Fat burning exercises, or exercises that burn fat while you do them tend to be a low intensity long duration cardio type exercises. I recommend you not do these because they do not promote building muscle or burning fat after the exercise is over.
Standard cardio exercises like walking, only burn fat calories while performing the exercise. Try interval training instead, where you alternate short maximal bursts followed by active recovery periods of equal or longer duration. For example you could sprint for 30 seconds and then jog for 90 seconds and repeat this 2 minute interval 10 times for 20 minutes.
The advantages are; shorter workout time, burn more calories (in the form of carbohydrates), build muscle, increase endurance and burn fat calories for the next 24 - 48 hours. Your body will respond by using it’s fat stores to replace the burned fuel for the next day or so. Like a V8 compared to a 4 banger you will burn more calories at rest with increased muscle mass.
If you want to look like a sprinter then train like one. If you want that marathoner look then go for the long duration low intensity cardio.
You can’t beat the clean & jerk, for recruiting a maximum amount of muscles, to burn fat, in the weight room. If you only have time to do one exercise in the gym, this is it. Think about it. You’re lifting a barbell about 7 or 8 feet, depending on your height. Any other lift you’re only moving the weight a couple of feet, if that. You get a pushing and a pulling routing all in one exercise.
Try 3 sets of a weight you can do about 10 reps with, or go for time and try three 60 second rounds and see how many reps you can get in each round. Either way this is one killer workout.
For those of you who don’t know what clean and jerks are, it’s sort of like a deadlift, an upright row and a squat press all rolled into one. I don’t do a technically perfect olympic clean& jerk. My form is not perfect, but I do them for reps, not competition.
To burn fat, stick with the big compound exercises that work the whole body. Clean & Jerks, squats, deadlifts, and to a lesser degree, pullups, dips and benches. For instructions on these exercises, and others, check out, the No Nonsense Muscle Building program by Vince Delmonte.
For a total body workout that requires a minimum of equipment and time and a maximum of full body muscle recruitment, I recommend, Turbulence Training. You will learn bodyweight exercises that you can do at home. Craig Ballantyne will set you up with workout plans that focus mainly, but not entirely, on bodyweight exercises to get you moving, and burning calories and building muscle, without having to join a gym or buying a lot of equipment. Turbulence Training will show you that bodyweight exercises can be the best fat burning exercises.
And of course none of this will do you any good if you don’t eat a clean diet. You can’t out train a bad diet, but, a clean diet will make up for a poor training plan. It’s pretty easy to down that 1,000 calorie pizza in a few minutes. You will never burn it off that fast. You can do all the fat burning exercises you want, if your eating habits are bad, you will never get the ripped look you are after. You might get stronger though.
Run 10 miles an hour for 3 minutes or maybe crank out 3 sets of reps for 60 seconds each of clean & jerks and see how you feel. If your lucky you might have burned 50 calories with all that work. Think twice before downing that pizza.
