You step on the scale, pull on a pair of pants, or look in the mirror and realize you weigh more than you should. Now what?
If you’re like the 70 percent of adults in the U.S. who are overweight or obese, going on a diet seems like the smart thing to do. Right?
So you try and go cold turkey on dessert, eat rice cakes, drink nothing by water, and leave the rest to chance. That’s the approach a lot of people take to lose fat. And it typically doesn’t work.
Why? You might be able to survive a couple of days on a downer diet and tip the scale in the right direction. But you’ll feel terrible, and probably overeat when food cravings become too powerful.
In other words, dieting alone isn’t an ideal way to promote fat loss.
Strength Training Speeds Fat Loss
Fortunately, there’s a better way to shred fat than just dieting. You’re not going to be able to escape watching what you eat. But there’s plenty of room for good food and fat loss when you add strength training to the mix.
In a recent study, researchers tracked 10,500 people for 12 years. And they looked at changes in waist size. They found that people who combined strength training with cardio exercises weighed less and had smaller waist sizes. In this study, a daily 20-minute weight training session helped shed fat and prevent weight gain.[1]
And in a University of Minnesota study, people who completed two strength training workouts per week for six months lost more body fat than those who didn’t.[2]
Starting to see a pattern? I’m not a fan of reality TV shows where people get round-the-clock attention and live in a controlled environment to lose weight. It’s just not realistic for most people. But take a closer look at the training approach used to speed fat loss, and you’ll see strength training is a big piece of the puzzle.
Yes, your diet matters. Yes, aerobic activity matters. But if you really want to lose fat, strength training should be part of the plan.
Here are five ways to maximize the fat burning-benefits of strength training.
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Do Full Body Workouts
For most people, training for fat loss isn’t about winning a bodybuilding contest. It’s more about losing weight, boosting confidence, and improving overall health. In fact, you’re probably not going to win a bodybuilding contest by following a full-body workout 3 days a week.
But this approach to strength training that targets all the major muscle groups per workout is an effective way to elevate metabolism and burn more calories and fat.
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Use Compound Movements
What exercises work best to promote fat loss in a full-body workout? If you’re trying to train your entire body in a single workout, it’s pretty simple. Pick exercises that target all the major muscle groups. Skip the isolation exercises that only focus on one specific muscle at a time, and go with the big lifts like the bench press, squats, deadlift, and shoulder press. These lifts recruit more muscle fibers, require more energy, and burn more calories.
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Count Reps and Sets
This is the intersection of bodybuilding and fat loss. The ideal rep/set range for fat loss with a strength training workout is based on hypertrophy training. 3 to 5 sets, 10 to 15 reps. It’s a highly effective way to deplete muscle glycogen, and stimulate muscle repair and growth. Building muscle might not be your goal, but there’s a clear benefit for this. Increasing muscle mass also increases your basal metabolic rate, or the amount of calories your body burns at rest.
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Use Supersets
If you’re ultra busy, it’s going to be tough to stick to a five-day or six-day training routine. But even with a 3-day training split, you probably don’t want to spend two hours in the gym? Here’s a way to keep your training sessions short, and burn more fat in the process.
Use supersets. Complete an upper body exercise, then immediately complete a lower body exercise. Rest between supersets. Then repeat until you’ve completed all the sets. You could even take it a step further and make it a tri set with three exercises and no rest from one to the next in a set. One recent study found that people who used supersets lost more body fat, and spent less time working out than those who didn’t.[3]
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Elevate Intensity
There’s at least one more factor that can help you get the most out of strength training for fat loss. Elevate intensity. Elevating your heart rate to 60 to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate, and keeping it there is ideal for fat loss. That’s easy to do in a cardio session. But how do you increase intensity with strength training. There’s more than one way to do this. But some effective strategies include:
- Less rest between sets
- Circuit training
- Pyramid sets
- Drop sets
- Time under tension
- HIIT cardio between sets (burpees, jump rope, mountain climbers)
When you elevate intensity during a strength training workout, the afterburn effect can increase growth hormones, elevate metabolism, and burn more calories and fat.[4]
If you want to lose weight, I highly recommend strength training, along with diet and cardio exercise to help you achieve your goal.
Need help with burning fat and losing weight? Check out my customized plans to shred fat or complete your own transformation.
References
- Mekary, R., et al. (2014). Weight training, aerobic physical activities, and long-term waist circumference change in men. Obesity. From: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/oby.20949
- Schmitz, K. H., et al. (2003). Strength training for obesity prevention in midlife women. Obesity. From: http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v27/n3/full/0802198a.html.
- Kelleher. A., et al. (2010). The metabolic costs of reciprocal supersets vs. traditional resistance exercise in young recreationally active adults. Journal of Strength Conditioning Research. From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20300020.
- LaForgia, J., et al. (2010). Effects of exercise intensity and duration on the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Journal of Sports Science. From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17101527.