Fitness Just Seconds Away
Illawarra Mercury
Wednesday April 23, 2008
Fitness author Jorge Cruise believes that just a few minutes per week of properly applied resistance exercise can build lean muscle tissue and trim centimetres off the waist.
In his new book, The 12 Second Sequence: Shrink Your Waist in Two Weeks, (set for release in Australia next month) he suggests that two 20-minute sessions per week of very slow lifting and static muscle contraction can make the body burn 20 per cent more calories a day. Tell us about these 12-second exercises. Each move begins with a slow, controlled 10-second movement, followed by a two-second hold - these combined 12 seconds create an incredibly intense fatigue of your muscles. Fatigue is crucial - it's what allows you to create new lean muscle tissue, which will start to burn fat and calories when you're at rest. So you really need to feel that fatigue to know that you're doing some good? You can't change the muscle without fatigue, and it's impossible to really fatigue the muscle without pushing it. The only way it gets transformed is by pushing it beyond what's comfortable. If you don't push your body beyond what it's comfortable with, nothing changes. How did you arrive at this exercise plan? This is not a new idea. In fact, there have been books written about slow lifting before, and the concepts were powerful. But I wondered, "How can I make this better?" So we tested different sequencing options for two years. After experimenting with many different variations, we got the best results by going slow for 10 seconds then stopping statically for two seconds.Why are we getting so fat? We've got machines and elevators and escalators to do all the things that require our muscles to engage and lift weights. Atrophy is probably the biggest culprit. That's reversible.
© 2008 Illawarra Mercury