Bio-Science – How Parkfit Works

“I like to use circuit training to help my clients lose body fat, get healthy and tone up. The idea behind ParkFit circuit training is to keep you moving by only allowing you to take minimal breaks between exercises. When one muscle group is worked, the others can rest. This makes optimal use of your rest periods, so it’s very time efficient! All body parts are trained in one session, and therefore, my clients do not need to work out every day.

Because I tell you when & how to switch between muscle groups, little rest is needed between exercises. This in turn gets the heart rate up, which usually doesn’t happen during regular gym exercise because you generally need to wait for machines to become available. Sometimes, to “up” your heart rate further, at ParkFit aerobics are sprinkled between the resistance exercises which keeps your metabolism stoked.

The ParkFit workout is different to those currently offered by other training companies. For example, it differs from supersets or compound sets, which target one or two specific muscles. ParkFit circuit training, on the other hand, works more efficiently because it causes you to keep pushing your body aerobically, while still challenging your bigger muscle groups.

And it’s these short but powerful bursts of these resistance exercises coupled with alternating sets of cardio exercises that accelerate fat loss because your body doesn’t have time to get used to the variation our circuit training offers. It’s actually, I’m proud to say, one of the few forms of fitness training that has been shown to effectively develop both strength and cardiovascular fitness in the same exercise session!

I also personally prefer circuit training because the circuit allows me to tailor the session to the client’s goals, for example:

To focus more on muscular strength, we will increase the intensity (resistance) of the exercise at each station and the rest time between stations to allow full muscular recovery between each exercise.
To focus more on fat loss we will decrease the intensity of the exercise at each station, increase the length of time spent at each station, and shorten the rest between stations to keep your heart rate continuously elevated.
If I could narrow down the ParkFit training formula into a few steps, it would be this….. People who combine cardio and weight training lose more fat than those who don’t lift weights!

People prefer to come to my sessions because I show them how to lift weights properly under instruction, thereby minimising the high injury risks associated with weights training in a gym. They also enjoy the outdoor locations we use and this improves their mood almost instantly as they FEEL the positive atmosphere of the beautiful surroundings as they exercise. Try the ParkFit experience by booking sessions here now!

The way ParkFit circuit training burns fat is through aerobics. This cardio component burns fat increasing your body’s fat burning enzymes and improving oxygen delivery to tissues. Your heart rate remains elevated throughout the entire circuit, providing calorie-burning benefits while you do the resistance exercises. This continuous motion is one of the aspects of ParkFit circuit training that makes the sessions so massively effective at torching body fat whilst concurrently building lean muscle leading to that “all over toned body look.”

Because many muscles are used in the circuit training, you would burn more calories than you would in a regular gym session. According to studies, you will burn up to 540 calories per hour when doing a circuit training routine!

Circuit training has an added fat burning effect on the body that is achieved through a mechanism called EPOC. EPOC refers to the extra calories you burn once your workout is over. Studies show that circuit training boosts EPOC for as long as 38 hours after your workout – longer than a traditional exercise workout! If you keep your heart rate elevated, it makes the workout more intense and this leads the body to burn more calories for as long as 38 hours after your workout! So you will be burning calories in your sleep or on the couch as your body recover, how great is that!

We asked Doug about his approach to health and fitness:

People always ask me “ Doug….. what is the real secret to losing fat, are there any short cuts you can recommend?” Despite what most advertisements for diets and nutrition products would lead you to believe, there is no such thing as “quick and easy fat loss.” Hard work is the only way anyone ever accomplishes anything. If there’s any “secret” to fat loss, it’s hard work on your diet and training program.

Regarding diets, I encourage you not to starve your body. Instead, I say lose the fat with exercise! This allows you to keep your muscle mass intact at all costs with weight training and sufficient amounts of nutrient dense food. Losing muscle is actually unacceptable. Paradoxical as it may seem, the secret to fat loss is to allow yourself to eat more (of the right healthy foods) and use exercise to burn off that fat.

The biggest mistake people do to lose fat is they slash their calories to starvation levels and exercise little or not at all. This actually slows the metabolism, decreases lean body mass and invokes the body’s starvation response. Exercise allows you to create the calorie deficit and burn fat WITHOUT slowing down the metabolism. When you starve the fat, you also starve the muscle. When you starve the muscle, you lose muscle along with the fat. When you lose muscle, your metabolism slows down and your body enters into a “starvation mode.” When your body enters into the starvation mode, fat loss comes to a screeching halt as your body tries to conserve its energy.

With the explanation of the above bio-science your goal should never be weight loss. Your goal should be losing fat while maintaining muscle. As long as your body is solid muscle, then you shouldn’t worry about the figure on the scales. It’s the ratio of muscle to fat that really counts in fitness. (body composition)

So the a secret formula to weight loss isn’t a magic pill or shake…it is this………You need to combine nutrition, cardio and weight training and education all together at once. This creates synergy meaning the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, I mean that 1 + 1 + 1 may not equal 3,it may equal or 300 or 3,000. By using this combination correctly, you can increase your results exponentially! ParkFit brings all these components together for you into a holistic concise training solution eliminating any guess work.