The results that you get… or don’t get with your workouts are, to a great degree, determined by the exercises that you do. 30 minutes of effective fat burning exercises can deliver better results than 60 minutes of ineffective ones. Your workouts should include a number of “exercise types” in order for them to deliver the very best fat loss results.
Fat Burning Exercises You Should Do
Doing these exercises helps you accomplish two things:
- You can do shorter workouts since you’re not wasting your time on ineffective exercises.
- You boost your calorie burn rate during the workout itself and increase your metabolism for several hours following the workout itself.
These are “exercise types” and not specific exercises. You will have a range of exercise choices within each of these exercise types so your workouts can be varied and never boring. What they will always be is intense.
1. Jumping Exercises
I love jumping exercises because they are an excellent way to include short bursts of cardio in a strength workout. If you do these at the beginning of a workout you will find that they “get you into the workout mood” much better than strength exercises do.
I usually start my workouts with a jumping exercise and I include them as part of my circuits. My favorite exercises include the squat jump and lunge jumps (also known as hop jumps). However, burpees are also an excellent option.
Squat and lunge jumps employ a great deal of muscle tissue under intense stress: the weight of your entire body. In addition, the jumping produces a cardiovascular stimulation which contributes to the overall fat burning qualities of these exercises.
Include a set of jumps in each of your future circuits and you will feel and see the difference.
2. Squats and Lunges
You may be thinking that this is a repeat of the jumping exercises, but it’s not. First of all, squat and lunge jumps can be done in one way only, while there are a number of lunge and squat exercise variations that you can perform. A short sample include: side squats, reverse lunges, split squats, curtsy lunges, bulgarian split squats, rotational lunges, etc. Most of these exercises can’t be done with jumps.
Second, while you can do squat or lunge jumps while holding dumbbells, I don’t recommend it. The weights will make you less stable and you may fall. In addition, the jumping exercises are usually hard enough when you’re using your body’s weight alone.
Squats exercises, minus the jumps, can and should be done with dumbbells or a barbell to increase the intensity of the exercises.
Third, some of the best fat burning exercises are combination exercises. I’m talking about exercises such as lunges with bicep curls or squats with shoulder presses. These are, in fact, two exercises done in one movement. You employ more muscles and burn fat faster.
Here is a video with some squat variations:
3. Pushing Exercise – Chest Focus
What sort of movement do push-ups, chest presses (lying or seated), and even chest flies have in common?
These are all pushing exercises and they all target the chest as their primary muscle. As part of your total body workout routine, you need to include some pushing exercises. These work a lot of muscle mass in your chest, triceps, and shoulders.
You can vary your pushing exercises with different grips, do them in an incline or decline position, and, of course, change your selection of specific exercises from one workout to the next.
4. Pulling Exercises – Back Focus
The final “fat burning exercise type” is one which places most of the focus on the back muscles. Ever notice what sort of movement is common to pull ups, lat pull-downs, and back rows? They are all pulling movements.
Pulling exercises general work the back muscles primarily and the biceps and shoulder muscles in a secondary manner.
As your back contains a great deal of muscle tissue, pulling exercises must be included to complete your fat burning workout routine.
You have a number of exercises to choose from and many variations of each of them: pull ups and chin ups (with various grips), rows with dumbbells, cables or barbell, pull downs, and deadlifts.
This completes your required exercise types. Now you’re ready to put them all together into one workout.
Creating a Fat Loss Circuit From the 4 Exercise Types
Let’s take one exercise from each of the 4 groups I’ve discussed above and create a metabolic resistance training style circuit for optimal fat loss. How do you structure this circuit?
As the first and second exercises focus on the lower body, the best thing to do would be to separate them by doing jumping exercises first and leg exercises third. You can choose either the pulling exercise or the pushing exercise to be second.
Here is an example of such a circuit:
- Squat jumps.
- Push ups.
- Reverse lunges with bicep curls.
- Pull ups.
You do these exercises one after the other and only rest after you do your pull ups. The next circuit can include other exercises from each group. A workout which is made up of a number of these circuits will burn a lot of fat and it won’t take long to complete. You will see results quickly.
Use these Circuit As a Finisher
Another way in which these 4 fat burning exercises can be used is as workout finishers. You can create circuits made up of these exercises and do them at the end of any strength workout. This will give you a big metabolic push at the end of your routine and result in a faster fat loss.
Finally
These fat burning exercises will help you get faster results. You should make sure to include them in your workouts whether in the form of circuits for a full body workout or as a major part of your split training routine.