When it comes to working out, you can either minimize the calories you burn (and the progress you make), or you can maximize it! Here are four ways to burn more calories during your strength workout.
Skip the Treadmill, and Hit the Hills
Feeling like a zombie during your cardio workout? Add some oomph to the excitement and the calories you burn by hitting the outdoors and sprint up hills (or stairs). If you don’t like to run, this is the perfect way to burn calories without risking the high impact workout you loathe (or fear an injury will result from). Indoors? Just crank up the incline to the maximum and walk for twenty minutes. If you’re outdoors, look for stairs or hills you can climb, because the steeper the climb, the more calories you’ll blast.
Turn a Walk into a Lunging Walk
Keeping up the daily run on the treadmill is time consuming, and tedious. On top of that, it only allows you to burn 100 calories for every mile you run. Why not burn more calories while giving yourself a break from running altogether? Slow the treadmill down to a very slow walk, and lunge-walk your way to a lean body! For an extra challenge, you can increase your incline and burn even more calories.
Superset Your Workout
If your body isn’t showing the effects of your high intensity workouts like it should, it could be because you’re resting more than you need to be. Instead, superset your workout! As soon as you’ve completed a round of lunges, lean right into wall sits. As soon as you’re finished with your wall sits, head right over to the rowing machine, etc. By reducing your rest time and keeping the high intensity movement going throughout your workout, you’ll maintain a calorie blasting workout!
Avoid Any Machine’s Pre-Customized Weight Loss Program
If you’re serious about getting fit, then lose weight and get toned on your own terms—not what a weight machine tells you. Your goal should be to get your target heart rate up to 80-90 percent of your maximum heart rate, but many of the pre-set fat burning programs on cardio machines keep your heart rate at a much lower rate (commonly at 55-75 percent of your maximum heart rate). Monitor your heart rate on your own with a fitness device, and this could equate to you burning more than 200 extra calories than if you relied on the pre-set fat burning machines.
Continue the momentum, and take it day by day. When you maintain a committed workout at least three times a week, you will burn calories, lose inches and soon have the body of your dreams!
