The Best Way to Burn Calories

One of the best ways to burn more calories in your workouts is simply to use more full body movements. The reason for this is simple. Your body burns 5 calories for every liter of oxygen it consumes and the more muscle required for a given movement, the more oxygen it needs. If, for example, you perform a set of seated biceps curls I’m sure you can appreciate that you wouldn’t be huffing and puffing, right? Therefore, there isn’t a great oxygen demand for that type of movement because it is solely focusing on the small biceps muscles. However, if you performed a set of wall squats with biceps curls all of a sudden your body requires much more oxygen to fuel all the working muscles. With this type of movement all of the large muscles in your legs are working at the same time as your biceps muscles. More muscle working means more oxygen needed which means that more calories will be burned. Therefore, with full body (multi-muscle) movements you will burn more calories! Give it a shot. If you wear a heart rate monitor during your workouts then you’ll also notice that movements that use a lot of muscle mass or that move weight over a greater distance will elicit a higher heart rate. If your heart rate is more elevated then you will burn more calories. You will also receive a greater cardiovascular training effect while developing lean muscle. Here are some typical exercises that can be spiced up by using full-body calorie-crunching movements. 1. Wall squats with biceps curls INSTEAD OF biceps curls alone. 2. Lunge walks with lateral raises INSTEAD OF lateral raises alone. 3. Step-ups with shoulder press INSTEAD OF seated shoulder press. 4. Squat presses INSTEAD OF squats alone. Give these movements a shot and you’ll notice an immediate difference. Start off by performing 2 sets of 10-12 reps for each movement (after a comprehensive warm-up obviously). These types of calorie-crunching workouts are hallmarks of my Fitter U™ program and are great because they are so effective AND they save you tons of time. With these types of exercises you get to train your entire body in less than 30 minutes while other people are spending 1 hour or more targeting one or two little muscle groups. The key to burning fat and building a functional and fit body is to train movements NOT individual muscles. Think of how your body moves on a daily basis – that’s how you want to train it. The results will speak for themselves.n n