The Best Fat-Burning Exercise, Hands Down!

by Darrin on August 3, 2010

best fat burning exerciseYou 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:

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.

{ 10 comments }

Alykhan - Fitness Breakout August 3, 2010 at 3:42 pm

Darrin,

It’s way smarter to focus on boosting your metabolism and burning more calories during the 23 hours a day you’re not exercising since this is when the majority of your calorie burn occurs. As you mentioned, doing HIIT a couple of times a week is a great way to do this. Intense strength training also produces a similar effect.

Alykhan

Dave - Fitness Training Tips August 3, 2010 at 6:09 pm

Darrin,
Tabata intervals certainly provide a great fat burning workout. I use them sparingly though as they are exhausting and can quickly lead to overtraining if done more than 2-3 times per week.
Dave

David - Get Fit Get Lean August 3, 2010 at 8:23 pm

Darrin,
Gotta love Tabatas! The “Tabata This” CrossFit exercise is a nice quick full body workout that will leave you in a pool of your own sweat.

David

Raymond-ZenMyFitness August 4, 2010 at 4:05 am

I love Tabata and try to apply to different exercsies. I seem to get the best results with weights as opposed to cardio tabata.
But I only do it once or twice a month when I need a kick in the butt
Cool topic
Raymond

FitXcel August 4, 2010 at 12:19 pm

The best thing about the intervals is that, like many things related to fitness, they improve just about everything you do, from lifting weights to running endurance.

-Drew

Darrin August 4, 2010 at 2:37 pm

@Alykhan:

Totally. I’ll have to do a post on strength training that touches on this as well. Going to work on your hormones rather than your calories in order to build muscle and lose fat is kind of like making reservations before you go to a nice restaurant as opposed to just showing up – not necessarily intuitive, but far more effective.

@Dave:

Agreed, you can definitely overdo this, and a lot of people do. Once a week is probably best for most. Twice for the hardcore. I’ve been doing lots of fascinating research on alternating your diet and exercise for maximum results – sprinting, distance running, AND walking, for example. I’ll be posting on this in the future.

@David:
I was watching the Tabata This video on YouTube before posting but decided to not show it. Don’t wanna scare TOO many people away from this great protocol! Haha.

@Raymond:
That’s what makes Tabatas so awesome: you can apply them to almost ANYTHING you want to do!

@Drew:
It’s these “hidden benefits” that people don’t realize that REALLY make these types of workouts worthwhile.

Kelly-Fitness Overhaul August 5, 2010 at 7:56 pm

I have had so much success with HIIT that I haven’t ventured in to tabatas yet. I am going to try these some day soon. That was a good video, it helped explain how to do these and showed how hard they are. I think I will be laying on the ground in the fetal position, sucking my thumb and mumbling, at the end of these! I’ll let you know how it goes!
-Kelly

Darrin August 7, 2010 at 11:04 am

@Kelly,

You will definitely be feeling these after you are done! It’s called the “HIIT flush” and it’s your way of knowing you pushed yourself hard enough and will be reaping all the benefits.

Alejandro "The Fittest Vegan" August 8, 2010 at 6:38 pm

My goal before summer is over is to become better at jumping rope. I’ve seen the videos with Iron Mike and I want to look that way but it requires lots of practice to get to that level. I agree with all your points. the sprinting is a big one.

Darrin August 8, 2010 at 9:27 pm

@Alejandro,

I am getting more and more into jumping rope. It really is an awesome tool that most people underemphasize. And yeah, there’s lots of tripping yourself up to be done if you want to get good!

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