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8 Tips to Burn Fat Fast!
Pat Rigsby
Copyright 2005 Pat Rigsby
Are you looking for that “jump start” to rev your metabolism and get you bathing
suit ready? The following eight tips will improve your workouts and ignite your
metabolism. Try some or all of these tips, but beware, the result may be a
number of admiring second glances and stares when you don that bikini or pair of
trunks.
1. The majority of your workouts should be composed of free-weight or cable
exercises.
Compared to machines, free-weight and cable movements often require more skill,
create muscular balance, and have a greater metabolic cost. For example, it is
more difficult to balance the weights, and to coordinate muscles when performing
free-weight exercises. Although this may sound like a disadvantage, it is
actually a benefit. By balancing and stabilizing free-weights or cables you are
working more muscles through a greater range of motion resulting in more muscles
developed and more calories burned.
2. Use mostly compound (multi-joint and multi-muscle) exercises.
When focusing on improving body composition, you can't worry about “detail”
exercises, so you should use exercises that'll get you the biggest bang for your
buck. Isolation exercises can be used at the end of a workout to work on a
specific weakness, but only do the bare minimum.
Virtually every savvy fitness professional is privy to the fact that compound
exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body part.
If you seek lean muscle and the increase in metabolism that comes with it, you
must choose exercises that allow for the greatest load. One of the main reasons
why squats are superior to leg extensions for quadriceps development relates to
the fact that the load you can expose the quadriceps to is much greater with
squats. That’s why presses and dips will give you great triceps development,
while triceps kickbacks will do little for triceps development and even less for
the metabolism.
A good rule of thumb is to use lifts that will allow you to use the most weight.
These will have a systemic effect on your body that'll help maintain or increase
your muscle mass, and in turn ignite your metabolism.
3. Super-set or group exercises.
Perform either non-competing muscle group training or antagonist training.
Non-competing muscle group training would involve doing a set of a lower body
exercise, and following it up with an upper body exercise
Antagonist training is executed by alternating exercises that target opposing
muscle groups (e.g. chest and back). The list of benefits includes: quicker
recovery, greater strength levels and shorter workout times.
This design can be a huge advantage in your mission to burn fat. If you
alternate exercises for opposing or non-competing muscle groups, you’ll be able
to keep your heart rate elevated and burn calories like a blast furnace!
4. Keep rep ranges, in general, between 8 and 12.
Through research, it has been determined that the best range for hypertrophy
(muscle gain) is roughly between 8-12 reps. Since the main focus of your
resistance training efforts is to gain lean body mass and stimulate your
metabolism, this rep range fills the bill perfectly.
“High reps for tone and fat loss” is the “big kahuna” of all training myths!
Somehow the aerobics, yoga and Pilate’s community have convinced us that when we
perform bodyweight exercises or light resistance training for high reps, our
muscles magically take on a beautiful shape without growing or bulging. On the
other hand, if you challenge yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body
will take on a bulky, unflattering appearance. If you believe this, you probably
still believe in the Tooth Fairy!
5. Rest only 30 to 60 seconds between sets.
When you keep the rest periods under one minute, it’s easier to stay focused on
the task at hand and keeps your heart rate elevated. In addition, it forces your
muscles to recover more quickly between sets, along with keeping your nervous
system revved up.
If your first movement in an upper/lower body superset is squats, you might want
to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement. However, if your
first exercise is a fairly "easy" exercise, like lat pull downs, you might only
wish to wait 30 seconds before doing the second part of the superset.
6. Every session should consist of approximately six to eight exercises.
Why? Because empirical evidence has shown that normal trainees can
consistently maintain six to eight exercises per session without burning out.
It’s imperative to base your exercise selection around compound, multi-joint
exercises. Seventy-five percent (75%) of your exercises for each session must be
compound exercises. Six single-joint isolation exercises are not going do the
trick. Sure, you can perform a few isolation exercises, but the majority of your
exercise choices should be multi-joint.
7. Perform Total Body Workouts
First and foremost, you must drop the notion that a muscle group can only be
trained once or twice a week. Fitness enthusiasts from the past didn't train
that way and you shouldn't either. The more frequent muscle producing / fat
burning sessions you can have, the better.
8. Cardio is not the cure-all for Obesity
Cardiovascular exercise aids in the creation of a caloric deficit, but the
caloric expenditure during cardio is temporary. Strength training addresses the
core of the problem by permanently increasing the rate at which the body burns
calories by adding muscle. The best programs will include both strength training
and cardiovascular training, but the core or the programs effectiveness is
resistance training.
Pat Rigsby is a nationally renown fitness expert and co-owner of Fit Systems.
For the latest tips on fitness and nutrition, you can subscribe to his popular
newsletter at:
http://fitsystemspersonaltraining.com/fitnews.
This article is reprinted with permission from www.WritingCareer.com |
