Five Important Fat Burning Workout Rules

Five Rules To A Better Workout

If you want to start doing workouts that will create lasting fat burn, better muscle definition, and contribute to lifelong health, you must start applying the five workout rules below when going through your workouts.

These five rules were created after years of experience, research, and testing to figure out not only what works best when it comes to burning fat, but what workouts are best for your body.

Applying these rules to your workouts will boost fat burning, muscle definition, and overall health. If you are serious about changing the way you look, start following these rules:

1. The more intense your workouts, the better:

You have heard me say this before, and you will hear me say it again. The more intense your workouts are, the more fat you will burn. The “fat burning zone” is a way of the past. Study after study has proven high intensity workouts are superior to long slow cardio.

In a study done by Experimental Biology, researchers found that maximal fat utilization occurs at an intensity near anaerobic threshold. This essentially means, the more intense your workout is, the more fat you will burn.

2. Activate as many muscles as possible:

While doing isolated exercises may give you that burning sensation or “the pump” as bodybuilders call it, the real fat burning comes when you activate as many different muscles with each exercise you do.

For example, doing a barbell squat will burn fat more calories than doing a leg extension.

Plus, compound movements will also help you gain strength faster and build lean muscle easier.

Isolated exercises do have a time and place but when looking to burn the most fat, stick to compound movements! For a list of compound movements, take a look at the link below:

==> Start Burning With Compound Movements

3. Keep your workouts to no longer than 30-45 minutes

Back in college, my coach forced me to keep my shooting workouts to no longer than 40 minutes. The reason for this was he said our brains start to lose focus after the 40-minute mark. Later, as I did some of my own research I found it to be true. Not only that, but I also discovered that workouts lasting longer than 45 minutes can have a negative effect on fat burning!

Here is the quick breakdown of how our body responds during workouts:

Start of the workout: Our bodies naturally start producing testosterone as we engage in intense exercise (remember, testosterone is a good thing, even for women. It keeps us strong, lean, and healthy!)
15 minutes into the workout: Our bodies are still producing testosterone, which allows us to burn fat and get lean.
30 minutes into the workout: Testosterone peaks at the 30 minute mark.
45 minutes into the workout: Focus decreases, and testosterone levels start dropping down to baseline.
60+ minutes into the workout: Our bodies start producing less testosterone and start producingmore cortisol which can lead to increased fat storage and will hurt lean muscle growth.

As you can see, testosterone levels peak at the 30 minute mark which means you will get the most out of your workouts when staying in that time frame. A few minutes here or there, won’t make a huge difference but a workout lasting upwards of 60 minutes will actually cause you to store fat because of the increase in cortisol (also known as the fat storing hormone!)

In short, keep your workouts to 30 minutes and no longer than 45 minutes.

4. Include sprints 2-3 times per week

Sprints are the most powerful physique shaping workout on the planet. As was stated earlier, the closer you work to you anaerobic threshold, the better. Sprints are the prime definition for working near or at that threshold.

Sprints will directly target eliminating stomach fat, and is a workout that makes your abs “pop”. Plus, it increases testosterone and Growth Hormone which both play a vital role in keeping us lean and healthy.

5. Walk daily

The more time you spend walking, the less time you spend sitting. Instead of spending hours at the gym working out, a far more beneficial approach would be to workout 3-5 times per week for 20-30 minutes, then walk 30-60 minutes daily out in the sunshine.

Walking will help burn fat, plus you will get your daily dose of Vitamin D which is something we all need!

If you want to start burning more fat, get leaner, and improve your overall health, start applying these five rules into your weekly workouts. Keep you workouts simple, intense, and short and watch as your results start to soar!

Losing Weight Vs Burning Fat

The Difference Between Losing Weight and Burning Fat

One of the most talked about topics and goals among dieters: losing weight. But should losing weight really be what you are trying to do? As someone who studies health and fitness to no end, the words “losing weight” don’t sit well with me. The reason for this is because weight loss is just a number on a scale.

And the issue is, people don’t really seem to care what kind of weight they lose as long as the number on the scale goes down. Overtime, this will catch up to you.

Months ago, I remember seeing a man come into the gym each and everyday trying to lose weight. He came in Monday through Saturday and did the exact same routine each day. He would grab his book, jump on the treadmill and start walking for 10 minutes, then he would put his book down and proceed to jog at a slow pace for the next hour or so.

He did this every single day.

Now overtime, this man started to lose some weight but for the amount of time he was spending at the gym it was nothing to go home bragging about.

And although he started to lose some pounds, all the weight he was losing was muscle. He looked weak and many times sick because I know for a fact he was starving himself to lose this weight.

This my friends, is not the way to go about getting in shape.

When your goal is just “losing weight”, for some reason your mind shifts into a different gear and starts thinking that you must workout more, eat less, and spend hours running on the treadmill.

Frankly, this isn’t your fault as there is a ton of misleading information out there that you are being constantly fed. However, now that you have stumbled upon this article, you can finally know the truth.

No matter where you are, your goal should NOT be to lose weight, but should be to burn fat!

Although these words are very similar, they send a completely different message to the brain about how to go about doing it.

For whatever reason, when someone says the words “lose weight,” my first thought is still of all those people wasting their time doing long slow cardio and starving themselves with their diets.

But when you say the words “burn fat,” my first thought is intensity, six-pack abs, ripped lean muscle, …”

See the difference?

The difference between these two goals may seem very small, but the way you go about attaining your goals will determine whether or not you will be happy with the outcomes in both the short and long run!

When you train to burn fat by eating and training properly, not only will you see faster results, but you will also see:

Improved overall fitness
Greater strength gains
Peak body and overall performance
Delayed aging
Reduced risks of disease

On the other end of things, when you are training to lose weight by doing crash or starvation diets and long slow (boring) cardio, you will also see:

Decreased fitness
Decrease in strength
Poor performance both in and out of the gym (mentally and physically)
Early aging
Reduced immunity meaning you will be sick more often

Your approach on how you will attain your goals will make or break the results you get.

As you can see from the picture above, you want to be on the right side of things where your focus is to burn and lose fat. It doesn’t matter if you lose weight if you lose a ton of muscle and decrease your overall health in the process.

The best way to go about getting in shape is by trying to burn fat and lose fat.

Don’t get sucked into thinking that you must go on some crash diet or starve yourself, then train for hours a day. Doing this will only lead to bad weight loss.

Instead, focus on the workouts found here at FatBurningWorkoutsHQ.com and go read this article HERE on how exactly you should eat when trying to lose and burn fat!

It is time to start burning, so go now and get after it!

Fat Burning Workouts For Athletes

As a former collegiate athlete, I was always looking for an edge on my competition. In order to be the best, you have to train like the best. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant didn’t rise to the top by doing some generic workouts a few times per week. No, they focused on workouts that would challenge them mentally and physically so they could be the best athlete in the world.

Take a look at all great athletes, they all have one thing in common:

They have a lean, strong, athletic build.

Athletes like Usain Bolt, Kobe Bryant, Maria Sharapova, Alex Morgan, Adrian Peterson, and Jessica Ennis have this build. They are incredibly lean and strong.

If you watched these individuals workout, you would notice how intense they are. The focus, drive, and determination are through the roof on every single workout. This is what it takes to be the best.

Not only that, but that is what it takes to look the best!

Athletes have it down: each workout they do not only gets them better at their particular sport, but it allows them to look superhuman.

The athletic build is something we all want. Lean, ripped, and defined.

But how do you get there?

The reason you don’t currently look like an athlete is because you do not train like an athlete, simple as that.

If you want to start looking like Jessica Ennis or Adrian Peterson, you have to start training like them!

This doesn’t mean training for hours on end, because not everyone can have working out and their sport as a job. What I mean is you must start training at the intensity they train at so you can allow your body to build lean muscle and burn fat.

So what exercises should you focus on?

Athletes train in three different areas: Speed, strength, agility and quickness.

Each are vitally important to being the best athlete they can be, plus they are the workouts that will burn the most fat while adding lean, ripped muscle.

Speed

The best way to increase your speed is to start working on it. This means stepping off the treadmill and elliptical, going out to a park or track and sprinting. As we have discussed in the past, sprinting is the best physique shaping workout on the planet.

The benefits it brings are endless. There are definitely some more advanced ways that you can increase speed, but stick with the basics. The more you sprint, the better you will become at it and the faster you will get, especially if you focus on the next two aspects of an athletes regimen.

Strength

Look at any great athlete and you will see that they have tons of strength. This is a result from the very intense weight training programs they are put through. Athletes must train for anything that is thrown at them, that is why they focus on doing tons of compound movements so they can strengthen their whole body.

For example, squats, deadlifts, and cleans are very popular because of the functional strength they help develop. The more prepared you are in the weight room, the better you will be able to handle the rigors of the game.

Never will you see an athlete focus on bicep curls for their workout because they know this is not what’s best for their body or strength.

Agility and Quickness

This can also be referred to ones ability to cut, jump, move, etc. The more agility and quickness you can develop the better. Take a look at Adrian Peterson for example. His ability to cut through defenders at the quickness he does is unreal.

Sure Adrian was born with some of these abilities, but he is constantly working on improving them so he can come back quicker game after game and season after season.

A few ways to do this would be focusing on plyometric work. Plyometrics helps your feet to spend less time on the ground, which translates into you being quicker.

The less time you spend on the ground, the faster you can cut, jump, and move.

Changing Your Routines

As athletes, the game is always going to be demanding more. That is why you should change up your workout routine every 1-2 weeks.

Sports will always keep your body guessing, so to prepare for this, always keep your body guessing in your workouts.

Beginners can stick to a workout routine for up to 8-12 weeks at a time because they need to spend the time building up their base.

But athletes have already developed a solid base over the years so they need to make sure they are constantly challenging themselves to get better both on and off the field.

An Athletes Workout Schedule (Modified)

As was stated earlier, we all don’t have the time to train like an athlete. Remember, it is their job to workout and practice. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t still train like an athlete. Below is a sample week that you can implement to start training and looking more like an athlete:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Strength Train, Plyometrics

Monday: Legs

Do three sets of each superset below, resting 30-60 seconds between full rounds. (complete all three sets of one superset before moving to the next)

1A. Squats: 10 reps
1B. Single Leg Squat Jump: 15 reps
2A. Deadlifts: 10 reps
2B. Squat Jumps: 20 reps
3A. Leg Press: 15 reps
3B. Sled Push: 30 yards
Plyometric Ladder Work (10 minutes)

(Sorry about the music in this video, but this shows some good options for ladder work that you can do)

Wednsday: Upper

Do three sets of each superset below, resting 30-60 seconds between full rounds. (complete all three sets of one superset before moving to the next)

1A. Bench Press: 10 reps
1B. Pull-Ups: Max reps
2A. Bent Over Row: 10 reps
2B. Explosive Push-Ups: Max
3A. Overhead Press: 10 rpes
3B. Burpee with Pull-Up: 10 reps
Jump work to build abs (See video below)

Friday: Full Body

Do three sets of each superset below, resting 30-60 seconds between full rounds. (complete all three sets of one superset before moving to the next)

1A. Squat To Press: 12 Reps
1B. Pull-Ups: Max reps
2A. Clean and Press: 12 reps
2B. Side to Side Explosive Push-Ups: 16 reps
3A. Sled Pulls: 30 yards
3B. Sled Push: 30 yards

Tuesday and Thursday: Sprints

Go out to a park, track, or field and complete the sprinting workout below:

7-10 full speed sprints at 40-80 yards each. Choose a distance that fits your fitness level. Rest 30-60 seconds in between sprints. This workout should take you no longer than 10-15 minutes!

There you have it, an example fat burning workout plan for athletes that will take you no longer than 30 minutes a day to complete!

Fat Burning Workouts For Women At Home

Amazing Fat Burning Workouts Women Can Do At Home

We all love a good fat burning workout that can be done right at home. For me personally, at home workouts are one of my favorite things to do. With just a few pieces of equipment and as little as 4 minutes, you can get one amazing workout in. As we discussed in out ‘Fat Burning Workouts For Women‘ article, men and women look for different aspects when it comes to working out.

With that in mind, the workouts you will find below were written specifically for women who want to workout at home. They involve exercises that will tone the butt, legs, arms, and abs and will help burn tons of fat in the process. Now sure, men can partake in these workouts but from testing them on a wide range of clients, it is women who seem to enjoy them more!

Below are three different fat burning workouts for women that are designed to be done right at home:

Workout 1: Full Body

Complete 30 seconds of each exercise, then move to the next exercise with no rest. After each full circuit, rest 30 seconds and repeat 3 times. Once you finish 3 rounds of the first circuit, move to the next!

Circuit 1:

Push-Ups: 30 seconds
Hip Raises: 30 seconds
Squat Jumps: 30 seconds
Single Leg Hip Raise: 30 seconds each leg
Spider Climbs: 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds and repeat 3 times!

Circuit 2:

Push-Ups: 30 seconds
Duck Under Lunges: 30 seconds
Single Leg Touch Downs: 30 seconds each leg
X-Body Mountain Climbers: 30 seconds
Shuffles in Place: 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds and repeat 3 times!

Circuit 3:

Push-Ups: 30 seconds
Lateral Lunges: 30 seconds
Lateral Hip Raise: 30 seconds each side
Squat to Squat Jump: 30 seconds
Burpees: 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds and repeat 3 times!

Workout 2: 4 Minute Burpee Finisher

One of my favorite workouts to do because of it simplicity and high intensity. For this workout, all you will do is perform as many burpees as you can in 4 minutes. For more advanced participants, perform a push-up and squat jump on each repetition.

Workout 3:

Move from one exercise to the next resting 15 seconds in between exercises. Rest 30 seconds between full rounds and repeat 3 times!

Incline Push-Ups: 30 seconds
Side Planks: 30 seconds each side
Mountain Climbers: 30 seconds
Bench Dips: 30 seconds
Hop Backs: 30 seconds
Alternating Back Lunges: 30 seconds
Burpees: 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds after the full round and repeat 3 times!

There you have it, three amazing fat burning workouts for women at home. Each of these workouts is designed to get you into incredible shape and get you toned up for whatever life throws your way (ie. beach season, wedding, spring break, etc.)

Be sure to leave some feedback before you go, as I always love hearing from you!

Rep Challenge Workouts For Fat Loss

We saw some rep challenge workouts in our previous article ‘Extreme Fat Burning Workouts,’ and because I know you enjoyed those so much, I decided to give you five more workouts just like it.

A rep challenge workout can be defined as: doing an allotted number of reps as fast as possible, then when doing it again trying to beat your previous time.

The goal of challenger workouts is to push you to beat your previous score each time you do the workout. Crossfit does an incredible job working this into their system, and it has proven to work very well. That is why some of the strongest and best athletes in the world are Crossfitters.

With the rep challenge workouts below, you can expect them to be intense, tiring, and well… challenging! Be sure to choose a workout that fits your own fitness level, and work on building up to doing harder and harder ones over time!

100 rep challenge

You can do a wide variety of 100 rep workouts that will leave you very tired by the end. A few of my favorites are:

100 Push-Ups as fast as possible
100 Pull-Ups as fast as possible
100 Burpees as fast as possible
100 Squat Jumps as fast as possible
100 Kettlebell Swings as fast as possible

Then you can do a combination of exercises to get your 100 reps. For example:

50 Push-Ups, 50 Pull-Ups as fast as possible
50 Burpees, 25 Squat Jumps, 25 Push-Ups as fast as possible
25 Burpees, 25 Kettlebell Swings, 50 Pull-Ups as fast as possible

Get creative with how you do this.

200 rep challenge

Complete 10 rounds as fast as possible of the exercises below:

Decline Push-Ups: 10 reps
Box Jumps: 10 reps

If you want to finish the workout with 50 burpees, feel free to add that in as a bonus!

300 rep challenge

400 rep challenge

For this workout, you will start and end with a 400 meter sprint. This will account of 50 reps of your workout.

400 meter sprint: Counts as 50 reps
Box Jumps: 50 reps
Pull-Ups: 50 reps
Decline Push-Ups: 50 reps
Kettlebell Swings: 50 reps
Single Leg Squats: 50 reps total (25 each leg)
Sit-Ups: 50 reps
400 meter sprint: Counts as 50 reps

500 rep challenge

We saw this workout in our Fat Burning Workouts For Men article. This is a very challenging workout, so beginners should start by doing 20-25 reps of each exercise and build up to doing the full workout.

Complete all 50 reps of one exercise before moving to the next.

Box Jumps (50 reps)
Push-Ups (50 reps)
Kettlebell Swings (50 reps)
Overhead Press (50 reps)
Inverted Row (50 reps)
Dips (50 reps)
Back Extensions (50 reps)
Knees to elbows (50 reps)
Burpees (50 reps)
Double Under’s (50 reps)

There you have it, five different rep challenge workouts that will obliterate unwanted fat all while allowing you to build tons lean muscle. If you want an even more challenging workout, be sure to check out our 1000 rep challenger in our Extreme Fat Burning Workouts section!

Looking for more rep challenge workouts? Then you have got to check this out:

Click HERE To View The Rep Challenge Workouts!