The Best Fat-Burning Exercise, Hands Down!

You know those displays on cardio machines that show you how much energy you’re burning during exercise? Ever notice that, even during long workouts, you can barely make a dent in working off the 2000 – 3000 Calories you consume daily?

The best fat-burning exercise requires no gym and a time investment of LITERALLY mere minutes per week. Yet another reason to ditch the high-tech gizmos, stick with the basics, and build a stronger, healthier, and more attractive body than 99% of your friends!

Most people work out to burn energy the wrong way. Here’s how you can take advantage of a little-known secret of thermodynamics and the human body to maximize fat burning.

Calories, Calories, Calories

Remember how little energy you burn off during your 20-minute session on the treadmill? A 150 lb person can expect to burn about 300 Calories by running 20 minutes at a 7.5 mph pace. Ever wonder how you can keep the pounds off when exercise does so little?

The answer lies in your metabolism.

The majority of the calories you burn in a day come not from the exercise you do, but your resting metabolic rate, which is the energy your body burns when you are completely inactive.

Let me say that again: You burn far more energy sitting on your duff all day than you do during your brief workouts.

So if we are looking to maximize fat-burning, we should go to work on your metabolism before you focus on exercising.

Paging Dr. Tabata

High-intensity interval training (or HIIT) is becoming quite the hot ticket these days, and for good reason. By doing different ratios of work to rest, you can maximize fat loss while not sacrificing muscle.

Dr. Izumi Tabata did a study on the effects of HIIT and came to a remarkable conclusion. He found a ratio of work to rest that produced massive results in BOTH anaerobic and aerobic fitness with much less time than people expected.

And if that isn’t enough, researchers have found that Tabata Intervals (as they are now known) actually boost your metabolism long after your workout has ended. By adding one or two of these workouts each week, you can effectively turn your body into a permanent fat-burning machine!

The Tabata Protocol

Tabata’s interval is eminently practical because you can apply it to almost any activity (I prefer sprinting). All you need to remember is this basic formula:

1. 20 seconds of high-intensity work.
2. 10 seconds of rest.
3. Repeat 7 more times for a total of four minutes.

That’s it! Although you will save yourself a ton of time doing this, it is important that you push yourself as hard as you can for those 20 seconds. That is what will stimulate your body to raise your metabolism.

As I said, you can use literally any exercise for this, as long as you push yourself as hard as you can for those 20 seconds. Here’s some ideas:

• Sprinting
• Jumping rope
• Burpees
• Biking
• Plyometrics exercises

Here’s a video demonstrating Tabata sprints:

Tabata intervals, in all their variations, are truly the best fat-burning exercise. Instead of focusing on the measly few calories you burn during your actual workout, you are boosting your metabolism to burn fat ’round-the-clock! Let me know in the comments if you have had any success with HIIT or Tabata Intervals in particular.

Tagged as: HIIT, jump rope, no gym necessary, plyometrics, sprinting, Tabata