Today I learned about a good intensive exercise plan for fat loss called <a href=”
http://terveys.turbulence.hop.clickbank.net/”>Turbulence Training, which combines interval training (for cardio) & weight training in workouts of about 45 minutes each, three days a week. I trust the source that recommended this plan to me (Tom Venuto, author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, through one of his email newsletters), & now that I’ve purchased the Turbulence Training stuff & read through a lot of it, I’ve made the decision to follow that workout program, perhaps using the workout plan designed specifically for women.
But… not until after the move to our new apartment, because such a major commitment needs to have my full attention.
I’ll also probably join a gym that’s near our new apartment. There’s a gym on campus that I can go to for a reasonable fee (I work at a university), but having my workout place near home seems more convenient to me. I mostly take the bus to/from work to save on gas & to get more exercise (through walking to/from bus stops), & I don’t want to have to be on campus as late as would be needed to work out there. Especially come winter, when it can get awful damn cold waiting in the dark for a bus.
But back to Turbulence Training. TT was developed by a Canadian trainer named Craig Ballantyne. Here’s how it began:
The idea that gave birth to Turbulence Training came to me when I noticed how the power sport athletes at the University had such sleek, strong, lean physiques – both men and women’ but none of them did slow long distance cardio for hours on end. Have you ever noticed how lean and muscular sprinters are compared to long distance runners?
So I came up with some training protocols based on power sports training’ adapted for regular people’ and I started testing them. The initial real world results were almost too good to be true, but as an academic type of person, I had to have concrete scientific proof to back up my theories.
Ballantyne went on do extensive literature searches on exercise physiology, traveled various places to obtain further knowledge, & seeing how things worked in his own workouts & with people he worked with as a trainer. At some point he tumbled to a couple of studies that proved out what he was seeing in the gym:
- A study at Laval University in Quebec which found that people who did their cardio (aerobic) exercise using interval training (intensive all-out effort in the selected cardio exercise, alternated with periods of slower effort) experienced higher fat loss than those who trained using long duration, slower cardio workouts, for example, jogging around a track.
- Another study showing that women (the study subjects) burned more calories after a strength training workout using higher weights at lower repetitions (8 reps per set) than those who used lower weights at high reps (~12 reps/set).
Thus, Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training program uses interval training for cardio & high weight/low rep for strength.
Purchasing the program means getting a big bunch of well laid-out, well-organized, printable Adobe Acrobat .pdf files containing the specifics of the program. The foundational document is called Turbulence Training: Time-efficient, Research-proven Workouts that Boost Muscle Growth & Blowtorch Fat (or Turbulence Training for Fat Loss, for short), which lays out the science & methods underlying Turbulence Training, a lifestyle review questionnaire, reasonable & intelligent nutritional guidelines, tips for maintaining one’s fat loss while traveling, & a 21-day plan for gradually improving one’s habits for better health.
Then Ballantyne gets into the meat of the program: the training guidelines & workouts. The training guidelines include instruction on how to warm up correctly before getting into the workout proper — good for me, since I’ve never been quite up to snuff about the right way to warm up — not to mention cooldowns, & an overall guidelines how to use all the workouts provided, scheduled recovery periods, etc. Then the workouts themselves: there’s a 2-week introductory level workout plan designed for sedentary individuals. This is likely what I’ll start with, because although I’ve not been sedentary these past few months, I’m not really fit either, & I think the introductory level will work me plenty hard. That’s followed up 4-week workout plans for each of the Beginner, Intermediate, & Original Turbulence Training Levels.
So, once I get started, this’ll take me through 14 weeks of planned workouts before a week of recovery & light workouts. Then I can follow it up with the three additional 4-week workout plans, using a fourth “core training” plan on off days (as each of these workout plans involves three workout days a week), for a total of 12 more weeks. Thus, the grand total for the entire Turbulence Training for Fat Loss program is 26 weeks if you, like me, start out at the introductory level (for sedentary individuals). That’s half a year! The document finished out with a description (with photos) of each exercise used.
And what then? Heh. Well, let’s stick with planning my life only half a year ahead for a start, okay? Okay, well, if you insist:
The basic package I purchase also included several bonuses:
- A 30-day “maximum fat loss” workout plan. This seems like a follow-up rather than a “quick start precursor” to the basic TT program.
- A 4-week summer bodyweight TT workout plan. Bodyweight means that you use the weight of your own body as the resistance you work against. An example would be pushups, where you push the weight of your body up from floor. For bodyweight exercises, you don’t need equipment, so you can do it just about anywhere.
- A “fusion fat loss” workout plan providing a 4-week plan at intermediate level & another 4-weeks advanced. Fusion in this case means it combines exercises using weights with bodyweight exercises.
- A nutrition plan based on the needs of a 200-pound man.
- A nutrition plan based on the needs of a 140-pound woman. I probably don’t need this that much myself — I’ve got my nutrition plan pretty much squared away — but I’m glad it’s made available for all those women who haven’t yet learned not to eat junk out of a box.
- An MP3 audio interview (one hour) with Craig Ballantyne going into the nuts & bolts of Turbulence Training (I haven’t listened yet.)
- A 4-week “hardcore fat loss” workout program.
I elected to get purchase the Deluxe TT program, which in addition to the above also got me:
- The Turbulence Training Bodyweight Manual, providing 6-months’ worth of bodyweight workouts from prep-level (for sedentary individuals) through advanced. Maybe this is something I can go through with my partner, since bodyweight exercises are something she can take with her to Seattle without having to buy a bunch of equipment. And I can take those exercises with me whenever I travel.
- An 8-week “bodyweight athlete” workout designed especially for athletes, with their need for efficient workouts & the development of speed in mind. Not being a competitive athlete, I don’t know that
I
‘ll need this, but what the hey, it was part of the package.
Ballantyne has also designed a workout program designed especially for women called, appropriately enough, Turbulence Training for Women. I haven’t purchased it, but I like how it’s advertised:
If you’re like us, you’re sick of fluffy, soup-can lifting workout programs that promise results in 5 minutes a day. You can see right through those programs.
No kidding. How stupid those photos of some trim Photoshopped woman in a pastel bodysuit staring down intensely as she curls a measly 3-pound dumbbell. I know us women don’t have the upper body strength of a fit 200-pound man, but pleeeeeaaaaaase. We’re not that wimpy.
At least I’m not. I guess I’m setting out to prove that to myself, aren’t I?
At any rate, if you want to know if this program is worth the cost, I will say, just as I did with Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, an undiluted Yes! As long as you’re willing to put the work into following it.
If only our move was over with….
