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Four Workout Tricks You Can Use Right Now To Burn More Fat
By
Eugene Thong CSCS
................................................................................
 Most
of the workout questions we get have to do with specific details of
individual workouts. But one question that pops up time and time is,
“What can I do to burn more calories in my workout?”
Well, understand
this: If you’re maximizing your efforts in the weight room and eating
right, then burning more calories through extraneous exercise is almost
useless. It’s certainly a poor use of your time, and as
Mike detailed in his
article, our official stand on “long, boring cardio” is – it
should not be done. But there’s no reason we can’t share four of
our favorite tricks to up the ante (and the calorie burn) on the
exercise you should already be doing…
1. Use your rhythm
and work out later.
Are you a night owl
or an early bird? Do you get an energy lag during mid-morning, or a do
you experience a pre-rush hour slump? Our bodies operate on a cyclical
energy flux called Circadian rhythm. It determines many of your
physiological processes, not the least of which is your natural energy
cycle. By following your Circadian rhythm and planning your workouts
when you have the most concentration and energy, you’ll be able to get
more out of your workouts.
Studies show that
athletic performance tends to peak when our core temperatures peak.
This occurs in most folks in the late afternoon/early evening.
2.
Take it
slow and lower with control.
Whether you’re new to
exercise or an old hand at
lifting weights, the natural tendency is to rush through, fast
and furious. But if your
main
goal is fat loss, then this makes about as much sense as
trying to call your Aunt Wilma in Tuscaloosa with a pair of tin cans and
a string.
By lifting weights
slower, not only do you utilize more control of the weight, minimizing
chance of injury, you increase the amount of work your muscles have to
do. This in turn increases overall calorie burn and fat loss.
A study published in
the journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that
resistance training that caused increased muscle damage (micro tears in
the fibers, not injury) such as eccentric contractions resulted in an
increased resting metabolic rate up to 48 hours post exercise.
Take it slower and
work those muscles hard – and it’ll
fire up your fat burning
furnace, even at rest.
3. Flip-flop it.
One of the most
effective fat-burning workouts is the
whole-body circuit, where
you work continuously by going from one exercise to the next without
taking a break. But we at MCNewsletters take things a step further. To
really fire on all cylinders, perform an alternating upper and lower
body circuit – the PHA circuit.
The PHA
circuit we detail in Black Book of Secrets further increases the calorie
burn through its program design. By alternating upper and lower
body movements in a specific order, you’re able to work harder on each
exercise, and working harder means you burn more calories both during
and after the workout.
And that, my friends,
is the point.
4. Patronize your
local Starbucks.
What commonly
available substance is a potent fat burner and contributes to athletic
performance so much that it was formerly banned by the UCI, World
Anti-Doping Agency, and International Olympic Committee?
The answer –
caffeine. Yup, too many double espressos, and there goes your gold
medal.
Since you’re only in
competition with yourself, let’s use every trick you have at your
disposal. Caffeine is a thermogenic substance, meaning it speeds
metabolism. In addition, it frees up and mobilizes fatty acids for
energy use, doubly increasing fat burning.
As if the thermogenic
properties of caffeine weren’t enough, consider the performance boosts –
researchers in Canada found that ingesting caffeine prior to a
workout improved endurance, exertion, and recovery and decreased
fatigability by up to 30% in each category.
Translation:
Ingesting some caffeine before your workout will supercharge your work
efforts.
You can take caffeine
in your delivery vehicle of choice, but we recommend caffeine tablets as
they are the easiest delivery method and easiest to calibrate in terms
of dosage. Although the Australian researchers used a dosage of 5mg per
kg of body weight (or 330 mg per participant), this dosage will likely
be too high to start. We recommend starting with a smaller dosage of
100 mg (or about the amount found in one cup of strong coffee) to start
with to minimize gastrointestinal upset.
Here’s the caveat:
Your body does build up a tolerance to caffeine’s effects. In
fact, if you’re a heavy coffee drinker, you’re probably tolerant
already. So save your caffeination for right before your
workouts, and stop pounding down the pot first thing in the morning.
Are you running
around in circles? Feel like you just can't go it your own?
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