Costco Connection - January 2008

for your health

Hello muscle,

goodbye fat

Shrink your waist for a healthier you

By Jorge Cruise

IF YOU’RE LIKE MILLIONS of other people, I bet there’s one thing that has eluded you for years: a flat belly. While we all want a trim waistline because it looks good on the beach, the quest shouldn’t be just about vanity. Excess abdominal fat has been linked to serious health issues, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and strokes. If you can get rid of belly fat, you can reduce the risks of developing those mala-dies—and improve your overall health.

You’re probably thinking, “OK, but how do I find enough time in my busy life to get a flat belly?” The answer is a new exercise method I developed called the 12-Second Sequence™. Here’s a sneak preview.

Replacing fat with muscle

Your first goal should be to replace fat in your body with lean muscle tissue. Why? Fat is considered a “lazy” tissue because it uses very little energy.

Muscle, on the other hand, is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. The more lean muscle tissue you have, the higher your resting metabolism.

And here’s the good news: As you add lean muscle tissue, you increase your resting metabolism and burn more calories, even while doing nothing at all! This includes burning fat in places like your belly. How do you build lean muscle? It’s easier than you think.

How it’s done

The 12-Second Sequence will help you shrink your waist in two weeks—all in just 20

minutes, twice a week. How does it work? It combines proven resistance-training techniques to create a revolutionary method to help you effectively and efficiently build new lean muscle. Using what I call Controlled Tension™, the 12-Second Sequence engages all of your muscle fiber types when you work out.

The only way to create new fat-burning lean muscle tissue is to fatigue all three different fiber types of skeletal muscle—achieving what’s called full muscle saturation. When you fully saturate muscle tissue, you create denser, stronger muscle that increases your metabolism and gives you a firm, toned body. Controlled Tension consists of two techniques: slow cadence lifting and static contraction. With slow cadence lifting, an exercise movement is slowed to a 10-second count, allowing you to complete an exercise with a controlled, fluid movement. This technique creates less stress on joints while increasing lean muscle tissue faster than traditional resistance training methods.

Static contraction also helps you reach full muscle saturation—not by working harder, but by working smarter. It is based on a “static,” or motionless, hold at a strategic point in an exercise movement— referred to as the maximum tension point, or MTP, with this program. This point is simply the one that creates the most stress on your muscle.

When you combine slow cadence lifting for 10 seconds with a “static” two-second hold, you achieve Controlled Tension, the key element to creating results with the 12-Second Sequence.

Attacking the abs THE BICYCLE CRUNCH is a great exercise to at tack a big belly. Here’s how it works. Lie flat on your back. Place your hands behind your head and raise your heels about 2 inches from the ground, keeping your chin up and abs tight throughout the exercise. Bring your right elbow to your left knee and feather your breathing (take a deep breath and follow with short controlled exhaled bursts; repeat throughout exercise) as you rotate to the other side for a count of 10 seconds. Hold and squeeze for 2 seconds at the maximum tension point (where your left elbow meets your right knee). Lower to starting position through a count of 10 seconds. Without resting, repeat three times.—JC

JORGECRUISE.COM, INC.

58 The Costco Connection JANUARY 2008

JORGECRUISE. COM, INC.

The Costco
Connection
The 12 Second Sequence
is available at most Costco
warehouse locations and
on costco.com. Also avail-
able is The 12 Second Sequence Workout
DVD Kit in the warehouses and online.

Circuit training for the whole body

The last component is the bonus part of this program: circuit training. Circuit training is when several exercises are arranged in order and done consecutively without any rest. It allows you to get a full-body workout in a compressed amount of time. Plus, it adds a fundamental cardio element, which keeps your heart rate up and helps you burn more calories.

My firm belief is that you will experience benefits from the 12-Second Sequence almost immediately. Within the first week, you will notice increased energy and your muscles will feel more fatigued faster than with other exercise programs. After two weeks, you will notice your waist shrinking and your pants will start to feel a little baggy—a result of lean muscle tissue sculpting and toning your body and replacing bulky fat tissue. Complete the eight weeks of the program and you will be in your best shape ever. C

Jorge Cruise is the author of The 12 Second Sequence and the New York Times bestsellers 8 Minutes in the Morning and The 3-Hour Diet. See more at www.12Second.com.