Confessions of a human being of our time: summer: bikini or boxer operation or whatever is taken to the beach, autumn: losing those extra kilometers caused by tapas and other summer excesses, winter: my purpose for the new year is to lose weight and be a better person... spring: blood alters and soon summer will arrive... Four problems that boil down to one: I want to lose weight!

Well, let's value options... miracle diets exemestane, discarded because they harm my health, healthy living, vaaaalee! But to lose those rebellious centimeters I will go to the gym. Volume reduction costs, and this is where I will start sweating. I call God for a witness that I will not gain weight again.

We pay tuition, put on our most chic sportswear and look for the best option to achieve our goals: What should we do? A lot of cardio (bike, treadmill, elliptical...), cardio and weights (or toning)... After rigorous monitoring I have come to the conclusion that the annihilating option of rebellious centimeters is.......cardio, toning and a small change in diet.

Using a triseries training will help us reduce volume (thin) and gain strength-resistance. Although its benefits may vary depending on the number of series, repetitions ... as in other types of exercise programs.

1. Before you start

First we are going to divide users into two large groups: those who have no ailment and those who do have some type of ailment or illness. If you are from the second group you will have to evaluate together with your monitor, doctor, physio ... the possibility of carrying out the program or not. Something more important than turning down in volume is health. If you are going to perform the triseries program (as I call it in the POC application) it is quite demanding, so you must have a small physical form to be able to support the program, not only physically, but morphologically.

If we pay attention to a person's physical form when one exercises, he gets tired, obviously isn't it? Depending on your physical form you can maintain exercise for longer and with more intensity. For this reason a person who starts in the gym will perform less amount and intensity of exercise than another who has a better physical shape, and in this case the amount is important.

From the morphological point of view, a person who does not exercise has his structures (tendons, bones, cartilage ...) weaker, they are not adapted to physical activity. If someone who starts in the gym performs a very intense activity, they can damage these structures in more or less time. If physical activity does not lead to its proper progression and rest, that undesirable injury can come. Not all structures have the same time of adaptation to exercise, for example the muscle can begin to adapt to exercise in approximately two or three weeks. The tendons, bones and cartilage need more time to adapt, approximately two months. If that progression is not made in training it can happen that the muscle becomes very strong but the tendons do not manage to withstand the force it exerts (because it still did not give them time to become more resistant) ... tendonitis, tendinosis, ruptures ... are the possible consequences of this poor exercise planning. If we were to have one of these consequences we would waste all the time we were exercising, we will need some time to recover and then exercise again in an even more progressive way (so as not to relapse), and that without taking into account that in the face of an injury one may not look good.

Weight exercises or toning are a very demanding type of activity for the structures of our body due to their high intensity. The best example is the laces that one suffers after performing a toning training for the first time in his life and gives it a little cane, at first it seems to one that he is not doing anything ... however after a few hours he will begin to lament his acts. It also usually happens when after a break (a month or more) in our workouts we train again with the same intensity with which we leave it ... the next day we remember that we are human.

A very important point to keep in mind if we go to the gym with the intention of losing weight is to be clear that losing weight is not synonymous with weighing less. If you only check the results of your training on a scale, you are more than likely to think that it is wasting time because you will believe that you are not achieving your goal. Keep in mind that when you exercise the bones and muscles will weigh more. The former because they become stronger, have more calcium, to support the work to which they are being subjected. The muscles will become denser and grow (they will grow more or less depending on the person, the type of exercise ...). What usually happens when one starts training is that at first the body begins to weigh a little less, but after a month (approximately) that decrease in weight can stagnate or even rise a little. This point is usually a little conflictive with women, because they don't want to have muscle and think they're going to get like a bodybuilder. Girls, girls... you should know that this is not going to be so, the muscles grow a little, I will not deny it, but it is very little because with this program a lot of cardio is performed and you do not let the body rest so that the muscle can grow. Still every person is a world, but first try the program for 2-3 months and then it will be decided. I appreciate that if someone performs the program they contact me to give me their results.

2. That I base myself on to carry out the program.

To lose weight you have to comply with a rule: spend more energy than you consume. The example I always use is that of a bank account, if you have less income than expenses little by little you lose money. In our case, if you eat fewer calories than you spend little by little, you will lose weight. If on the other hand you deposit more money than you spend, over time you have more money in the account, in our case that "extra" accumulates like fat.

Taking into account this maxim we must find a way to exercise and spend as many calories as possible, both during exercise and after. Keep in mind that the body not only spends energy during the activity, but only because we are alive we have an energy expenditure to maintain our vital functions, maintain the structures ... this expense is basal consumption. This consumption can vary and will play a very important role in helping us lose weight.

When physical activity is performed, your body will automatically select the type of energy substrate (fat, carbohydrates or proteins) that it will use. Most of the time it is recommended to perform aerobic work of a minimum of 30 minutes to lose weight, because from 20 minutes the energy used comes primarily from fat. In that type of activity the intensity cannot be very high (but you can't stand that time), in this way the calories per hour that are consumed are low. However, if you exercise more intense and brief, the calories your body consumes per hour are higher, and even if the percentage of fat used is not so high, the total amount of fat eliminated can become higher.

As always things are not black or white, the body does not have a stopwatch with which after 20 minutes it changes a lever and begins to consume fat like a possessed person. In this case we are going to refer to Fox's "Energy Continuum." Briefly explained, it says that the body uses all energy sources (lipids, carbohydrates and proteins) at all times in different percentages, depending on the intensity and duration of the activity. I comment here on this because the body consumes fat at all times, and not only with long-term exercises (as I have heard on occasion). Another thing is that it is better or worse a way of doing physical activity, or that it can be more or less beneficial for the cardiovascular system.

All this will make sense when we see what the program is like and explain why we have designed it this way.

In addition to spending maximum calories with exercise, we have to control income: "what we eat." We don't have to make great sacrifices, on the contrary, it's better to go little by little. Remember that miracle diets do not exist, and I know more than one case of people who died because of following one of those diets. You can go to a nutritionist, endocrine... as you want. Obviously, following a doctor and performing tests with some frequency is more than recommended. Here are some small guidelines that you can follow:

Make several meals a day, from 5 to 7. Dividing the intake into several meals causes each meal to be smaller, so it will be less likely to accumulate in adipose tissue.

Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables.

Avoid fried foods, pastries... all that I think we all know is not recommended. Obviously avoiding it does not mean eliminating it, if you ever drink a cake nothing happens.

A specialist can give you many other tips. Keep in mind that there are many myths about diets, fattening foods, ways of eating ... most of the time they are not true.

3. The triseries program.

A triseries consists of performing three exercises in a row, it can be performed from the same or different muscle groups. In this case we will perform them from different muscle groups, because we do not want to congest the same muscle, but to make the whole body work to the maximum.

The program is based on combining three toning exercises (in circuit) with cardiovascular work. In this way with cardio you are going to raise the pulses and with the toning ones you are going to make your muscles work.

The cardio exercises will be brief and very intense. Toning exercises will involve large muscle groups, seeking to work the two sides of the body at the same time. We will avoid exercises such as concentrated biceps, save time and keep the body more accelerated.

Between 15 and 20 repetitions of the exercises are performed, without pause between them. In this way, the first toning exercise is performed with a series of 15-20 repetitions, we continue with the second exercise, then the third and we start again with the first. Each round of the three exercises is a series of the triseries. We will perform 3 series (which implies three laps of the three exercises).

To perform the series correctly you have to calculate the maximum weight that can be moved in each exercise, since we must try to move the maximum possible weight for each series. The range of repetitions implies a percentage of the maximum force that can be developed for each movement (see graph).

With 15-20 repetitions, approximately 55% of the maximum force for that movement is being worked on. Since the program does the exercises followed and also performs intense cardiovascular work exercises, it will be difficult to work at that level, so it will be lowered to 50% of the maximum strength (or even 45%), although it will depend on the level of training and the type of work that has been done to date. One recommendation is that in the first series the 20 repetitions can be done without too many problems, so that the second and third can be done the 15. If in one of the series you do not reach the 15 repetitions it means that you are working with a lot of weight ... you must reduce it a little (in time it can be raised again).

As for cardiovascular work, it should be as intense as possible, except for warming up. My recommendation is that the speed or intensity be constant, minus a couple of minutes at the beginning that serve us to gradually increase the intensity. The working time will be between 8-10 minutes. Since the intensity must be very high, I do not recommend using the tape except in the warm-up, since doing it as a second or third cardio exercise can involve a risk of falling (due to accumulated fatigue).

4. The exercises

The exercises I have proposed differently for women and men, because they usually have different tastes. The program that you will see below is the one I use for the boys. Although what changes are the exercises, not the shape of the program. If someone is interested I can send them the exercises.
Once you get to the gym you start warming up on the treadmill or bike. About 10 minutes at a gentle pace at first that we will increase in intensity, but without going over (we are warming up).
After this heating, the first triseries is made: rowing in machine or pulley, horizontal press and shoulder press in machine.

The change between exercises should be quick, and the adjustments of the machine should not involve an excessive waste of time. Depending on the gym where you go there are days of more or less influx, and if we have a busy machine but there is a similar one (or free weight) that fulfills the same function we can change it (but the same day it uses the same machine).

Once the three series are done, we move on to the second cardiovascular exercise: remoergometer or elliptical cross trainer (if there is a better front). About 8-10 minutes at the maximum intensity that can be endured. The first days are of "test" where we look for that maximum intensity. Be careful not to slow down, you must maintain the rhythm and intensity at all times (although anyone has a bad day).
It continues with the second triseries: chest press or openings, femoral curl lying on two legs, biceps curl on standing pulley.

Fatigue begins to accumulate and it will cost a little more to endure the desire to rest for a while, but... you are strong and you can!

The third cardiovascular exercise: climber. Another 8-10 minutes. The climber must be with independent feet, there are some models that when you go down one foot the other goes up and that does not matter here. If what is most desired in the world right now is to stop, think that this is the end of torture. I like the climber as the last exercise because, maintaining the level of the machine, if you slow down... you touch the ground.
The third triseries will focus on the waist: abdominals with raised and supported feet (for example feet on bench or supported on the wall), lumbar arching and waist twists with spade. The repetitions are 15, 15 and 20. In the first exercise we should not raise the lumbar area of the floor, nor pull the head towards the knees, 15 repetitions. The lumbar arching is done pronely lying (face down) with arms and legs extended with the hands as far away as possible from the feet, from that position arms and legs are raised for about three seconds and it is supported again, 15 repetitions. The waist turns with pickaxe are made standing, the feet quite apart, with a pickaxe (wood or plastic) resting on the shoulders and grasped at the ends with the hands. He bends his body up to 45o and bends his knees. From that position you turn from side to side at the maximum possible speed. You don't have to turn too much, as a reference we can have that the elbows can't pass the knees (about 30o in each direction). 20 repetitions are performed, counting a repetition when an elbow reaches the same knee.

4.1 Stretches:

Once this part is finished, they move on to stretching. There will be 9 exercises, each two repetitions followed by 20-30 seconds with 5 pause. It is very common to skip this part of the program and the truth is that we do not recommend it, in fact if someone comes one day with very fair weather we prefer that they do 2 sets of the toning exercises and do the stretches than that they do not do them for doing all three sets. The stretching exercises are:

Back of the neck. Sitting with your knees a little bent, interlacing your hands in the upper area of your head (under the crown). Gently pull the head down, flexing the upper-middle area of the spine.

Lumbar area. Lying with arms crossed and knees bent high. Bring your knees to one side without raising any of your shoulders.

Hamstrings and twins. Sitting with legs apart. Grab the tips of your feet, or try, pulling them towards us while bringing the body to the ground.

Buttock and spine rotators. Sitting with one leg extended and the other crossed above. Push the bent knee with the opposite elbow and turn the trunk in the reverse direction.

Quadriceps. On his knees with one foot supported, grabbing the ankle of the back leg. It pulls the foot towards the buttocks. The hip should be as low as possible. The knee of the forward leg should be above the ankle.

Twins. Standing in front of a wall, a step away from it. Lean with your forearms on the wall keeping your body straight (do not lower your hip). The tips of the feet will be a little inward (internal rotation of the thigh).

Elbow flexors. Standing next to a wall. Rest one hand on the wall at shoulder height (or a little above) with your fingers backwards (the elbow hole is towards the ceiling). Rotate the body until you notice the stretch. Be careful that your shoulder doesn't rise.

Elbow extenders. Standing, bring one hand to your back touching your shoulder from behind. With the other hand bring your elbow back.

5. Results

I have used this program in different gyms with various types of people, and they have all been happy with the result. The two most representative cases are an athletic boy (he played soccer on a team and came to the gym 4-5 days a week) and a girl (he came to the gym 2-4 days a week). Both were thin and had been exercising for some time.

With the triseries program both managed to lose weight. The boy lost about 3 kilos in a month. The girl didn't mean the weight, but she did drop in volume, especially that little bit that she said she had left over in her belly.

If anyone tries this program I would like to continue contrasting opinions. Whether you are monitors or users and if you take data such as the strength that the subjects have, weight, body percentages (fat, lean tissue ...) it would be appreciated if you would tell me to continue having more references. It would also be nice to know if you make modifications and their results. I think that by sharing our experiences we all win.