CITY Interval Workout
CITY Interval Workout

Charles’ Interval Training Younker or CITY Interval Workout

The Ultimate Fat Burning Workout:

Charles’ Interval Training Younker or (C.I.T.Y), a Younker is a young person, so with this sort of training you are going to burn fat like a young person…see how that works? Good, Yes CITY is a self-branded form of High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T).

CITY Interval Workout

In this installment of the Charles Lloyd Fitness Physical and Mental Fitness for Sarcastic People show, I am going to share with you with quickest most efficient possible way to sweat and lose fat, other than being a nickel whore at the explosion of the 25 cent factory in Pelican Bay State Prison.

High Intensity Interval Training Sets (HIITS) or the CITY Workout works on the basis of tricking your body out of going into a “Steady State” or SS to “Shock Mode” or SM. SS is your body’s natural tendency to use energy in the most efficient way possible. Your body in this sense is like a car or a NASA space ship: at start-up, like your car, or a NASA space ship your body uses the most energy to get it going – this is the reason why people love coffee in the morning and why breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day, it gets them going.

Also, like a modern car or Apollo 12 once your body is warmed up (in motion), it uses fuel at the most effective rate possible at any given speed. For the first 5 minutes of your cardiovascular workout, you use energy (stored fat) at a very high rate because your body is getting its core temperature up, your heart rate going, and your lungs expanding. After warming up, which is normally about 4~5 minutes, your body goes out of shock mode (SM) and goes back into a SS. Once here, you start to cruise; but were not here to cruise – we want to trick your body back into SM for maximum fat burn.

Shock Mode is when the magic happens, it “shocks” your body into using stored fat as fuel to deal with the sudden explosion of energy you are using, in this mode you suddenly turn up the “volume” in your cardiovascular workout, thus burning more and more fat.

So in layman’s terms, here is what you’re doing:

    1. Before you start a cardiovascular exercise you are at what’s called a steady state or SS.
    2. When you start your exercise you go into shock mode or SM. This is when maximum fat is burned to cope with the increased intensity of your workout.
    3. To effectively keep burning fat you must go from SM back to SS. after 1~2 minutes.
    4. Repeat 5 times for 15 minutes.

(Studies show SM uses 9X the fat as a continuous SS does).

For the best results, you should invest in a heart rate monitor so you can track your progress and not depend upon perceived effort.

Here is an example of what I do at the gym on a LifeCycle treadmill to keep myself in the single fat percentile along with proper nutrition and rest.

 

 

CITY Interval Workout

 

CITY Workout #1

Here you want to keep a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio:

Exercise Time Counter

  • 5 min warm up at 3.5MPH (5min) Warm-up
  • 2 min SM at 6 MPH (7min) or 50 percent your maximum heart rate.
  • 1 min SS at 3.5 MPH (8min)
  • 2 min SM at 6.5 MPH (10min) or 60 percent your maximum heart rate.
  • 2 min SS at 3.5 MPH (12min)
  • 1 min SM at 7.5 MPH (13min) or 70 Percent your maximum heart rate.
  • 1 min SS at 3.5 MPH (14min)

At this point i’m good with my workout at this point my heart rate is going but here is when it starts to really suck.

  • 2 min SM at 8.5 MPH (16min) or 80 percent your maximum heart rate.
  • 2 min SS at 3.5MPH (18min)
  • 2 min SM at 10 MPH (20 min) or 90 percent your maximum heart rate.

Done! At this point I do a 5 min cool down on the LifeCycle. I’m running while putting on my gloves to go and do circuit training session.

The Trick of CITY and Shock Mode Training

Shock Mode is a tricky thing because intuition would say that the longer you workout the more fat you would burn. NO! This is not the case. I have found in my own training that 20 minutes and “5 Shocks” is the maximum my body will take when you’re just trying to lose fat. After that, your body will expect the shock and will not burn fat at a high rate. It’s kind of like the boy who cried wolf; eventually your body will just ignore it.

This is also true if you do the same CITY workout each and every day. I like to do this workout 2 or 3 times per week then change it up. Your body becomes smarter than your brain after 20 minutes.

So there it is. I will be posting more CITY workouts soon, but the one above will keep going for quite some time.

The key here is to consistently shock yourself to better fitness.

Thanks for looking at my rendition of the CITY Interval Workout.


Charles Lloyd
Charles Lloyd

Self processed fitness missionary and author of most of the ridiculous fitness articles written on Charles Lloyd Fitness.com. I am not really a writer, but a workout fiend who happens to have a blog. The single mission of this website is very simple: Get You In Shape. I have been blessed with the gift of good health and want to share it with you. Join Me.

    1 Response to "CITY Interval Workout"

    • ECS

      Thanks for the basic explanation. I’ve read so much about HIIT, but the scientific portion of it scrambles my brain. I know it’s best, but I just didn’t “get it”. Awesome!

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