3 Exercises That Burn the Most Calories

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Exercise is something we should all be doing, not just for weight control, but for our mental and physical overall health as well. But let’s face it, sometimes there are weight loss goals that need to be reached in order to enjoy optimal health, and in those cases we need to be focusing on the exercises that torch the most calories and give us the most bang for our buck, in the shortest amount of time.

There are definitely exercises that burn substantially more calories and are therefore much more efficient. They are typically harder, but they can really help you compress your workout regimen and reach your calorie burning target quicker and more effectively.

It is a myth that you have to spend a few hours in a gym to get great results in both muscle building and weight loss. Science is finding that shorter, “smarter”, more intense workouts may actually be more effective than phoning it in at the gym for an hour and a half.

Interval training

Interval training is incredibly hard at first, because it feels taxing on the body for the short one and a half to two minute intensive periods of cardio and muscle work. However, it’s very effective, and it turns on the fast twitch muscles that burn the most calories.

The “resting” periods of 2-3 minutes in between these intensive intervals keeps the heart rate up, and the muscle keeps working, but you aren’t over stressing it for long periods of time. It combines optimal calorie burning with great endurance training without totally exhausting the body and wasting time.

There are many great interval training videos out there for free. You can literally get a full body workout in about 25 minutes and it can be just as effective as an hour long session at the gym. It’s not easy, but before you know it, it’s over. And you’ll reap the most rewards in terms of weight loss, cardio conditioning, and muscle building.

Swimming

Swimming is one of the all time best stand bys when it comes to big time calorie burning. Remember those days as a kid when you’d go swimming at the pool or the ocean or the lake all day long? Remember how famished you were at the end of the day?

That’s because swimming is one of the highest calorie burning activities you can do. What’s pretty cool about swimming is that you don’t even realize you’re working hard because even when you’re just treading water, your body is working to stay afloat, and it requires an incredible amount of coordination of all your muscles to do this, which expends a lot of energy.

It just feels easy because you don’t have any pressure on your joints or muscles due to the relative weightlessness you experience while afloat in water. This also makes it a great exercise for anyone with joint issues.

Your body also may be working to maintain its temperature, which is always slightly different from the water surrounding it. This results in an increase in calorie and energy expenditure. It takes a lot of energy just to maintain a comfortable body temperature!

Lifting weights

We tend to relate calorie burning with cardio exercises. However, lifting weights not only burns calories, but it has a residual calorie burning effect that lasts much longer than the initial workout session.

When we build muscle, we’re making our body a more efficient calorie burning machine when it is at rest. Try lifting weights that are a little heavier than you would normally be able to comfortable lift. You will almost immediate start to sweat. That’s because it makes those larger muscles turn on, which burn calories much faster and require much more blood and energy in order to effectively maneuver the weights.

The residual effect is just the icing on the cake. Many people say that after building substantial muscle mass, especially in their arms, notice that they tend to be able to take weight off more effectively. This is no accident, as the muscle built acts as one of our best weapons against fat storage.

Danna Norek founded AuraSensory.com, where you can find among other popular natural, chemical free body and hair care products, an effective all natural deodorant balm.

Sources for this article include:

http://science.naturalnews.com/pubmed/8764186.html

 

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Danna Norek
Owner, AuraSensory.com at AuraSensory.com
Danna Norek founded AuraSensory, a line of naturally inspired and effective hair, body and skin care products free of harmful chemicals.