Accessories

It WILL work
People who are giving this book a poor review either have not read the book (some admitted to that) or are completely missing the point and did not stick to the routine. The bottom line is what gives you the most bang for your buck in the most efficient manner possible. In other words, doing the least in order to get the most. You will get that from this routine. IF you follow the recommendations and stick to it you will be getting a lot of bang and not have to spend hours of your time each week trying to get it. The book is not so much "anti-cardio", it's just that cardio is not nearly as effective and "healthy" as we've been lead to believe, so why risk injury doing it. We've been fed a complete bill of goods when it comes to cardio. The FACT of that is strongly pointed out and backed up in this book. Aerobic exercise does very little for the heart and nothing for the lungs. That is fact. It's also not nearly as effective a weight loss tool as you would think. The people whose doctors are telling them to do cardio for the health of their heart are uninformed doctors. Autopsies of life-long marathon runners show extreme artery blockage just like someone who's never run a step in their lives. Even Ken Cooper, the father of the aerobics movement, admits that aerobic fitness is not necessary for good health. Fitness does not equate to health, that's the point. I've been a life long runner who, now in my early 40's, may have a bum hip as a result. Don't make that mistake! I've quit running and now only lift weights and do some walking. If you enjoy something that is also "cardio", such as tennis or walking, continue to do so if those activities give you that enjoyment. This program will only serve to enhance those activities, you just don't HAVE to do them to be healthy.

Enlightening
In simple, non-scientific language, this book explains why going slow is the way to do it. I've just started using this approach and it seems to work. The book falls a bit short by not showing showing a wide range of exercies.

Better than Pilates for losing inches when incorporated into a more traditional workout schedule.
I have waited years to review this book: I bought it five years ago with "The Power of Ten" when I was a professional Pilates instructor. At the time, I was 33, and working as a Pilates teacher in the busiest Pilates studio in the city--of which I was the owner. I did this program for three months without following the dietary recommendations other than cutting out bread and pasta. Clients who hadn't seen me in a few months looked dumbstruck when they saw me: "WHAT are you doing? Your hips are gone!"

Some people are foodies: I'm an exercise-ie. I like trying new ways to work out, and one of the things that made me a good Pilates teacher is that I made a point of trying to figure out which exercises worked best for certain body types. One of my students who took from me for years came to me one day, and said, "I love this stuff for the meditation, but I've gone back to the gym. Heavy weight training is the only thing that makes me physically smaller."

I had a hard time believing her: weight training with light reps and little weight had always made me bulk up--one of the things I loved about Pilates is that it didn't make me bigger.

However, I was frustrated with the fact that although Pilates had done incredible things for my coordination, flexibility, strength and overall appearance, and it had made me lot thinner than I would be without it, I had never been able to make my legs much smaller. (Prussian ancestors. Enough said.)

So, I started reading about heavy weight lifting, including another book like this called the "Power of Ten". I chose the routine in this book over the "Power of Ten" because it seemed safer. The exercises in this book use a very limited range of motion--they specifically avoid challenging your balance or using your rotator cuff with your arms out to the side, movements which I had seen injure clients when done with a heavier weight, both in my own practice and from people who had shown up to my studio with black eyes. (Stability ball and heavy hand weights. Hmm...that will end well.)

Anyway, from following this program, I became the thinnest I have been in my adult life, with the exception of the years I went to strict Iyengar yoga classes three days a week. (I love yoga, but to really get the muscles activated you have to concentrate in ways that feel like work. Now that I work for a living, some weeks I'm not up for that.)

Aside from the fact that this takes less time and less mental effort than some other kinds of strength training, I never felt like I was about to get hurt while doing this routine. Traditional weight training programs use movements that might injure some people precisely because of the large range of motion required; the number of repetitions required by standard weight training can cause overuse injuries or injuries because of poor form when you have to do so many of them.

All in all, I highly recommend this workout. But, I disagree entirely with the idea that this is all you need. I found that I had much better results in terms of lack of pain and tightness when I did this workout and then did the Pilates matwork for thirty minutes afterward: we've all seen those guys at the gym who are bound up by their arm muscles. That's what happens when you use a muscle to the point that it has to repair and then don't re-set the resting muscle tone to its normal length--the muscle heals shorter. Not good.

Also, I found that it was really helpful to do a Pilates machine workout on the third day to work out the lactic acid and to remind myself not to start hunching over with my newfound, but still-not-entirely healed-and-slightly-painful strength.

Finally, both authors are from cities where people walk. I think that fact causes an error in the thought process used by both authors to evaluate how exercise effects the human body: their test populations were doing this with another form of exercise before they started weight training. Furthermore, most of the people featured in both the "Power of Ten" and this book have active jobs like teaching and modeling. So, the experience of both authors had to be that doing just this workout once a week will make you thin--but, the results are actually from walking with this workout.

Truly, without some extra activity, it doesn't work: I found that when I stopped being a Pilates teacher and got a more sedentary job, this was not enough exercise to keep me from gaining weight, even though I was actively dieting. There is a, 'calories-in, calories-out' truthism here. Also, both human growth hormone and metabolism are stimulated by intermittent activity, which would require more than once a week exercise. (See the book, "The Spark." by Gaesser.)

In addition, you need to walk or run or jump or dance for other reasons--there is a lot of evidence that even very mild cardiovascular exercise improves brain function dramatically in a way that strength training does not. If part of your goal as you get older is to keep your marbles, weight training is not enough.

That's not to say you can do this and keep up a heavy workout schedule: it wouldn't work--it would just be overtraining. However, when combined with some kind of Pilates, yoga, or stretching, and even a little bit of walking, um, well, yeah, this is the magic bullet.

Great Concept poor to low examples
I was very interested in the concept of the slow burn work out. The book began with interesting concepts and theories though a bit brief (book is only 181 pages). However when it got to the exercises' it only had 13 for the gym and it looked like exercise for dummies in slow motion. There is minimal description and use info with no alternatives. Also, since muscles tend to adapt to the same routine there were no alternatives for developing a long term program.

This book is a total waste of time and money. The Eade's duo have done a real disservice to their Protein Power reputation by putting out a quick money raising hack of a self help book.

A Low-Carb Fitness Routine That Produces RESULTS!
After I decided to finally get serious about starting a resistance training regimen a few weeks ago, I received several e-mails from my blog readers who told me to look into the "slow burn" method for training. I had no idea what they were talking about because I wasn't really into weight lifting until recently. It turns out this was a unique form of weight lifting that was developed by Fred Hahn in conjunction with two of my favorite low-carb advocates: Dr. Michael Eades (who should be our next president, ya know...LOL!) and his lovely wife Dr. Mary Dan Eades.

Hahn as been a professional trainer for over two decades and believes people have been given useless information as it relates to exercise. As a natural skeptic of anything regarding health since starting low-carb, my curiosity was piqued. Rather than doing hours upon hours of cardio training every week, Hahn says, why not invest in a deliberate and very intense weight lifting that is unlike anything you've ever seen or done before? That's what The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution is all about and it will radically change what you think you know about building muscle.

When these strategies outlined by Hahn and the Eades are implemented correctly, your body will get stronger, burn more fat, rev up your metabolism, and you'll do it faster than you ever thought would be possible. In fact, he says you can get all the workout you need in just 30 minutes a week. Yep--A WEEK!

In conjunction with a healthy low-carb lifestyle, you'll be lifting slowly, feeling the burn in your muscles quickly, and getting stronger and stronger as the weeks go by. Whether you have access to gym equipment or if you can only fit it in your schedule from home, it's all in this book and then some. Specific detailed instructions about the exercises you need to do are included and they answer all the questions you may have about each one.

After spending a lifetime of torturing yourself on a treadmill to try to lose weight with little to no results, maybe it's time to give The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution a try to get stronger, feel better, and do your body some good.