Your Guide To The 3 Best Fat-Torching Workout Strategies

by | Nov 17, 2016 | Fitness

Chisel your core and melt away your middle with these amazingly effective plans

You’ve long heard that abs are made in the kitchen. And while that adage is true, what you do in the gym counts, too.
“Exercise is way underrated when it comes to fat loss,” says BJ Gaddour, Men’s Health Fitness Director, C.S.C.S.
The key is to incorporate a variety of types of training, from cardio to strength training to metabolic conditioning, Gaddour says.

1. EMOM Workouts

EMOM means “every minute on the minute” and has been popularized in CrossFit circles.

For example, if the workout prescription is 10 squats EMOM, you start the clock and do 10 squats and then rest for the remainder of that minute. Then you do another 10 reps at the top of the next minute, and so on.

This type of workout is amazing for fat loss, Gaddour says, because the structured work and rest periods allow you to manage your fatigue, ultimately helping you bang out more reps. And that means more calories burned.

2. Tabata-Style Supersets

If you haven’t tried Tabata yet, it’s a 4-minute high-intensity interval workout protocol created in the 1990s by Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata. He discovered that alternating 20 seconds of maximum-intensity sprints with 10-second rests improves your fitness and burns calories at an incredibly fast pace.

Tabata’s original study involved cycling sprints, but you can use the fat-frying interval protocol with other exercises, too. Gaddour recommends pairing two exercises that target different body parts and alternating between them. That will help you manage fatigue so you can keep going for longer than 4 minutes.

Choose one of the supersets below.

Perform the first exercise for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds. Perform the second exercise for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds.

That’s 1 round. Do 4 rounds.

For a 30-minute fat-burning workout, perform the all three supersets in the order shown. Rest 1 minute between supersets.

That’s 1 cycle. Do 2 cycles.

  1. Upper-Lower Superset: Pair an exercise that works your upper body, like pushups, with an exercise that works your lower body, like squat jumps.
  2. Core-Cardio Superset: Pair a core exercise, like planks, with a total-body movement, like burpees or jumping rope.
  3. Unilateral Superset: Pick an exercise that works one side of your body at a time, like a Bulgarian split squat. Do one side as your first exercise, and the other as your second.

3. The Weight-Loss Wheel

This workout is constructed like a wheel.

At the middle of the wheel is the hub, or the one move that you always return to that revs up your heart rate, Gaddour says.

Surrounding that hub are five spokes, or movements that allow you to recover while still remaining in motion. You’ll return to your hub between each spoke, so you’ll create metabolic stress the whole time, burning fat and increasing your aerobic fitness.

Start with the hub exercise, then perform the spoke 1 exercise, then return to the hub exercise, then perform spoke 2, and so on.

Perform each exercise for 30 seconds. Rest for 15 seconds between exercises.

Once you finish spoke 5 and the final hub, that’s 1 round. Complete 2 to 3 rounds.

The Hub: Burpee

Spoke 1: Plank

Spoke 2: Bridge

Spoke 3: Side Plank, Left

Spoke 4: Side Plank, Right

Spoke 5: Bird Dog

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