When thinking about burning fat, the
first thing people think about is “cardio.”
For decades, we've been taught that
cardio is great for fat burning because it keeps you in this
magical "fat burning zone."Theoretically, it makes sense, since
your typical steady state cardio, such as walking and jogging, primarily utilizes
the energy system known as the aerobic energy pathway,which creates energy
through combinations of glucose by products, oxygen, and most importantly, fat
stores.
So yes, it makes perfect sense, but
mostly on paper.In real world applications, we see that traditional cardio is not
as effective as it seems. Even with the fat burning zone, the amount of energy
burned with cardio isn’t as significant as cardio enthusiasts would lead you to
believe.
Cardio's low intensity means lower usage
of energy compared to something more intense, which means in order to burn any
significant amount of calories will take upwards an hour or more.

The higher intensity is so taxing to the
body that it’s still burning calories even after you’re done working out.This
state, known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, aka EPOC, aka the
“after burn,”has shown to burn upwards 75 calories, or 33% more than your
traditional cardio 16 hours AFTER the workout. Might not be much up front, but
remember that you're spending much less time at the gym and it can definitely add
up.
Some studies suggest that EPOC from
strength training is still elevated even 36 hours later! And the best part of it
is that roughly 80% of those calories come straight from your fat.Oh, and we’re
not done yet. Let’s talk about building muscle.In order to build muscle, your
body has to send a strong enough stimulus to the brain to activate the hormones
and satellite cells involved in muscle hypertrophy.That stimulus is best
provided through resistance training… not so much cardio training.
In fact, cardio has such a low stimulus,
your body does not prioritize on keeping your larger type 2 muscle fibers,
meaning as you lose weight and fat, you might be losing muscle mass as well.With
resistance training, you’ll still lose the fat as we saw with the after burn
effect,but also preserve or even build muscle along the way.
And the good thing is that you'll burn
even more calories the more muscle mass you have on your frame. So now knowing
that strength training can definitely help you burn fat effectively,it's also
important that you do the type of exercise routines that are best for it.Perhaps
the best would be exercises that involve heavy compound movements that target
multiple muscle groups at once.
The more muscles being engaged, the more
energy and calories being burned. It also should focus on an intensity that will
have you reach muscular failure at around 15-20 reps. This allows you to engage
all of your muscle fibers which will allow for a greater metabolic demand, which
once again, burns more calories as well as improve muscle growth.And it's also
important that the exercises are done at a rather quick pace to minimize the
amount of time spent in the gym.

Metabolic, as in pushing your calorie
burning and energy systems to its limits, by using resistance training
exercises.Give it a shot and see how it goes for you.Now this doesn't mean you
should avoid cardio and just do resistance training, after all cardio does have
great benefits such as building endurance and improving heart health.But if fat
burning is a huge goal for you and you don't want to tediously spend hours and
hours grueling through your workout, metabolic resistance training might be for
you. But if you enjoy cardio, then continue do so.
What are other exercises that you use
and found great fat burning results?
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