New workout and diet plans are a dime a dozen, and when you have two goals - to lose weight and gain muscle mass - there can be some confusion as to what is a legit method. Infomercial equipment is always sketchy at best, but on the bright side you don’t have to devote every free hour you have in the gym either to get results.

If you want to gain muscle while losing weight, the way to go about it is to work on your body as a whole, which is what interval training does. Rather than running for hours and hours every week - which will only build leg muscle, interval training instead works on all of the muscle groups throughout your body in order to lose weight and build muscle evenly.

One of the key elements of interval training is the increasing level of intensity as you go and as you get stronger and more used to the workouts. You can choose to target specific muscle groups with exercises or do compound exercises that incorporate many muscle groups. With all of the possible exercises and routines, you can still interested while keeping your body guessing, which leads to great gains.

The shorter recovery time in between workouts is one of the biggest benefits of interval training. Instead of conventional workouts which can leave you feeling too sore and exhausted to repeat the regimen for as long as a week, interval training uses an incremental approach which lets you recover faster and be ready to workout again sooner.

Of course one of the biggest selling points for interval training is that the routines are legitimately fun and engaging to do. You don’t have to trudge over to the treadmill or Stairmaster for yet another hour long misery session. You can switch up the exercises you do from day to day or week to up to keep things exciting. The important thing to realize is that you just have to pick appropriate exercises to target the body parts you want.

Interval training works to speed up your metabolism, but doesn’t require you to work out for hours at a time. By using the different muscle groups in every exercise session, you are signaling your entire body that it is time to lose weight. By doing so, you can stimulate your metabolism to process food in a healthier manner, making it much easier to lose weight in a reasonable amount of time.

It is important to not only work out the muscles when exercising, but is as equally as important to work out the lungs and the heart. It doesn’t mean that you have to engage in cardio exercises for an hour at a time, since interval training actually works out the heart and the lungs as well. By breathing during repetitions, the lungs are being worked out even in low impact exercises. The heart is also being worked as heart rate increases, which is usually done by increased weight and faster repetitions.

This system isn’t some fad workout plan or a scam aimed at the wallets of those trying to lose weight - it is a method which is proven to work to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. You can build lean muscle mass while burning fat by doing low impact workouts which work on various muscle groups. You won’t be exhausted and sore afterward - and you’ll get better results than any “cardio” workout can offer you.