Fat loss exercises: The best ones around!

by Martin Bolduc

If someone were to ask your opinion on the best fat loss exercises, your answer would be aerobic. Well, partly true but there is a bigger picture you need to look at. Resistance training, according to me plays a big part in burning calories as well. As opposed to aerobic exercises, resistance training exercises burn calories for a longer time after workout. And, we all know for a fact that more calories burned equates to losing weight or staying lean.

So, how does this work out? For a simple reason that muscles form a major chunk of your body. When you train muscles during a typical resistance training session, your muscles are going to be hungry for calories. Thus, whatever food you eat is used by muscles and not stored as fat. Another key thing you have to remember when you go on a weight loss program is that you are looking to up your metabolic rate. Well, since skeletal muscles are the most metabolically active tissue in your body, what better way to up the metabolism than give your muscles a good workout? Let’s have a look at some of the best resistance training as well as aerobic fat loss exercises.

A typical program for quick weight loss should include a minimum of 4 sessions a week. These should comprise 2 sessions of resistance training, a session of long slow duration cardio exercises and a session of intense, short burst exercises.

Each session should begin with a 5 to 10 minute of warming up. A thorough warm up to get the core body temperature up and mobilize the joints is important. It also prepares your body for the task at hand.

Resistance training exercises:

The best resistance training exercises for express fat loss are the ones called the ‘compound movements’. Now, compound movements are the ones where in 2 or more joints are involved, for instance, the squat, deadlifts and bench press. These compounds movements can be done using either barbells or dumbbells. Barbells tend to use more weight whilst dumbbells give you better ranges of movement and also hit the stabilising muscles more. Some of the best fat loss exercises are squats, deadlifts, clean and presses, bench presses.

Aerobic exercises:

Some of the best and most often used exercises for express fat loss are kettlebells, plyometrics, treadmill and the cross trainer.

The treadmill and cross trainer workouts are typically called the long, slow duration aerobic, fat loss exercises. These are good for beginners or for people who have gone off their fitness programs for a while. However, once you have been at these for a couple of weeks or maybe 4 weeks, it’s time to go onto the more intense fat loss exercises.

Kettlebell swings and plyometrics are the more intense, short burst fat loss exercises. There are a number of kettlebell moves ranging from swings, both armed as well as one armed along with cleans and presses and the more difficult ones like the treadmills. Kettlebells using muscle power in doing so take your heart rate up. This means that you are burning fat even as you are working your muscles. Thus, they are a great way to work out your muscles as well burn fat.

Plyometrics are for the individuals who have been working out for more than 12 weeks. These basically involve calisthenics (exercises using your body weight) with a power component to it. What that effectively means is that there is a lot of jumping about involved. Thus, moves like jump squats, burpees, pop jumps on aerobic boxes, plyometric press ups would form the major part of the session.

Of the exercises outlined here, if you were to do just one of them, it would defeat the whole purpose. You have to realise that in order to achieve express fat loss, all of these fat loss exercises have to be combined in a structured fat loss program.

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