The NEW Peak Fitness Program Peak fitness is a term to represent a comprehensive exercise program that includes far more than typical cardio training. The major change is that once or twice a week you do peak exercises, in which you raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, and then you recover for 90 seconds.

You would repeat this cycle for a total of eight repetitions. These cycles are preceded by a three minute warm up and two minute cool down so the total time investment is about 20 minutes.

The intensity is absolutely individual. For some it may be as simple as fast walking alternating with slow walking.

You can improvise it into just about any type of exercise, and you really don't require a gym membership or any equipment to do it. If you do have access to equipment, using an elliptical or recumbent bike work really well.

One of the major reasons I am so enthusiastic about peak fitness is that it can actually increase your growth hormone level.

In order to better grasp the benefits of peak fitness exercises, you first need to understand that you have three different types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast. And only ONE of these muscles will impact your production of a vital hormone called HGH, or human growth hormone, which is KEY for strength, health and longevity.

Currently, the vast majority of people, including many athletes such as marathon runners, only train using their slow muscle fibers, which has the unfortunate effect of actually causing the super fast fibers to decrease or atrophy.

In fact, neither traditionally performed aerobic cardio nor strength training will work anything but your slow muscles. These are the red muscles, which are filled with capillaries and mitochondria, and hence a lot of oxygen.

Next you have the fast type of fiber which is also red muscle, and oxygenates quickly, but is five times faster than the slow fibers. Power training, or plyometrics burst types of exercises will engage these fast muscles.

The super-fast ones are the white muscle fibers. They contain far less blood and less densely packed mitochondria. These muscle fibers are what you use when you do anaerobic short burst exercises.

High intensity burst cardio is the form of exercise that will engage these super fast fibers. They're ten times faster than slow fibers, and this is the key to producing growth hormone!

Are You in Somatopause (Age Related Growth Hormone Deficiency?) As you reach your 30s and beyond, you enter what's called "somatopause," when your levels of HGH begin to drop off quite dramatically, because they begin leading increasingly more sedentary life styles. This is part of what drives your aging process.

Children and most animals in the wild do not run marathons or lift weights, they move at high speeds for very short periods of time and then rest. This is natural and what optimizes the production of growth hormone.

The higher your levels of growth hormone, the healthier and stronger you're going to be. And the longer you can keep your body producing higher levels of HGH, the longer you will experience robust health and strength.

Benefits of Peak Fitness Exercises Once you regularly participate in these 20 minute exercises about twice a week, most people notice the following benefits:

·         Lowers your body fat

·         Dramatically improves muscle tone

·         Firms your skin and reduces wrinkles

·         Boosts your energy and sexual desire

·         Improves athletic speed and performance

·         Allows you to achieve your fitness goals much faster

How to Properly Perform Peak Fitness Exercises to Increase Your Growth Hormone Levels First of all, please remember that you can perform this with any type of exercise, and you can easily perform this by walking or running on flat ground or doing Pilates and varying the gentle exercises with the vigorous exercises. You want to exercise vigorously enough so you reach your anaerobic threshold as this is where the "magic" happens that will trigger your growth hormone release.

Whatever activity you choose, by the end of your 30 second period you will want to reach these markers:

·         It will be relatively hard to breathe and talk because you are in oxygen debt

·         You will start to sweat profusely. Typically this occurs in the second or third repetition unless you have a thyroid issue and don't sweat much normally.

·         Your body temperature will rise

·         Lactic acid increases and you will feel a muscle "burn"

If you are using cardio equipment like an elliptical or bike, you don't need to reach any "magical" speed. It's highly individual, based on your current level of fitness. But you know you're doing it right when you're exerting yourself to the point of typically gasping for breath, after a short burst of activity.

An added boon is that you'll save a tremendous amount of time because peak fitness will cut your hour-long cardio workout down to a total of 20 minutes or so, including your recovery time, warm-up and cool down.

If you can do a peak fitness workout twice a week, and follow the dietary recommendations I'll go over next, you will increase your production of growth hormone.

Dietary Recommendations to Maximize Growth Hormone Release To maximize your growth hormone release you need to:

·         Get a good night's sleep

·         Avoid a high fat meal prior to exercising

·         Drink plenty of water

·         Eat healthy carbs (think vegetables) and high quality protein

·         Optimize your vitamin D levels

·         Avoid sugar, especially fructose

The last part is absolutely crucial.

If you consume sugar or fructose, especially within two hours post-exercise, you will increase somatostatin which will in turn obliterate the production of growth hormone!

This is yet another example of why gulping down sports drinks that are chockfull of high fructose corn syrup can do your body more harm than good, and will just shut down your body's production of HGH and negate many of the benefits from your exercise.