Maximum Fat Loss Workouts Must Include these 3 Principles

Most people involved in fitness and weight training should by now realize that adding lean muscle mass to your body does wonders for your metabolism and really is the key to experiencing significant fat loss.

Fat is stored as fuel reserves for the body — since muscle tissue makes a demand for fuel proportional to how hard it is worked your goal is to cut into this ‘fat warehouse’ as much as you can.

Whatever big secret there is to weight training for maximum fat loss requires the application of these
Three essential elements:

1) Intensity

2) Volume & Frequency

3) Progression

Intensity is a measure of how hard it is to perform any particular exercise, given your current condition.  The volume and frequency are how much and how often you perform these exercises.  Progression is a measure of how much the load demands increase from workout to workout…

Maximizing the Fat Loss Potential in Your Training Program is a Work of Art in Itself

Getting the perfect blend and balance of elements going for you which synergistically work together to maximize the body shaping that you will actually be getting from your workouts is something of a fine art that requires a bit of trial and error to get just right.  There are a few common things that everyone can keep in mind.  For one thing, workouts and weight training sessions last too long and are performed far too frequently by many people, especially those just starting out who may be a bit too enthusiastic for their own good.  Over training will only fatigue you and work against your body’s metabolic properties instead of being in concert with it.

In addition, resistive weight training is treated much the same way as aerobic exercise, yet the two are vastly different.  In fact, they’re complete opposites!…  Aerobic exercise is characterized by moderate intensity, high volume and usually little progression.  People keep doing the exact same fat loss routine forever, in other words.  Anaerobic exercise, or weight training on the other hand, must be performed at a higher intensity, lower volume and frequency — and with progression constantly becoming more difficult to be as effective at fat loss as possible.

No amount of weight training performed at a low to moderate intensity will provide sufficient muscle or strength building benefit beyond the very first few weeks.  You will hit a plateau within a few months.  However, mounting intensity coupled with increases in either the number of repetitions or the amount of weight being used during each and every workout will keep your body evolving towards becoming that ultimate fat loss machine!

Other details must be considered to maximize your weight training workouts and minimize time spent in the gym.  One aspect of training that’s as important as the workout itself is the rest period that follows.  You’re not going to get stronger or more muscular if you don’t rest properly. If you weight train properly you are creating tiny injuries to your muscles, which then have to repair themselves.  Your body will over-compensate by building new muscle tissue upon the existing muscle mass that it just repaired, and this is the mass-building we seek to maximize fat loss by becoming a larger and larger engine that guzzles more fuel!  If you don’t get enough rest and workout too soon before that cycle is completed however, you’ll experience very little IF ANY muscle building or fat burning results.

Therefore make sure to always get proper rest between workouts.  This typically means a minimum of 1 to 3 full DAYS of rest between properly executed high-resistance workouts.

Now, upon hearing that you’ve got ADD muscle to your body in order to ensure maximum fat loss, some of you women reading this might be thinking, “…but I don’t want to get all muscly, I just want to lose some weight and keep it off!”  Becoming muscle-bound is unlikely to happen to the majority of women however simply because most of you lack the necessary genetic factors (hormonal environment mostly) needed to produce the sort of extreme muscle gains that would cause you to look manly or over-developed.  You will get a nice tone and cut instead as you trade fat for muscle — still very feminine!

Also, lean muscle is more compact that fat — so you will actually be getting smaller by replacing the fat on your body with lean muscle even if your actual weight doesn’t change all that much.  It’s all about how you look in the mirror, after all!

So put yourself in the best position to succeed with all YOUR fat loss and fitness goals by performing your intense resistance training the correct way, and then by getting the proper rest between workouts in order to give your body a chance to adapt.

But always make sure to apply the three critical principles I discussed above – Intensity, Volume and Progression — otherwise you’I’ll be unhappy with your ultimate weight training results as well as your inability to burn away excess body fat and realize that lean, strong, and healthy body that you deserve.

And… a great way to fit any exercise program into your busy day is to use quick 3 minute body weight exercises like these by pro trainer Mike Geary — similar to the ones that I always recommend to all my new training students…