The Top 5 Fat-Blasting Exercises

The problem with this plan (or lack thereof) is that you are wasting huge amounts of your precious time and energy on activities that aren't giving you the best results, or in a lot of cases, any results. Exercise is a science and there are certain basic guidelines that need to be followed in order to get the most out of it. A couple of things to remember: not all exercises are created equal, and long, steady-state cardio (i.e. you walking or jogging on the treadmill for an hour) is not the most effective calorie burning activity.

Let's look at the first point: not all exercises are created equal. Question for ya.

Which exercise is best? Uhmm

Which exercise should you spend more time focusing on: squats or crunches? Some might say, 'Well, it depends on your fitness goal'. And, yes, that is somewhat true. But for the average exerciser whose goal is to tone up, lose fat, and stay fit, the correct answer is squats. Surprised? A lot of women are shocked by that answer. The reason is that there is no such thing as true spot reduction. So doing 1000 crunches does not make you lose significant amounts of fat in your stomach area. Doing crunches will strengthen your abs, but that isn't the same as burning fat. If you want to melt away the fat, you need to burn lots of calories. And doing squats will burn a heck of a lot more calories than doing crunches. The reason being that you use a lot of large muscles (quads, hamstrings, glutes, back) when you perform a squat. Working all those large muscles burns calories. (I'm oversimplifying the process to save time here, but the bottom line is the same.)

Now for the second point, steady-state cardio is not the most effective activity for burning calories. Steady-state cardio is any cardio activity (jogging, elliptical, treadmill, bike, etc) that is performed with the same intensity for long periods of time. So what is more effective at burning calories than going for a morning jog? Going for a morning sprint with walking breaks. Instead of jogging for 45 minutes. Sprint for 30 seconds, then walk for 45 seconds. Repeat for about 20 minutes. This style of cardio will burn 10 times the amount of calories in half the time as steady-state cardio.

Now that you know the above two facts, we will get to my list of the top 5 fat-burning exercises, and it will make sense as to why these are my top 5...they are either large-muscle exercises that burn a lot of calories, or they are interval cardio activities that burn a lot of calories, or both. (editor's note - before doing any exercise it is best to seek the advise of a professional and learn to do them correctly)

Here's the list of the Top 5 Fat-Blasting Exercises... (not in any particular order)

Clean and press - a lot of bang for your buck

1. Clean & Press. The clean & press works the legs, back, shoulders, and core. You can use heavy weights with this power exercise which really ramps up the intensity and gives you a lot of bang for a short amount of time invested.

2. Deadlifts. Like the clean & press, you work a bunch of muscles when you deadlift, including your legs, back, traps, and glutes. Again, you can use pretty heavy weights for this exercise as long as you keep your form strict.

3. Hill Sprints. A lot of people swear by the effectiveness of hill sprints and that includes me. I always do these when I want to lean down a little more. Find a good sized, fairly steep hill and sprint up it as fast as you can. Then walk down and repeat.

Hills don't need to be steep or long to be effective

4. Squats. Squats are probably the king of all weight exercises. There are 100 different variations so you won't get bored. Try them all. Include at least 1 squat version in every full-body or leg workout.

5. Lunges. These are basically 1-leg squats. You have to do with one leg what you do with both legs in a squat. Therefore, you can't use as much weight, but you still work a lot of muscles doing this exercise. There is also more balance and agility involved. Like squats, there is almost an unlimited number of variations of lunges.

If you do a full-body workout 3 times per week, integrate 1-2 of these exercises in each workout. You will quickly find yourself getting stronger, leaner, and more toned than ever!

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