It’d be nice if we could add a few more hours to the day. With work, family, and the constant errands that seem to never end, it’s extremely hard to find the time to hit the gym. It’s even harder to find enough time to burn as many calories as we’d like t0.
Thank God for science.
Adding Fat Burning Fuel to your Workout
Apparently researchers at the University of Padova are just as busy as us because they too wondered, “How can I burn the most calories possible in as little time as possible?”.
They set up an extremely simple study using 17 male subjects. Every subject was an experienced lifter, with between 4 and 6 years of resistance training experience
Side note: This is extremely important and further supports the results because most studies use newbies. Newbies tend to respond to anything whereas it’s much harder for an experienced lifter to show an improvement.
During one training session the subjects performed a traditional resistance training protocol consisting of 8 exercises performed for 4 sets of 8-12 repetitions with 1-2 minutes of rest between sets. 32 total sets were completed per workout.
The other session consisted of of JUST 7 sets. Lifters performed 3 different exercises (1 exercise consisted of 3 sets while the other two were just 2 sets) using a drop set protocol (Perform 6 repetitions, rest 20 seconds, perform as many reps as possible, rest 20 seconds, and perform as many reps as possible. That’s 1 set. Rest 2 minutes and 30 seconds and repeat. )
The Results – 334 more calories in half the time
The group that performed 7 sets, which the researchers called the high intensity group, burned an extra 432 calories over the 22 hour period post workout. The group that performed the traditional resistance training workout burned just an extra 98 calories over 22 hours. And even more impressive, the high intensity group performed just half the volume of the traditional resistance training group, and their workout lasted only30 minutes.
It doesn’t stop there though. The researches also measured the participants’ respiratory exchange ratio to see what maronutrients the participants were burning during those 22 hours. The high intensity group showed a statistically significant switch to fat as their fuel source. Boom!
Takeaway Point
If you want to seriously lose weight, up the intensity of your workout. Pick 3 exercises and grab something heavy, lift it for 6-10 repetitions, rest 10-20 seconds, repeat until failure, rest 10-20 seconds, and repeat until failure. Perform no more than 7 sets between the 3 exercises during the workout. Bam, you’re done. Perform that workout 3 times per week, and you’re looking at an extra 1200 calories burned. And the icing on the cake, those calories are coming from your fat cells.
