Weight Loss Tip
3 Proven Workout Techniques for Weight Loss Success
By Steve Edwards
From the Team Beachbody Club - Join Today and Workout to
Win!
 At Beachbody, we're not scientists;
we're fitness trainers. We use scientific findings along with our experience of
working with people in the real world who have needed to lose weight. We're
always looking at the latest research, then molding it in a way to fit our
clients' needs. This is how we've come up with many of our training terms and
philosophies that seem unique. But they're not unique from a scientific
perspective. They're only unique in how we've applied them to you and your
individual needs. So let's take a look at some of our Beachbody fitness
techniques and how they work to make you slimmer, fitter, and healthier.
Sectional
ProgressionTM
Looking for the most time-efficient
means of shaping the body, we came up with the Sectional Progression concept,
utilized in all of our workouts, including our successful Power
90® program. If you played sports and spent time in the weight
room, you've heard of something similar. Your coach probably told you to work
one body part at a time until exhaustion before moving on to the next.
Sectional Progression is similar.
 Where it differs is that
it's done circuit-style. You've probably heard of circuit training (prior to
Beachbody) as well. Training in circuits eliminates the standard rest period
most people take in the gym between exercises, so that each "weight training"
session also has a cardio element. If you're only going to do one thing for
exercise, circuit training is the most effective way to use your time.
The combination, termed "Sectional
Progression," takes us through each body part to failure (or nearly),
circuit-style. This combination is the most efficient way to exercise. If you
have a very limited amount of time to exercise, Sectional Progression is where
it's at.
Slim
Training®
If you've ever seen a marathon, you've
probably noticed one thing all the elite runners have in common—they're
very thin. Too thin, perhaps, for some tastes, but, regardless, the process of
running marathons all the time tends to make people very thin. The reason is
that they do so much repetition that it limits the muscle's capacity for growth
as well as using the body's stored fat for energy.
 Utilizing a similar concept,
we expanded on Sectional Progression by adding a repetitive element. By working
the same body parts with less rest in between similar workouts, the body is
forced into a different type of adaptation. Like a marathoner's body shows,
repetition limits the amount of muscle growth that can occur. Wanting our
clients to achieve a more well-rounded appearance than that of a marathoner, we
reduced their massive number of repetitions and used a full-body circuit. This
is done daily to limit the amount of resistance (weight) that can be used while
working the entire body for a lean, slim look.
While very effective, this style of
training can't be done all of the time. For this reason we made Slim in
6® a six-week program and recommend a recovery cycle in between
rounds. A recovery cycle is a period of time when you reduce the intensity of
your workouts—generally the weight and speed—to allow your body to
recover, get strong, and become ready for another round of high-intensity
training.
Muscle Confusion
Naturally, our newly-fit customers began demanding ways to continually progress
along their fitness paths. After each training program and a recovery phase,
our customers would launch into something newer and, hopefully, more intense,
to continue their progression curve moving upwards.
 Athletes train with what
are called training blocks. These are periods of time of increased intensity
with a recovery phase between each block. The more fit you are, the quicker the
body adapts and the more often you need to move into the next training block.
This is termed periodizational training, and we use it in
P90X®.
The reason athletes train this way is
that when you begin an exercise, your body goes through a period of time when
it adapts to the new movements. Once it's adapted (learned how to do it
efficiently), you get a growth phase* where your muscles respond to training
and make enormous fitness gains. This period is short because your body is
always trying to get more efficient. The more efficient, or better, you become
at something, the less it affects you so, naturally, your results level off.
This is called a plateau.
To offset the plateau effect and keep
your results skyrocketing, the most advanced training programs alter what you
do often. This is to keep your body adapting just as your growth phase begins
to level off. If this sounds confusing, that's because you're not a sports
scientist. And because it's confusing, we've termed this process "Muscle
Confusion," because that's the state in which your body's response is highest
and results come the fastest—the secret of success with P90X.
So there you have it—a synopsis of
our Beachbody terms and why they work. Still confused? That's okay. The reason
we've made these home fitness solutions is not to make you a sports
scientist—though it's okay if we do—but to make getting in shape as
easy as possible. So understand it or not, all you've got to do is Keep Pushing
Play.
 * It's important to note that a
"growth" phase does not mean that you're going to grow. Growth is used to
identify an acceleration of results, which should not be confused with muscle
growth (hypertrophy). Hypertrophy may or may not be the goal of a training
block, but the term "growth phase" is still used. In an attempt to lessen the
confusion here, the latest edition of P90X has used the term "mastery phase" in
place of a "growth phase" but "growth" is the scientific term.
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