5 Reasons Your Workout Isn't Working

Co-President Joey Gonzalez of Barry's Bootcamp, the high-intensity workout that helps celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Jessica Alba and Jake Gyllenhaal stay in amazing shape, reveals where he thinks most women's workouts go wrong-and what you can do to fix it.

1. You do one or the other: cardio or body sculpting. "Don't get me wrong, half of our class is cardiovascular, but the strength training is equally as important, and that's really what helps kick metabolism into high gear," Gonzalez says.

2. You ignore weights. "What you're doing when working out is building muscle, and muscle is an integral part of actually burning calories throughout the day. With weights, your body is burning 'x' amount of calories more an hour than it was before you did it-and that's not true of cardio. That's why women who tend to use weights and bring it into their regular exercise program are not only stronger and healthier, but on average have better bodies. If you touch their arms they're strong, they're not soft. Women complain about 'flarm' (laughs), the flabby arm area, and, really, the best way to target that is working your triceps."

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3. You think the more you do, the more fat you're going to burn. "This is not necessarily the case. When you're doing cardiovascular at an intense level for an extended period of time, your body goes into what's called a 'steady state' and it actually begins to burn its own muscle. That's obviously very counter-productive, so you can actually do more harm than good sometimes when you're going too crazy on the cardio."

4. You forget that one pace doesn't win the race. "You're supposed to vary levels of exertion in order to optimally burn fat. These kinds of things all date back to the caveman days when that's how you'd hunt. First of all, bikes didn't even exist so there you have that (laughs). Second of all, when you went out, when would you ever run 60 minutes at a 7.0? It just never happened. You'd be walking down a path and then maybe you'd see something in the bushes so you'd start jogging, and then you'd go slower, and then you'd sprint to it, raise a rock, and kill it. That's how the human body responds, and that's kind of what we base our workouts by."

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5. You think there are "men's" and "women's" workouts. "Honestly, the women get through [BBC classes] just as easily, if not easier, than the men. Women are very, very strong and resilient and I've just been impressed over the 7 years of my career."


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