fitness journey, a perceived setback like this can send even the most dedicated dieter off course, away from healthy eating and toward cookies, cake, and pizza. But you can be strong and start getting back on the weight-loss track again. Try at least one of the following techniques, and there’s a good chance you’ll burst through your plateau in no time.

Here are five important things to know about hydration and exercise:

1. Zigzag your daily calorie intake. In theory, you’ve got to eat less to lose more, but this isn’t always the case. Sometimes you just have to shake things up. Here’s one way to do it: If your average daily intake is 1,400 calories, try dropping to 1,200 one day, going up to 1,800 the next day, and then dropping back to 1,400. The idea is to keep your metabolism guessing. There’s no magic number that works for everyone, so you’ll have to experiment until you find the right calorie levels for you.

According to Beachbody Director of Results Steve Edwards, what happens when you zigzag is that you force your body to choose how many calories it needs to recover from the rigors of your exercise program.

“Most people who hit a plateau are undereating. If you are indeed undereating, adding calories for a few days, then lowering them again, will help you force your body into a hormonal response that will not only help you break out of a plateau, but—as you learn to recognize the signals—will teach you how much food you should be eating.”

2. Switch up your exercise routine. If you do the same workout each day, eventually it can start to become less challenging,and (unfortunately) less effective. If you push yourself to new levels of strength or exhaustion, you’ll almost certainly see a shift. Here are some ways you can challenge your body:

• Swap your jog for a bike ride.
• Try weights with your cardio routine. (ChaLEAN Extreme^® or RevAbs^® can help you do this.)
• Add intervals of high intensity to really make you sweat. (INSANITY^® is a great workout for this.)
• Drop to the floor for 10 push-ups right now!

The idea is to try something different. According to Edwards, “The better you get at something, the easier it becomes. That’s why we’re always telling you to add more weight as you get stronger, and to move faster and jump higher as our programs progress. But it’s also why all of our programs have phases of training. As your body adapts to stimulus, you need to change that stimulus in order to keep results happening.”

3. Eat some almonds. Almonds are a great snack, plus there’s some research that indicates that they can help you burn fat. That’s because they contain fiber and fatty acids—the good kind of fat that helps you lose weight. A study published in the InternationalJournal of Obesity compared two groups of people who ate a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet. As part of their daily diet, one group ate 3 ounces of almonds every day. The other group ate a mix of complex carbs. What happened? The group that ate the almonds lost more weight.

So next time you grab a snack, try a small handful of almonds, or as Edwards says, “Any nut, really. While almonds are one of the better nuts, all of them have a similar nutritional profile and make excellent snacks. That research probably would have turned out similarly if they’d used walnuts or filberts or whatever.”

4. Get more sleep. This may seem like the opposite of number 2, but the truth is is that you could be training too hard, which is about the quickest way to hit a weight loss plateau, because an over-trained body holds on to weight as if it were starving to death. There’s no better way to test this than to try and sleep more. The reason is that your body recovers much more quickly from exercise while it’s asleep, and if you’re burning the midnight oil while trying to doINSANITY, you could easily plateau from lack of recovery time.

In a recent study at the University of Chicago Medical School, researchers found that during a period when study participants were deprived of sleep, they metabolized glucose less effectively. Additionally, they had higher levels of the hormone cortisol, which has been shown to impair memory, increase insulin resistance, and slow recovery in athletes.
“There’s a good reason why five-time Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx said, ‘The Tour is won in bed,’” says Edwards. Your body’s recovery response during deep sleep is only rivaled by performance-enhancing drugs. When you’re on the borderline of overtraining, getting more sleep is the first thing anyone should try.”

5. Relax. Believe it or not, the one big thing besides diet and exercise that can cause you to plateau is stress. When you’re stressed, your body sends out higher levels of the hormone cortisol that, as stated in number 4, can encourage your body to hang on to fat.“Cortisol is actually a performance-enhancing hormone,” says Edwards. “But it’s gotten a bad rap because we’ve begun living our lives at too high a volume. Cortisol is released at times when the body is in an emergency state. It increases performance, but only over a short period of time. When cortisol is released and forced into action at regular intervals, it causes your body to wear down and switch to more drastic means of survival, like holding on to excess amounts of body fat. Your life shouldn’t feel like one big emergency. As a society, we need to learn to be more tranquilo, as the Spanish say.”

We get stressed for many reasons, almost all of which are influenced by the society around us. One of the best ways to combat stress is to get some alone time to chill. If you’re the type who can’t let go, try some forced relaxation techniques, of which yoga seems to be one of the most effective. There’s something special about the mind/body interaction of yoga that forces a relaxed state even from the most stressed of us.

If you feel you need a lot of help, dig into an intense course, like P90X Yoga X. For others, something lighter, like Yoga Booty Ballet^® Pure and Simple Yoga, will do the trick. If you’re not into yoga, then consider at least adding some stretching into your schedule. Most of Beachbody’s programs have at least one stretching session. TurboFire^® even has two!

Now are you ready to break through that plateau?

Darin Olien scoured the world learning about what nature could teach us about health and has discovered the best nutrients the earth has to offer us tin each serving of shakeology.

See more about Shakeology click here.

Find out how Melanie transformed her body and her life with her very own Team Beachbody coaching business. Once unfit, unhappy, and struggling to pay the rent, she’s now healthy, happy, and living the life she always wanted.

What is your reason for starting a Team Beachbody Business?
Get more information Click Here.

Get your Copy of INSANITY NOW