Why High-Intensity Cardio is Much More Efficient at Burning Fat
What is the most efficient workout to burn body fat FAST? Weight loss has been a hot topic for all eternity, and one of the fastest ways to achieving it is through exercise. The single best approach to take, however, is a topic of never-ending debate. Be that as it may, Cardio is certainly one great way to keep our bodies in shape while depleting internal fat reserves. It’s been the staple exercise for people who want to shed a few pounds of weight really quickly.
A common misconception that persisted for many years was that you needed to stay within your target heart rate to burn fat. However, over the last decade, people started trying shorter and more intense cardio workouts and the results were incredible.
Basically, any activity that gets your heart rate up into your target heart rate zone can be termed cardio, but the high-intensity routine gives you much quicker results.
There’s actually no right or wrong way to do cardio, but to burn fat rapidly, the most efficient types are the ones you enjoy doing and exert you the most. If you want to get the quickest results from your workout, you should absolutely consider High-intensity Interval Training. (HIIT).
There are lots of choices for cardio workouts, which you can do both indoors and outdoors. To do your workout, you could use standard gym equipment like a treadmill, or even design your personal home workout routine with a slew of cardio exercises like jogging on the spot or running from one end of your room to the other counting in sets of two.
Want real weight loss?
High-intensity Interval Training. (HIIT) came about when studies showed that lower intensity training (like jogging or walking) helped athletes shed a greater percentage of fat during the exercise, but High-intensity training, on the other hand, burnt off predominantly carbs. As a result, many athletes preferred not to train too hard because they thought that if they did, their bodies would begin burning carbohydrates instead of fat. What most people didn’t seem to realize though, is that you cannot solely rely on the calories burnt during an activity to lose any considerable amount of weight.
Calories burnt during an activity do little to help us lose any considerable amount of fat quickly. This is because any type of cardio done at low intensity burns calories only during that activity. The moment you stop doing your exercise, you stop burning calories. This is because metabolism is not increased. The decisive ingredient to successful fat loss relies on our bodies’ metabolic rate and certain hormones coursing through our nervous systems. This is the simple reason why shorter, more intensive workouts are always more efficient.
Whenever you train, your body enters calorie-burning mode, but the calories burned are not from accumulated fat, but from the carbohydrates in your system. In order to burn the calories from your stored body fat, the presence of oxygen would be required. Now, there is a precise amount of oxygen your body needs to enable it to start burning fat, and the only means to gauge the amount required for your own body is by keeping up with your target heart rate while training.
Shed those Pounds!
You should realize that if you kept shedding calories from carbohydrates alone, you’ll lose ‘water weight’ which really doesn’t help in the long run. Think of the calories burnt from carbs as your ‘energy calories.’ This simply means that if you burned too many carbohydrates during training, your muscles will not have sufficient energy to boost your metabolic rate which indirectly burns the fat reserves. Consequently, you must replenish your calorie intake when you’re in a training program in order to compensate for those burned energy calories.
One great benefit of High-intensity training is that it boosts body metabolism substantially, for up to 2-3 days afterward. Seeing how high-intensity cardio training keeps body metabolism elevated for up to 3 days afterward, imagine what would happen if you committed 5 days a week to intense cardio workouts. Your body would be like a fat-destroying machine!
Matter of Choice
A good idea is to contrast the difference in physique between sprinters and marathon/relay runners. Which build do you prefer? The differences in stature lie in the techniques each athlete uses in training. While marathon runners run many hours and long distances, sprinters exercise intensely with short, sudden bursts of speed. Regardless of the type of activity, our bodies would always adapt to the stress to make it easier.
So how do you start a rapid fat-burning intensive workout? It all depends on your goals. Do you want to look like a sprinter or a marathon athlete?
If you’re aiming for a thin figure, running for hours on end would be perfect, but if you prefer a lean, muscular build (like most sprinters), these are a few suggestions:
Sprints
Map out a distance you’re comfortable covering, and sprint the entire distance. Instead of resting, take a walk back to your starting point, and on getting there, sprint again. You could do up to 8 sprints in one workout.
Interval Cardio
Pick an activity you enjoy (running, cycling, swimming, skipping etc.) and put in a near maximum effort (80-100%) for about 20 seconds, then rest for about 40 seconds, or do a light exercise. Repeat this 5-6 times. About 10 reps in total would be great. If you’re able to do 10, try to progress toward more intense activities during each interval. I personally prefer doing shuttle runs within a range of 10-20 meters.
10-minute intensive workout
Select an exercise (it could be running, cycling, swimming etc) and go all out for around 10 minutes. Try to surpass your personal best every time. For example, you could do 10 minutes of running and try to beat that last distance you traveled. Alternatively, you can have a fixed distance, and then try to beat the last fastest time you took to cover it.
Consistency makes all the difference
For maximum results, I recommend you do no more than 4-5 high-intensity cardio sessions on a weekly basis. That should total up to 1 hour of maximum training. Although it doesn’t seem like much, if you could commit to every single one of the exercises, going as hard as you can, your metabolism rate will elevate, melting the fat off your body in no time.
