How To Burn More Your Fat In Every Workout Time With 5 Ways
The temperature is rising, but it's not too late to cut for
your summer beach bod. Use these methods and program
to turn your ordinary gym time into a funeral for fat!
Ready or not, it's skin-baring season. If what you see in the mirror makes
you nervous, you're far from alone. But a full 90-day makeover isn't going to
cut it now, unless you were thinking of getting your beach body in time for
football season. No, you're looking for something that delivers faster results
is less time. Condensed, but intense.
Those three words are the perfect description of your ideal session if you're trying to lose as much fat as possible over the next few weeks. The ordinary way of doing things—hours in the gym, fixating on "detail work"—isn't going to cut it anymore. You need to upgrade from ordinary to extraordinary, identifying the most important training factors to amp up in your current workout in order to create a drastic uptick in calorie burn.
Any of the five techniques below will weave well into your current program, allowing you to accelerate your shred.
Do lots of isolation work (Ordinary) change to Focus on big movements (Extraordinary)
We get it: There may be
nothing more satisfying than hitting a few flyes at the end of a heavy chest
day. But a program that's heavily reliant on these types of single-joint moves
is far from optimal for fat-burning.
The Summer Shred workout at the end of this article limits isolation work to 1-2 exercises per body part per session, and only after your heavier, more metabolic work has been completed. That's a good model to follow, period.
Use lighter weight for more reps (Ordinary) change to Use heavier weights with shorter rest periods (Extraordinary)
Reducing weight loads and increasing reps is typical—almost instinctual—when trying to lean out. The rationale goes that if you're performing more reps, you're doing more work and burning more total calories during your workout.Here's the problem: Going light doesn't build muscle optimally, and it also takes a lot longer. Research shows that training with heavier weight—somewhere around your 6-rep max—helps raise your metabolism higher and for longer than using lighter weight loads.1
Furthermore, researchers from the College of New Jersey (Ewing) reported that when men bench pressed with just 30 seconds of rest between sets, they burned significantly more calories during the workout than when they rested 3 minutes.2
To get the best of both worlds, select a weight load you can handle safely for 8-10 reps on your first set (after warm-ups) with the knowledge that the decreased rest will put you around your 6-rep max (6RM) by your second or third set.
Increase workout length (Ordinary) change to Get more out of each set (Extraordinary)
Those eyeing a fat-loss plan have long resigned themselves to the idea they have to spend more time in the gym to burn those extra calories, because it takes extra work to burn off stubborn body fat. However, athletes who compete in fitness and physique often find better success by including techniques that lengthen the time under tension or extend a set past failure.
This way, you increase the amount of work you do without extending the length of your workout by much. That ultimately means the muscle is working harder, elevating your heart rate and burning more calories.
Get more work done in less time by applying the rest-pause
technique to your multijoint movements.
These four classic techniques remain the go-tos for extending sets: - Supersets: Do two different movements back to back with no rest in between segments. Those exercises can be for the same muscle group or opposing ones.
- Dropsets: Once you reach muscle failure on a given movement, reduce the weight by about 25 percent and immediately resume the set to a second point of muscle failure.
- Rest-pause: Do a set short of muscle failure, rest 15-20 seconds, then get another few reps, rest again, and get another few. For example, with your 6RM, you do 3-4 reps, rest, do 3-4 more reps, rest again, then perform 3-4 more reps. That's 9-12 reps with your 6RM!
- Cluster sets: Cluster sets are similar to rest-pause, but are done for time. Choose your approximate 12RM weight of an exercise, but do just 5 reps, rest 15-20 seconds, and repeat this work-rest sequence for a total time, such as 4 minutes.
There's a good reason to steer away from longer workouts when you're reducing calories: Cortisol, a catabolic hormone, can rise quickly when you put your body under stress for a lengthy period of time, and that can be counterproductive to your training efforts. Work hard with weights for about 60 minutes, and you'll be better off than if had you worked out for 90!
Sit on your duff between sets (Ordinary)
change to Intensify your rest periods
(Extraordinary)
Are your glutes attached to a bench during your rest periods? That may be helpful when maximum strength is the goal, but not when you're looking to burn fat.
Rather than recovering like normal, try density-training or cardio-acceleration techniques instead. Between sets of chest, for example, you could be skipping rope or performing simple movements that incorporate your legs, like mountain climbers, for 30- to 60-second bouts. Simply choose movements that don't recruit the target of your working sets (chest, in the bench example), so it will have the chance to recover.
As with set-extending techniques, the goal here is to increase the amount of work you do in the same time period. Any conditioning deficiencies you have will show initially, but you'll overcome those over time.
For someone who is already in great shape and wants to kick their results up a notch and see a visible change, I'd definitely add cardio bursts between sets during weight training. I do these often in my training when I'm short on time and need to pack in some quick cardio with weights, or in addition to my regular cardio workouts when I'm leaning out for a shoot or show.
I add 30-60 seconds of cardio 'bursts' between every set of every exercise during my strength-training workouts. This adds up to some serious fat burning, and as a bonus, improves my endurance, too!
Some of favorite movements to plug in as "cardio bursts" include:
- Push-up
to side plank
- Mountain
climber
- Mountain
climber with push-up
- Burpee
- Jumping
rope
- Plank
with punch
Endure long, slow cardio (Ordinary)
change to Perform fast, fun cardio (Extraordinary)
Until a few years back, you'd see precontest bodybuilders sitting on stationary
bikes and cycling for upward of two hours a day to burn off body fat at a
fairly low but constant intensity. That was in addition to their weight
workouts. And it made for very long days in the gym.- Push-up to side plank
- Mountain climber
- Mountain climber with push-up
- Burpee
- Jumping rope
- Plank with punch
Endure long, slow cardio (Ordinary) change to Perform fast, fun cardio (Extraordinary)
For a while now, exercise research has suggested there's a far better way to maximize fat loss. You've probably heard of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) by now, and it's worth remembering, because it's the most time-efficient method you'll find for burning body fat.
However, interval training on the same kind of cardio equipment can get redundant. Use different forms of conditioning to trim down. A lot of people get stuck in the routine of doing the same 1-2 forms of cardio, and after a while, their body grows accustomed to it. You can also stop challenging yourself as much and end up just going through the motions.
I challenge myself to not do the same type of cardio two days in a row, and that means at least 3-4 different kinds a week. I'll do intervals on the treadmill work, battling ropes, running bleachers or stairs outside—whatever keeps me out of a cardio rut. Looking for new ways to stimulate your body—and mind—allows you to achieve better results.
Put It All Together
Put these principles into action, and you'll see progress on any program. The action you do will be fruitful and do consistently. Good luck to your diet. Keep spirit to stay healthy life. Burn your fat in your workout time today.