The Best Way To Burn Fat – Metabolic Interval Training

People are obsessed with finding the best way to burn fat! Everyone wants to know how to burn excess body fat so that they can look more attractive and fit. And with good reason. Excessive body fat just doesn’t look great on most people. But perhaps even more importantly, excessive body fat can lead to a wide range of serious health issues.

The most important thing you have to know about burning fat is that you have to use a multiple approach strategy. You have to attack it from all angles for the fastest and most permanent change. These approaches include diet, exercise and stress reduction. This article will focus on the role of high intensity exercise, specifically metabolic interval training, and why it’s such an important component of any effective fat loss program.

Fat Burning Exercise

We all know that exercise is an important part of any weight loss program. But what kinds of exercise should we be doing?

best way to burn fat 6

These guys just say "no" to jogging.

Most of the people that I see in the gym get it in their heads that they have to do hours of slow, boring cardio exercise to burn the most fat. These are the same people that I see working out day after day, month after month, year after year and their bodies never seem to change! What gives??

Low intensity, long duration cardio exercises are not efficient for fat burning or body transformation. They do have aerobic and heart health benefits, but are weak when it comes to trying to lose fat and build shapely physiques.

The best fat burning exercises are those that are most effective at boosting your metabolic rate. The key exercise variables for boosting metabolism are exercise intensity and heart rate.

Lose The Cardio and Pick Up Some Weights

You can increase exercise intensity by either increasing the load lifted, increasing the repetition speed or a combination of both. In other words, lift heavier weights, lift faster or both. There will always be a trade-off between exercise intensity and exercise duration. The more intense that you go, the shorter the amount of time that you will be able to perform the exercise. For example, if you sprint full out, you will only be able to maintain that pace for around 10-15 seconds. On the other hand, you can go at a jogging pace for hours.

Jump squats!

The main reason that high intensity exercise increases metabolism is because it will cause an increase in muscle tissue (lean mass). Muscle is metabolically active, so it takes energy (burns calories) to maintain itself. The more lean muscle you have, the more calories you will burn throughout your day, even at rest. Building muscle is essential for losing fat.

The other important metabolism boosting factor is heart rate. Getting your heart rate up to high levels will increase your metabolic rate for longer durations post-workout. In other words, your body will be burning more calories after your training session is done for longer periods of time; perhaps from 24 to 48 hours post-workout. With high intensity exercise, you elevate your heart rate to much higher levels than doing low intensity exercise for long durations.

The trick is to get your heart rate up long enough to induce a metabolism boosting, fat burning effect. One of the best ways to keep your heart rate at an effective training level is to perform high intensity interval training. You perform a high intensity set of a chosen exercise, take a short rest, do another high intensity set of the same or different exercise, take a short rest, and keep repeating until the end of your training session.

I like to program high intensity interval circuits. A circuit is where you choose several different exercises to be done in sequence seperated by short rest breaks. You can then repeat the circuit multiple times. Of course each individual set within a circuit should be performed at a high level of intensity so you shouldn’t be able to complete tons of circuits. You should be pretty spent in 20-40 minutes of hard effort.

As you become better conditioned, you can increase the exercise density by gradually cutting time off of the rest breaks. You want to be performing the most amount of work in the least amount of time for maximum effect.

Types Of Exercises

I prefer programming a lot of multi-joint (compound) movements into my fat burning circuits. These can be exercises that utilize weights, cables or bodyweight. I usually use at least one upper body pulling exercise, upper body pushing exercise, lower body pulling exercise, lower body pushing exercise and maybe an abdominal or isolation movement. Fast cardio such as hill sprinting, bike sprints, rowing machine sprints or skipping also work well in these types of circuits.

Here are a few examples of exercises that I like to use so that you can get an idea of what these metabolic circuits look like:

Upper Body Pulling

  • Chinups
  • Pullups
  • Pulldowns
  • Power Cleans
  • Barbell Rows
  • Dumbbell Rows
  • Renegade Rows
  • Cable Rows
  • TRX Pullups

Upper Body Pushing

  • Barbell Presses
  • Dumbbell Presses
  • Push Press
  • Dips
  • Pushups
  • TRX Pushups

Lower Body Pulling

  • Deadlifts
  • Stiff Leg Deadlifts
  • Suitcase Deadlifts
  • Power Cleans
  • Single Leg Deadlifts
  • Hip Extensions

Lower Body Pushing

  • Squats
  • Front Squats
  • Overhead Squats
  • Dumbbell Squat & Press
  • Split Squats
  • Jump Squats
  • Lunges
  • Jump Lunges

Fast Cardio

  • Treadmill Hill Sprints
  • Bike Sprints
  • Skipping
  • Burpees
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Rowing Machine Sprints

Good metabolic circuits will get you huffing and puffing and your heart racing. You should also feel a lot of muscle fatigue and a good pump. If you give this type of training a try, you will definitely see results and you will never go back to your long, slow cardio workouts. Work your muscles hard, build some lean mass and you will burn the fat.

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