The Best Workout for Weight Loss
Updated: Oct 13, 2020
Now is the time.
Now is the moment you have chosen to take control and finally lose that 20 pounds.
Now is when you decide to take the time to learn what you have to do, and how to do it.
But where to look?
The internet is a great place that is loaded with tons of quality information. Unfortunately, more times than not, it gets overshadowed by god awful advice.
Instagram and magazines can be great to get you motivated, but these sources usually don’t offer the most intelligent workout programs or the best nutrition advice.
In this article, I will outline exactly what you need in your workout program to lose that weight that you want to get rid of so badly.
Once you have this knowledge you will be able to take control of your weight loss and grow into a leaner, stronger, and more confident version of yourself.
Let’s dive in.
The best kind of workouts for fat loss are those that will:
Burn a ton of calories
Stimulate your body to get stronger
Allow you to train all muscle groups at least twice a week
And leave just enough fuel in the tank so that you are fully recovered for the next workout.
The last one is a big one. Your body needs the right amount of recovery time between workouts, especially as you get older. When you are 60 years old you just won’t be able to bounce back as fast as a 20 year old. Even if you are 20 years old and reading this, the best results come when you give your body time to rest and recharge.
With that in mind, the first step is to pick how many days you realistically think you can work out and be recovered before the next workout. This could be as low as 2 days a week or as high as 6 days a week. You always want at least 1 recovery day, but we will touch on that later.
So now that you have picked your days, it is good to figure out how to split up your exercises or movements based on the muscles that will be taxed each workout session.
Here is a simple chart to follow.
Workout Frequency.............................................Body Part Split
2-4 times a week....................................................Full Body
4-6 times a week....................................................Upper/Lower
5-6 times a week....................................................Push/Pull/Legs
So which one should I choose?
Full body workouts are probably one of, if not, the best workouts for fat loss.
Your body will respond incredibly well because of the types of exercises it allows you to focus on and the greater amount of recovery time.
This method also allows you to do mostly compound exercises. These types of exercises require a ton of energy because they involve a lot of muscles working at once. This would be like a squat or a pushup.
When you choose exercises for this type of split you want to be sure to pick at least one exercise for these five categories:
Push: Pushups, Bench Press, Chest Flys
Pull: Chinups, Rows, Face Pulls
Squat: Goblet Squat, Split Squat
Hinge: Romanian Deadlifts, Glute Bridges, Single Leg RDLs
Carry or Core: Farmer Carries, Goblet Carries, Planks, Reverse Crunches
These exercises burn a lot more calories than what are called isolation exercises. These usually involve very few muscles. Some examples are bicep curls or leg extension machines.
Lets just say that that type of split didn’t sound too appealing. That’s fine. It’s not everyone’s jam. We still have 2 more options.
Upper/Lower is another great option for splitting up your workouts.
One day you do all upper body. This would include chest, back, arms, shoulders and possibly abs. The next time you work out you do lower body. This would include your legs, butt, calves, and also possibly abs.
The last option listed is Push, Pull, Legs.
This is great if you plan on doing 5-6 days a week. You do all pushing movements one day. That would be exercises that work on the chest, triceps, and front and sides of the shoulders. The next day would be pulling. That would include exercises that work out the muscles in the back, biceps, and the back of the shoulders. The last day would be legs. This is the day where you would do mainly legs. This is ideally the day where you would throw in some abs too.
Many times, people don’t want to do legs twice, and that’s fine. You can do push, pull, legs, push, pull for a total of 5 days.
Once you have decided on the split of the workouts you will be doing, it’s time to pick exercises.
When it comes to fat burning, you get the most bang for your buck when you opt for compound exercises. These are the moves that include a bunch of muscles working at the same time. Because they use a lot of muscles at the same time, you can usually do them with a lot of weight compared to other exercises. Because of this, they can be really taxing on the body. It would be best to pick 2-3 of these and do them first in the workout for Upper/Lower or Push/Pull/Legs. If you are doing Full Body you can make the whole workout compound movements.
Some of the best ones are Squats, Deadlifts, Pushups, Chinups, Rows, and Bear Crawls
The other exercises would be isolation exercises. These exercises usually involve fewer muscles. This would be like bicep curls or leg extensions on the machine. Your workout should include a couple of these in the later half of your workout.
Now that you have picked out exercises it’s time to figure out sets and reps.
When it comes to sets you want to aim for 3-5 sets per exercise. Doing roughly around 20 total sets should be more than enough. But depending on your goals, you might want to go for a few more or less.
For the repetitions anywhere between 8 and 20 reps would be best for fat loss.
If you are doing single leg or single arm work it would be better to keep the reps around 8 to 12. The reason for this is because when you do that many repetitions, your grip or core get very fatigued. This could cause you to not be able to finish the exercise.
If you follow the steps laid out in this article you should have no problem creating a workout that will get you the results you want.
However, if you want to take all the guesswork out, feel free to email me at coachfitzz1@gmail.com for a free workout.
