Surge Training!

So a friend of mine sent me an article this morning and I thought it was an interesting take and cardio routines. It's called Surge training. It's similar to interval training with it's burst of energy for 30 - 60 seconds and then a rest period. For example, one could run their ass off for 30 - 60 seconds and then take it to a brisk walking pace for a rest. Then you'd repeat that three times. A lot of programs out there use burst of energy, intervals, anaerobic portions to inhance the fat burning. This seems to have taken that idea and branched out. I like it because it can be easily adapted to any cardio that you do. I also like that they mention how pills are shit, diet is important, and strength training is also beneficial. It's not a promise of impossible results with no work. Here's the article.

Surge training promises to work off the weight

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you want to drop those extra pounds, you shouldn't work out more than about half an hour a week, says Dr. Dan Pompa, a Wexford chiropractor who is one of the nation's chief advocates of surge training.

As a college student at the University of Pittsburgh, Ann Caldwell, 23, was on a host of medications and couldn't lose weight no matter how much she exercised. But she's lost more than 30 pounds on her 5-foot-4 frame in the year and a half since she started following Dr. Pompa's exercise and nutrition recommendations.

"I was one of those gym rats working out hour upon hour with no result," she said. "Surge training has changed my life. I don't diet. I've never felt better."

Ms. Caldwell was so impressed with what Dr. Pompa has done for her that she went to work for him.
Surge training consists of short spurts of intense exercise, followed by rest.
"It's similar to the concept of interval training, only done within a more limited time frame and with a strong focus on the importance of recovery time. It's the difference between a sprinter and a long distance runner," Dr. Pompa said.

Surge training works not so much because of what you do while you're exercising but because of what your body does after you've finished, Dr. Pompa said.

"To understand 21st century weight loss, you have to understand hormones," he said.
The right kind of exercise stimulates hormones -- chiefly human growth hormone or HGH -- that burn fat and build muscle, Dr. Pompa said. But if you do the wrong kind of exercise, you'll stimulate instead hormones which resist fat burning.

"The point of surge training is to shock your body into responding physiologically so that when you're done exercising, you're in a better metabolic state for getting toned," Dr. Pompa said.

Rest is critically important, so you should allow at least a day between each surge workout, he said.
"You work against yourself if you don't do that," he said.
The purpose of surge training is to burn up the glycogen (a sugar the body creates that is the primary short term source of energy) in our muscles, forcing the body to create more from our deposits of fat. The fat loss actually occurs in the 24-36 hours after we've exercised, not during it, Dr. Pompa said.

He recommends doing a high intensity aerobic exercise for 30 to 60 seconds, followed by two to three minutes of rest, whatever is required to recover your breath and get your heart rate back to normal. This should be repeated three times.

"That'll be enough to deplete the glycogen in your muscles," Dr. Pompa said. "Research shows that beyond three or four sets there is very little additional benefit for the effort expended."

Almost any form of cardiovascular exercise can be adapted to surge training, he said. You can do it on a treadmill, elliptical machine or exercise bike at the gym, by climbing stairs at home, by running or cycling outside.

Classic aerobic exercise -- a lower intensity workout over a longer period of time, like the 30-45 minutes I've been spending most days on an exercise bike -- actually can retard fat loss, he said.

"Classic aerobic exercise raises stress hormones, the hormones that stimulate appetite, break down muscle, and increase fat storage," Dr. Pompa said.

"There are lots of good reasons for going for a long run or bike ride," he said. "It's great for your heart, improves your endurance, and stimulates the production of endorphins, which give you the so-called runner's high. But if your primary goal is weight loss, it's counterproductive."

Resistance exercise (weight lifting), on the other hand, is an excellent complement to surge training, Dr. Pompa said.
"Resistance training is surge training," he said. "You'll gain muscle through surge training alone, but you'll gain more muscle, and take the fat off faster, if you combine surge training with resistance training."

It's best to do surge training after a weight lifting workout, said Dr. Pompa, 43, but he sometimes does surge training and resistance training on alternate days.

"If you're in the habit of working out every day, this is the way to do it without sabotaging your weight loss goals," he said.

A 1989 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Pompa earned his doctor of chiropractic degree from the University of Life in Marietta, Ga., in 1995. He changed the emphasis of his practice in 2005 after suffering from a series of debilitating ailments, which he cured by changing his diet and adopting the surge exercise program.

Dr. Pompa is interested primarily in the nutritional side of health. He thinks many of the ailments from which we suffer are the product of toxins introduced into our bodies by eating "man-made" foods rather than "God-made" foods.

"Toxins can inhibit fat burning as much or more than improper exercise does," he said. "But the primary reason for being concerned about them is the effect they have on our health."

Dr. Pompa uses surge training as a lure to get people to attend his "Makeover Seminars," the next of which will be held at the Marriott Pittsburgh North in Cranberry on Saturday.

Dr. Pompa's views on diet and nutrition are controversial within the medical community, but he's on sounder ground with surge training, said Dr. Moira Davenport, a sports medicine physician at Allegheny General Hospital.

"Surge training seems to make some sense, but it's never been borne out in the literature," she said.
A few studies of elite athletes tend to support Dr. Pompa's claims for surge training, Dr. Davenport said, but no studies she's aware of have been done on the effect of surge training on ordinary people.

"It's something that hasn't been looked at much," she said.