Sunday 31 July 2011

The Best Way to Work Out for Weight Loss

The Best Way to Work Out for Weight Loss

Overview
When it comes to losing weight, you need to burn more calories than you are taking in.
This is called a "caloric deficit." The way to achieve this is by cutting back your daily calories and working out. To lose a pound of weight a week, without dieting, you will need to burn 3,500 calories a week through exercise. As far as your workouts are concerned, make them as efficient as possible. To lose weight, you will need to do both cardio exercise and weight training.

Step 1

Do not work out on an empty stomach. Although this has been a long time debate, the best way to lose weight is not by working out while you are starving. This can cause you to "hit the wall" and not perform at optimal levels. When this happens, no weight will be lost, because you will not have any energy to work out. To prevent this from happening, have a small meal 15 to 30 minutes before you exercise. Eat something that is easily digestible, like fruit or yogurt. This will give you enough calories for energy without having an excess to be stored as fat.

Step 2

Perform aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise involves the major muscle groups moving in a repetitive fashion. The best exercise to do is something that you enjoy doing like running, walking, hiking, biking, elliptical training, rowing, stair stepping, jumping rope or kickboxing. All forms of aerobic exercise are efficient at burning calories, but elliptical training, rowing, jumping rope and kickboxing incorporate your upper and lower body at the same time, which can cause you to do more work.

Step 3

Do interval training. Interval training is characterized by alternating between high and low intensities. This type of training is labor intensive and it also helps elevate your metabolism for hours after you have finished working out. Here is an example of an interval workout: do a five-minute light warm-up run. Sprint for 30 seconds, then jog for 30 seconds. Alternate back and forth 12 to 15 times, then do a light five-minute cool-down jog. You can apply interval training to any form of aerobic exercise.

Step 4

Lift weights. Weight lifting helps you build muscle. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, which can cause you to burn more calories even when you are sitting down. Perform weight training that targets all of your major muscle groups. Exercises like bench presses, shoulder presses, bent over rows, triceps extensions, biceps curls and squats are all examples of these. Perform 10 to 12 reps and do three to four sets of each exercise. To increase your weight loss efforts, do active recoveries in between your sets. For example, instead of just standing around for 60 seconds, jump rope, perform step-ups on a bench or simply walk around the gym floor briskly.

Step 5

Be consistent. If you want your workouts to be effective, you need to do them more than whenever you feel like it. Do weight training three times a week and cardio three times a week on alternating days. Perform cardio for 45 to 60 minutes, unless you are doing intervals. They can be done in 20 to 30 minutes because they are at a higher intensity. On the seventh day, do a 30-minute light cardio session, like going for a walk or throwing a football with a friend.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com

No comments:

Post a Comment