Exercise Plans on The Fast 800

The Fast 800 is on a mission to improve the health of our community and get them to move for better health. Our, newly upgraded, Online Programme provides exercise plans tailored to your fitness level, daily workouts that are designed to guide you through your fitness journey and a team of Health Coaches to support you along the way.

After completing your initial assessment, you will be allocated one of our exercise levels, beginner, intermediate or advanced, and guided through weekly exercise plans consisting of HIIT, resistance workouts and stretching sessions.

We recommend that you complete 2 HIIT sessions a week; HIIT is particularly good at improving the function of your heart and lungs. You also need to build muscle strength, for which we provide resistance training sessions. We also advise that our members complete resistance training sessions 3 times each week, preferably on days when you are not doing HIIT.

Resistance vs. HIIT – what we recommend and why

HIIT has been shown to be a time efficient and effective way to reduce visceral fat (1); research recognises that combining a low-carb diet and HIIT has been suggested to be more effective at targeting visceral fat than doing either one alone.

Weight loss that is induced purely by calorie restrictions has been shown to lead to a reduction in lean muscle mass (2). This, coupled with the fact that at around age 30 we start losing as much as 3 to 5 percent of lean muscle mass per year thanks to aging (3), highlights the importance of resistance training. This type of training will help maintain and increase your muscle mass and ensure that you are losing fat and not muscle.

Ideally, combining both strength training and HIIT will yield remarkable results. Strength training alone will add muscle and lead to a stronger physique. HIIT will work the cardiovascular system and accelerate body fat loss at a faster rate than if you were to do strength training alone.

The Fast 800 HIIT sessions

HIIT is characterised by repeated work phases of vigorous or ‘maximum effort’ exercise, each separated by periods of rest or low intensity exercise.

During our HIIT sessions, you will complete a warm up followed by one or multiple sets of 3 short bursts of maximum intensity exercise, each interspersed with recovery periods. Followed by a cool down. The whole workout should take between 5-15 minutes at an intensity that suits your exercise level.

You don’t need equipment to do your HIIT sessions meaning you can complete them from home. Here are some great HIIT ideas and examples of what you can expect to see in our exercise plans:

• squats/weighted squats
• reverse lunges
• marching, high knees or jogging on the spot
• step ups onto a single step or up/down stairs
• jumping jacks
• glute bridges
• mountain climbers
• lateral skaters or side steps
• punching/shadow boxing (optional 0.5-1kg weight)

You can also do your HIIT sessions by cycling/exercise bike, using a rowing machine, on the cross trainer or even swimming in the pool, if you have access to these options.

The secret to doing HIIT is not speed, but effort. You have to push yourself, whether you’re on an exercise bike, sprints, jumping jacks or even running up the stairs! As long as you are putting in your maximal effort, at whatever speed that happens to be, it will improve your health by:

• increasing calorie expenditure post exercise;
• improving metabolism;
• reducing visceral fat;
• Strengthening cardiovascular system; and,
• Increasing blood flow.

Our resistance exercise

During The Fast 800 programme we provide you with three different resistance sessions per week, catered to your level of fitness. This type of training will help maintain/ increase your muscle mass and ensure that you are losing fat and not muscle.

Our resistance training sessions are time based, meaning you can focus on your technique properly without having to worry about completing a certain number of repetitions in an allocated time period.

Time-based sessions also enable you to progress your weights and duration of the exercises from one week to the next.

What do you need?

• 20-30 minutes
• A towel or yoga mat for comfort
• A water bottle for hydration
• A clear space – if it fits your mat, that’s usually enough
• Dumbbells if you have them, although filled water bottles or canned goods make great substitutes
• A chair or step

Exercise science researchers suspect that strength training is helpful for weight loss because it helps increase your resting metabolism (the rate at which your body burns calories when you’re just going about your day, not exercising).

Strength training also benefits your balance, coordination, and posture (4). One study showed that in older people who are at higher risk of falling (and causing a lot of damage), as a result of worse physical functioning, strength training reduced this risk of falling by 40 percent compared with individuals who did not do strength-training exercise (5).

Support from our Health Coaches and our workout library

Our workout library sits alongside the Online Programme exercise plans; containing Pilates workouts, stretching sessions and additional HIIT workouts. You can complete these at any time during the week or replace a resistance workout with a Pilates session!

We release extra content, Q&A forums and offer motivation and guidance on our lively Community platform for all members. Our dedicated and knowledgeable Health Coaches are always on hand to answer any questions you may have in the various active groups.

To find out your fitness level, and try our professionally created and developed exercise plans, sign up to your 7 day free trial today!