In today’s ” Q and A’s”… I’m discussing “Exercises That Burn The Most Calories”
If you think going flat-out on the tready is the only exercise option to maximize your calorie burning efforts when training… then think again.
Grab these tips and apply them to your own workouts!
Enjoy today’s Q and A, share it with your friends… and don’t forget to submit your comments!
Take care…Hugs..
For a more detailed answer see Ross’s written response below.
What Exercises Burn The Most Calories?
Some of the most commonly asked exercise questions are things like what cardio exercise is best for losing weight or what resistance training exercises burn the most calories? At the heart of these questions is the desire to figure out the best or easiest way to burn fat and lose weight. While some exercises do burn more calories than others, it is still only one piece of the big picture.
When it comes to the question of what resistance training exercises burn the most calories, the answer is fairly straightforward and common sense. All other things being equal, the exercises that use the largest muscles and/or the most muscles at one time burn the most calories.
For example, squats (which use many leg and core muscles) will burn more calories than wrist curls, which only focus on one small muscle group. Also, squats have a greater range of motion (the weight moves a greater distance) than the weight does during a wrist curl, which causes more calories to be burned. Simply put, the more total work your muscles have to do, the more calories you burn.
This is also true when it comes to cardio exercise, but it can be a little more complicated, because many forms of cardio exercise use the same or similar muscle groups. In addition, many media sources and especially exercise product commercials are always trying to say that a particular product burns more calories than other types of exercise.
The day I started writing this Q&A there was a TV show that had 3 people perform cardio exercise on different machines (1 bike, 1 treadmill, 1 elliptical) and counted how many calories were burned on each piece of equipment. At the end of the show, the person on the treadmill burned the most calories, followed by the elliptical and the stationary bike came in last. This suggested that the treadmill is best for burning calories, but things are not that simple.
Unfortunately, there is a major flaw with this type of test. Even in this case where the show was trying to be responsible by using people of a similar age and ability level, there are still too many variables that were not accounted for. Most notably, for this type of test to be accurate, each person would have to be exercising at exactly the same relative level of difficulty.
In this case, when they showed the people exercising it usually looked like the person on the treadmill was working the hardest and the person on the bike looked least challenged. This makes perfect sense with their results, because the harder you work, the more your muscles have to do, which burns more calories, regardless of what type of exercise you are doing.
There have been well designed scientific studies in peer reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, confirming that the number of calories burned has more to do with the physiological amount of work your body does than the type of exercise you do or machine you use.
In the above example with the 3 types of cardio equipment, if the person on the stationary bike would have pedaled faster or increased the resistance on the bike, she could have easily been the one who burned the most calories, but that was not the case. It just makes sense that the more work you do, the more calories you burn, but that is not something most people want to hear.
It may be nice to think that there is a special type of exercise that makes you burn more calories with less effort, but that is simply not the case. If you want to burn a significant amount of calories through exercise, you have to put in the effort. That is why personal trainers frequently say the best form of cardio exercise is the one you are most likely to do. You have to do the work to get the rewards.
That said, there are things you can do to improve the overall effectiveness of your workouts. One of the most important things to do is maximize the variety in your workouts. Probably the most common mistakes people make with both cardio and resistance training programs is doing the same workouts over and over.
I cannot count the number of people I have spoken with who complained that they exercise regularly, but do not make progress. These people almost always also mentioned that they rarely change their workouts. The unfortunate truth is that doing the same workout day after day is one of the fastest ways to plateau (stop making progress).
It may seem like a specific cardio workout should always cause the same benefits, but it is all relative to your experience and ability level. If someone who has never exercised tries to jog for an hour, that would be a very challenging workout and probably way too difficult, but if a marathon runner went out for an hour job it would seem routine or even easy.
In the case of a person who does the same workout all the time, that workout may start out being challenging and productive, but as their fitness increases and their body becomes used to that type of exercise, it becomes increasingly less effective. Additionally, as you become better at a certain type of exercise, your body becomes more efficient at the movement any you burn fewer calories as a result.
This is another reason why there is no single best form of cardio exercise calorie burning. The most efficient approach is to perform a number of different types of cardio exercise so your body does not get too comfortable with any one type of exercise. Of course, if your goal is to get better at a particular type of exercise, such as running, then running should make up the majority of your cardio workouts.
Even if you only perform one type of exercise, you can and should still vary your workouts. With cardio exercise you can change the distance, speed, terrain (hills or incline), etc. With resistance training you can change the weight, exercises, type of resistance (bands, bodyweight, dumbbells, etc.), number of sets, reps, rest period, etc.
When looking at the big picture, it becomes obvious that the type of exercise you perform is just one of many variables that determine the number of calories you burn during a workout. It is really not even that important, because virtually any form of exercise can be effective for calorie and fat burning if you perform well-designed workouts that challenge your body.
The best thing to do is think figure out what forms of exercise you enjoy (or at least tolerate) and will be most likely to stick with. Then focus on performing the types of workout that are most appropriate for your specific needs and goals. Finally, more exercise is not always better and you always need to have adequate recovery in order to achieve optimal health, fitness, and fat loss.
By Ross Harrison
VFT Fitness Expert
© Virtual Fitness Trainer.com
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