The Best Type Of Exercise for Fat Loss
The Best Type Of Exercise for Fat Loss
Millions of people worldwide read fitness magazines and work hard exercising, solely to lose weight, but what is the best type of exercise for fat loss? These people work themselves into a sweat a few times per week in the hope of losing a few pounds and looking better. How often does it work?
Not often.
The problem with relying on exercise for weight loss is that it is useless if it isn’t part of a well considered plan, which is why you see fat women in Zumba classes despite going to 4 classes per week for the last two years.
This isn’t an anti Zumba rant – the same can be said for cardio exercise. The largest public fitness event local to me is the Wilmslow half marathon. Having competed once and watched it a number of other times, I am always amazed at the amount of overweight and unhealthy people who complete the race.
You can be fat yet relatively fit – it seems like a contradiction in terms, but it is true. You can exercise regularly and improve your fitness – your physical capabilities, but if it isn’t the right exercise for the job you will remain overweight.
So what is the best type of exercise for fat loss?
Assuming you have your nutrition sorted, your next step is to get yourself to the gym. Forget your aerobics classes, Pilates classes, morning runs or your power walks with the dog. If you want to seriously and quickly change the shape of your body, look no further than resistance training.
Well structured weight training with a heavy emphasis on compound exercises will improve your hormonal profile – vital for physiological change as hormones underpin so many physiological functions. A reduction of stress hormones, an improvement in insulin sensitivity and a surge in human growth hormone all provide a perfect hormonal springboard from which physiological changes can occur.
The positive effects of a good resistance training session can last up to 48 hours according to research, meaning with good quality training there is a requirement to train less frequently – this provides the body with more time to rest and repair which is when the changes in physiology take place.
Keeping the sessions at a high intensity will provide a cardiovascular response, ticking that box for anyone worried about their stamina suffering from a resistance-only training protocol (if you don’t believe me, see how you feel after 60 seconds of jump squats). To keep the intensity of your sessions high enough, use a stopwatch to monitor rest periods accurately. I use the Polar RS100 to make sure I don’t let my rest periods last longer than 40 seconds when training for fat loss.
The high intensity work can only really be achieved when the resistance used is low-to-moderate in relation to your one rep max. Typically I would use a weight I could hit 12-15 reps with and work in sets lasting 40-60 seconds – enough time to keep the reps of good quality to ensure safety and reduce injury. I have seen plenty of CrossFit guys absolutely butchering exercises with terrible form during their met con workouts in the search of intensity. It’s not worth it – stick to good form and if you are finding your sets aren’t hard enough, increase the resistance you use.
To keep the quality of the reps high, don’t perform exercises that place emphasis on particular areas of the body back to back, for example don’t perform jump squats followed by lunges. The reason for this is you are aiming for high intensity over a long duration, so you don’t want to completely exhaust your body parts too soon which will cause the intensity to drop over the duration of the session. Think about the exercise order to get the most intensity with the best chance of completing the workout.
A typical high intensity fat loss workout for me would look like…
- 20 x Kettlebell Swings
- 15 x Press Ups
- 15 x Jumping Chins
- 12 x Lying Leg Thrusts
- 12 x Single Arm Overhead Kettlebell Snatch
- 10 x Jump Squats
- 25m Sprint
Get these fundamentals in place and the fat will drop off you quickly. This approach will beat all of the aerobics and Pilates classes in the world when it comes to fat loss and physique change. The best type of exercise for fat loss is high intensity resistance and sprint work. Do it well and do it often.
Give this approach a try and you will be a totally different shape within a matter of weeks! For more help, contact me on number or email address below!
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