There is a formula for creating a great fat loss workout. You can’t just expect to put any exercises you want into a workout and get great results. Use these four tips to get a serious workout in each and every time.

1. Focus on Maximizing Muscle Recruitment. Muscle recruitment refers to the quantity of muscle you use during an exercise. You absolutely have to focus on this when creating a fat loss workout plan. The reason this is so critical is because recruiting more muscle requires more energy, thus cooking extra calories. The end result is greater fat loss. The exercises you do determine the amount of muscle recruitment you achieve.

For instance, bicep curls are not a good use of your time if your goal is to lose fat and/or weight. Biceps are small in comparison to the large muscles of the body (legs, back, chest), which means they don’t burn too many calories when isolated (i.e. worked by themselves). Instead, focus on doing more pullups (assisted, modifed, or pulldowns if neccessary). That will recruit the back and the biceps together.  Here’s another example. Instead of tricep pressdowns, get in more dips (modified if you have to) and tricep bench presses. Now you are working the chest, shoulders, and triceps simultaneously. Squats and deadlifts should be done regularly to develop the lower body. Those were just a few to get you started, there are a lot more choices.

2 . Circuit Training Workouts are the name of the game. In my opinion, circuit training is the best approach to fat loss there is. Here’s a breakdown: Put together a chain of 4 – 6 exercises with 10-60 seconds of rest (based on your fitness level) between each exercise. You are now getting in anaerobic cardio and muscle building. This is highly effective. To really make it work you need to complete your circuit 3-5 times in 30-60 minutes. If you can’t maintain for that length of time, start with at least 20 minutes and gradually increase the length of each workout until you get there.

3. Use a journal or you are cheating yourself. This is really important! If you don’t keep putting greater demands on your body, your results will stagnate quickly. The human body is gifted at adapting to workouts.That means that what is at first challenging will become easy very quickly. If your workout stops being tough, your fat loss will slow to a crawl of maybe stop altogether. You should keep a journal that tracks three factors of each exercise: weight or intensity, amount of repetitions per set, and amount of sets. Every time you workout you need to increase at least one of these factors, even if only by a little bit.

4 Switch up your training applications (stability ball, free weights, calisthenics, plyometrics, etc). This is also referred to as muscle confusion. Different applications require different demands of your muscles. That’s another great way to keep your body from adapting to your routine.

If you utilize these techniques every time you strength train, your results will skyrocket. Remember, creating a great fat loss workout isn’t guesswork, it’s science. If you are really serious about going after it, you should find the free workout and nutrition plan to be extremely helpful. Catch ya later.