7 Fat Loss Strategies For Busy
Moms
Would you like to "jump start" your metabolism
and lose your ?mommy belly' once and for all? If so, the
following seven tips are exactly what you need to improve your
workouts and ignite your fat burning. Try some or all of these tips,
but beware, the result may be a number of admiring second
glances and the need to pull your ?skinny jeans' out of the
closet.
1. The majority of your workouts should be
composed of free-weight, bodyweight or cable
exercises.
Compared to machines, free-weight,
bodyweight and cable movements often require more skill,
create muscular balance, and have a greater metabolic cost.
For example, it is more difficult to balance the weights, and
to coordinate muscles when performing free-weight exercises.
Although this may sound like a disadvantage, it is actually a
benefit. By balancing and stabilizing free-weights or cables
you are working more muscles through a greater range of motion
resulting in more muscles developed and more calories
burned.
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2. Use exercises that work more than one muscle
at a time.
When focusing on fat loss, you can't worry about "shaping"
exercises, instead you should use exercises that'll get you
the biggest bang for your buck and work as many muscles as
possible. Isolation exercises can be used at the end of a
workout to work on a specific target area, but they just serve
to supplement your core movements.
Virtually every
savvy fitness professional is privy to the fact that compound
exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body
part.
If you seek lean, toned muscles and the increase
in weight loss that comes with them, you must
choose exercises that work as many different muscles as
possible. One of the main reasons why squats are superior to
leg extensions for improving your body is that they also work
your butt, hamstrings and inner thighs in addition to toning
your quadriceps while leg extensions focus on just the front
of your thigh and don't really offer any other benefit. That
same rationale hold true for arm exercises too. That's why
dumbell presses and dips will are more valuable for your arms
than triceps kickbacks and pushdowns.
A good rule of
thumb is to use movements that will allow you to use the most
weight. These will have a systemic effect on your body that'll
help maintain or increase your lean muscle, and in turn ignite
your metabolism.
3. Pair exercises.
Pair your
exercises together so that you alternate between upper-body
exercises and lower-body exercises or between exercises that
target opposing muscle groups (e.g. chest and
back).
This type of approach will keep your workouts
short and efficient by eliminating much of the downtime that
comes between sets of a single exercise since you are working
on one movement while resting from another. This approach can
also yield huge benefits in your mission to burn fat. Since
you'll constantly be moving and keeping your heart rate
elevated, you'll be burning far more calories than you would
during a typical workout.
4. Keep your reps between 8
and 12.
Through research, it has been determined that
the best range for building lean muscle is roughly between
8-12 reps. Since the main focus of your resistance training
efforts is to gain lean body mass and stimulate your
metabolism, this rep range fills the bill perfectly. "High
reps for tone and fat loss" is one of the biggest (and most
unproductive) training myths! Somehow the aerobics, yoga and
Pilates' community have convinced us that when we perform
bodyweight exercises or light resistance training for high
reps, our muscles magically take on a beautiful shape without
growing or bulging. On the other hand, if you challenge
yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on
a bulky, unflattering appearance. If you believe this, you
probably still believe in the Tooth Fairy!
5. Rest only
30 to 60 seconds between sets.
When you keep the rest
periods under one minute, it's easier to stay focused on the
task at hand and burn fat. In addition, it forces your
muscles to recover more quickly between sets, along with
keeping your nervous system revved up.
If your first
movement in an upper/lower body pair is squats, you might want
to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement.
However, if your first exercise is a fairly "easy" exercise,
like lat pull downs, you might only wish to wait 30 seconds
before doing the second part of the pair.
6. Perform
total body workouts.
You must drop the notion that
muscle groups work independently of one another. Muscles work
together and should be trained that way. Besides, not only
does this approach mean less time in the gym, but by working
the whole body three times per week, you'll be maximizing the
fat burning effect of your program.
7. Cardio is not
the cure-all for fat loss.
Cardiovascular exercise aids
in the creation of a caloric deficit, but the caloric
expenditure during cardio is temporary. Strength training
addresses the core of the problem by permanently increasing
the rate at which the body burns calories by adding muscle.
The best programs will include both strength training and
cardiovascular training, but the core or the programs
effectiveness is resistance training.
Take these
strategies and incorporate them into your workout routine. Not
only will you save a lot of time, but you'll also soon see a
leaner and more toned body. Not to mention a few more turned
heads and the re-emergence of your skinny jeans.
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