Burn Extra Calories While Lifting
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Take a moment to review your weight lifting routine. How much time do you spend lifting compared to resting? Which exercises are you doing and are they the most efficient ones? With a few tweaks, you could burn an extra 100 calories during your lifting workouts, without adding extra time. It almost sounds too good to be true, but after reading this, you’ll see how a few changes can make a big difference.
Resting Time
Barring a few exceptions, most people rest too long in between sets or rest more muscles than needed. Take advantage of the time in between sets by working different muscles or doing cardio exercises. Today is Friday, my day for arm exercises. After finishing a set of bicep curls, I need to rest them, but not my entire body. As my biceps rest, I’ll sneak in some crunches. This technique allows my biceps to get the rest they need, while working different parts of my body and burning more calories!
Work More Muscles
If you want to burn more calories during your workout, you need to hit the free weights. Free weight exercises work more muscles than machines. With free weights, you’ll work your target muscles and all the small stabilizing muscles. The more muscles you work, the more calories you burn.
Once you hit the free weights, try the “big 3″ full body exercises - squats, dead lifts and cleans. As you can guess, these are full body exercises that work many muscles. They are efficient, build muscle and burn calories.
Combine Lifting and Cardio
My last calorie burning technique is super sets. Super sets are a series of different exercises done with little to no rest in between. Super sets are easy to create, just think of 2 or 3 different parts of your body, then do exercises that target them. For a simple super set try bicep curls, tricep pull downs, followed by military presses. This set targets your arms and upper back, while burning more calories.
To burn more calories during your lifting workouts remember to utilize the time in between sets and work more muscles with each exercise.
Written by: Gregory Schnese
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Great advice, Greg. Some other great ways to burn more calories:
- do a minute of jump rope between sets. Gets your heart rate up and works your calves and arms
- drop and do 25 push ups between sets (great for leg days). Good for heart rate. Great for chest and back.
- Walk it out. Between sets, go over to the treadmill. Crank the incline to 12-15% and walk it out at 3.5 to 4.0 MPH for 5 mins. Keeps the heart rate up and works the legs. if your a real show off, try if backwards to work your quads.