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Afterburner

If only you could make your time OUTSIDE the gym as productive as your time INSIDE the gym, huh?

You’d become a “fat burning machine”, so to speak.

So get excited, buddy, because the good news is I figured out a way to do just that!

Afterburner workout schedule

Workout Calendar

Afterburner is an 8-week program, where you will train 6x per week.

If can’t train Monday-to-Saturday but would still like to use this program, don’t worry, you can do that by applying the following instructions.

If you are only able to train 3x per week I recommend doing the first three workouts and then simply picking up where you left off the following week. This ensures you have trained your full-body, even with a reduced number of sessions. The whole program will take twice as long to complete, but it’ll still be very effective.

Those of you who can only train 4x per week can do so by hitting the first three workouts so you’ve hit your whole body and then selecting one of the remaining sessions from that week as your fourth workout. I recommend choosing the workout for a muscle group which you feel needs extra work.

And use the same template if you can only train 5x per week, but you’d have an extra workout to select.

the afterburn effect

What Is "The Afterburn Effect"?

Each aspect of this program is designed to amplify a mechanism known as “The Afterburn Effect”.

The scientific name for this phenomenon is EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), but I’m sure you’ll agree that “the afterburn effect” sounds much cooler!

It’s a temporary state which, when triggered by intense exercise, enables you to continue burning calories at an accelerated rate for many hours after your workout is complete.

So how does it work?

Well, it all comes down to learning how the body's different energy systems work, and understanding how to tap into each one to give you you results you are trying to achieve.

For example, if you are performing traditional cardio (e.g. jogging on a treadmill for 30 minutes) then the body will tap into the aerobic energy system. This energy system uses fat for fuel. This is by no means a bad thing, but we can do even better!

Because when we switch to a more intense form of exercise (like HIIT or weight training) the body switches over to the anaerobic energy system. This energy system uses carbohydrates for fuel, and it triggers EPOC (“The Afterburn Effect”), so only do you get the calorie burn you create in your workout, you continue burning calories outside the gym, too!

Studies show that EPOC can last for up to 14 hours (!). (1, 2)

Crazy, right?!

A graph showing how the afterburn effect from HIIT is mich bigger than that of aerobic cardio.
HIIT and weights workout program

What Is "Intermittent Cardio"?

Barely anyone is familiar with this technique.

However, I promise that by the end of this program it’ll become one of your favourite training methods!

If you take a look at the workouts section you’ll notice that each workout contains 28 minutes of cardio alongside your weight training, but it’s broken up into four 7 minute “chunks” instead of all at once.

That’s intermittent cardio.

A 2011 study showed that doing this can produce superior performance and a higher calorie burn versus doing long-form cardio (even HIIT!).

The researchers reported that trainees found it significantly easier to smash through shorter blocks of cardio, and generally pushed themselves harder. Also, when the trainees switched to doing HIIT-style intermittent cardio the results soared even higher! (3)

This makes a lot of sense when we consider that HIIT is based around the concept of short bursts at high intensity. Heck, I could go as far as to say that intermittent cardio is “tailor made” for HIIT workouts. (1, 4)


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