on burning fat

I came across this article that I thought mgiht be of interest. Here is a selection from it…

The Best Strategy for Fat Loss

So where are we at with our fat burning project? Here is a summary.

Increase muscle with weight training. Extra muscle helps to burn more energy at rest, even if only a little. This is called the resting metabolic rate of muscle or RMR. Extra muscle will also burn more fat in active phase, the active metabolic rate if you like, or the AMR, so having more muscle will definitely help burn more energy and fat.

Lift heavier weights. What I suggest is that the weights workout should be vigorous, with the number of repetitions kept at the low to medium end of the scale between 8 and 12 RM. To remind you, the RM is the repetition maximum, which means the most weight you can lift for this number of reps before fatigue. The 8-12 is within a range that should provide strength and bigger muscle growth, which is called hypertrophy.

If you go higher than this, say 15 to 20 repetitions to a set, or more, you are getting into the range where you would probably be better off doing cardio because the return on effort, the energy burn, is better spent jogging, cycling, stepping or rowing. At that number of repetitions you won’t build much muscle either, so very high-repetition training with weights has minimum value in my view.

Do aerobic exercise. Considering how much energy you would use in an hour of either type of exercise, weights or cardio, you must do some consistent aerobic or cardio work to burn fat.

Try high-intensity cardio. Remember the study from the University of New South Wales that we started with? High-intensity exercise, even if only in short bursts, may rev up the metabolism and get that fat mobilized. Do some high intensity as well, but don’t overdo it, because burning the fat is a long-term project and you don’t want to get ‘burned out’. A group exercise program such as a solid cycle spin class might match this requirement. In fact, I highly recommend group cycle spin classes where you are encouraged to go fast, yet with the option to slow down if you need to.

The Weights and Cardio Circuit Training Program

Combining weights and cardio in a circuit interval session may be the best approach of all. The weights circuit I propose is based on the idea of mixing high and low-intensity weights and cardio in a circuit. This idea is not new, but what I’ve designed uses simple equipment: one set of dumbbells, an exercise step platform and five carefully chosen basic exercises.

Check it out and let me know if it works for you.

http://weighttraining.about.com/od/fatlossweighttraining/a/fat_burn.htm