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What are the best fat burning exercises?

Once you have decided to do some fat burning exercises, unless you already know a lot about the subject you may be wondering which exercises burn the most fat and how can you put together the best training program? What type of exercise burns fat is the easy part. The honest answer is all exercises burn fat; it is just that some burn it better than others. The worst type of training for weigh loss is doing hundreds of traditional abs exercises such as sit ups or crunches because weigh loss is controlled by the calories used and spending a couple of minutes lying down while you exercise will not expend much energy.

The best way to lose weight is to spend 30 - 45 minutes doing some form of cardio.

What type of cardio?

It is true that there has been some debate about which type of cardio is the best for burning fat because it was discovered that low intensity exercises like power walking burn a higher percentage of fat for calories used than higher intensity training like fast running or circuit training.

The bad news is, it is high intensity cardio that wins the argument because even though low intensity training burns a higher ratio of fat for calories used. The fact is running for 1 hour will burn more calories than walking for 1 hour and at the end of the day using up calories is what it is all about.

Your fat burning exercises program.

Before you begin you need be honest with yourself and look at your starting point

For example,

What is your age, are you young and already reasonably fit?

Are you 25- 40 and still in shape or are you not as fit as you could be?

Are you in the more mature 50 to 60 plus age group?

Are you slightly overweight or do you have several stone to lose?

What about your time restrictions?

How much motivation do you have to succeed with your fat burning exercises and what are your fitness goals?

The under 25-age group. 


If you are under 25 and reasonably fit you should train using a combination of weight lifting or bodyweight exercises to build muscle and regular fat burning exercises such as high intensity cardio to burn fat.

So if you train lets say 4 times per week for 1 hour for each session. You should spend 30 minutes building muscle and then 30 minutes doing cardio such as running, boxing training, swimming or interval training.

Remember that even though your goal might be to burn fat you should still continue to do muscle building exercises. This is very important not just because you will look better but also because muscles need fuel and therefore burn calories even when you are not doing anything. So the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn.

Tip,

If you are restricted to training only 2 or 3 times per week you can do a program of bodyweight exercises to both build muscle and burn fat at the same time. How can you use bodyweight exercises to build muscle and burn fat at the same time?

It is easy you just do them as a form of interval or circuit training!

You do your press ups, pull-ups and dips etc. but instead of doing 8-12 reps and then resting for one minute like you would do to build muscle. You go straight from one exercise to another for the whole circuit of 8 different exercises of 10 reps making sure your whole body gets a workout.

You then rest for 30 seconds and then do another circuit but this time for 9 reps per exercise. Rest for 30 seconds and then do another circuit of 8 reps and so on until you are doing only one rep per exercise. The whole circuit should take 20-30 minutes.

Yes it is hard! But if you are restricted by time it is one of the most effective types of training you can do. Why? Because it requires a high level of intensity and therefore burns a huge number of calories. Also if you choose the right combination of exercises you will be building muscle throughout your whole body at the same time. Another benefit is your metabolism will be sky high for hours afterwards which means you will be burning fat even when you are just chilling. How good is that?

Some facts, tips and myth busters about fat burning exercises!

Fact - If you are fit enough, train intensely it keeps your metabolism burning food for hours after training. This is why interval training is great for burning calories.

Fact - The more muscles involved in the exercise you are doing the more fat you will burn for example press ups and pull ups are better fat burning exercises than isolation ones such as biceps curls.

Fact - Exercises that are weight bearing like running and walking are better for burning calories than non-weight bearing ones such as cross trainers and cycling.

Fact - Muscle building is a great form of fat burning exercise. Muscle burns fat even when you are doing nothing. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn. Fact - Never eat less than 1,200 calories per day or you will send your body into starvation mode.

Fact - Fat spot reduction cannot be done. In other words you cannot pick and choose were to lose fat. It has to be done gradually throughout the whole body.

Fact - Sit-ups and other abdominal exercises are terrible fat burning exercises. You would have to do 1000 sit-ups every night for over 2 weeks to burn 1 pound of fat. 500 sit-ups would only burn the same amount of fat as walking 1 mile.

Fact - Eat four small meals a day with each meal containing protein. This keeps your metabolism high and stops your body going into starvation mode, which is when it will store fat.

Fact – In one study on rats, one group was given all their food in one meal per day as opposed to the other group which had the same amount of food but in small meals throughout the day. The results showed that ones who ate all there food in one meal put on weight whilst the others did not.

Fact - Doing lots of cardio without muscle building will result in large muscle loss because your body will adapt to make the cardio easy by losing the heavy muscle. The result could be someone who has very little muscle but still carries some fat.

Learn how to perform plyometric exercises and specific plyometric drills in order to improve your fitness levels.

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body f.acts

Facts on strength building

To build pure strength all bodyweight exercises have to be kept within the 1-6 repetition range.

Once you can do the required number of repetitions in an exercise change to a more demanding one

You can build strength and stay the same weight if that is your goal.

Strength training requires short workouts of no more than 30-45 minutes to be most effective. 


Facts on muscle building

To build a combination of muscle and strength all exercises have to be kept within the 6-12 repetition range.

The best muscle building diet requires two grams of protein for every kilo of your bodyweight.

The quickest way to build muscle requires an increase in bodyweight.

Each muscle should be trained no more than once or a maximum of twice per week for best results. 


Facts on abs building

Diet accounts for 80% of the success in building great abs.

You cannot spot reduce fat from any one area of your body or in other words you cannot pick and choose were to lose fat. It has to be done gradually throughout the whole body.

To lose weight, eat 4 or 5 small meals a day with each meal containing protein. This keeps your metabolism high and stops your body going into starvation mode, which is when it will store fat.

Do not lose more than 0.5 or 1kg of weight per week.

The best three abs exercises are the dragon flag, full abs rollout and full hanging leg raise.

Sit-ups and crunches are terrible fat burning exercises. You would have to do 1000 sit-ups every night for over 2 weeks to burn 1 pound of fat.

In one study on rats, one group was given all their food in one meal per day as opposed to the other group, which had the same amount of food, but in small meals throughout the day. The results showed that ones who ate all there food in one meal put on weight whilst the others did not.

Doing lots of cardio without muscle building will result in large muscle loss because your body will adapt to make the cardio easy by losing the heavy muscle. The result could be someone who has very little muscle but still carries some fat.

Exercises that are weight bearing like running and walking are better for burning calories than non-weight bearing ones such as cross trainers and cycling. 



Facts on flexibility

All workouts should begin with dynamic stretching involving two sets of 10 to 15 repetitions of each movement used.

All workouts should end with a cool down of static passive stretching.

The quickest flexibility results are gained with isometric stretching.

Isometric stretching should be done towards the end of a workout and never more than 3-4 times per week.