By BJ Gaddour, CSCS, YFS
For years the first thing most fat loss seekers have done is jump on the treadmill and do hours of endurance training with no results to speak of. Fortunately, training for fat loss has truly evolved over the past decade. In fact, it has been scientifically proven time and time again that aerobic training alone for fat loss just doesn’t work.
So what does work? A combination of total body resistance training workouts and cardio interval training has been proven in both the lab and in the gym to be the ultimate one-two fat burning punch for twice the results in less than half the time when compared to the primitive, outdated aerobic training approach to weight loss.
Now, what exactly is a total body resistance training workout? Well, there are many ways to skin a cat but for our purposes a total body workout means that you have effectively worked you upper body, lower body, and core within the same workout.
Now, am I saying that you need to perform three separate exercises each and every workout to get that total body effect? Not exactly — in fact, I am about to share with you today a rather revolutionary approach to fat loss training that truly simplifies the process on the user’s end. Essentially I am going to teach you how to do ONE exercise total body workouts using combination exercises to burn belly fat fast!
A combination exercise is where you take one exercise and combine it with one or more exercises. The whole idea here is to get more muscles involved to burn calories (and fat) in the shortest amount of time possible. After all, the key to any successful fat loss workout is escalating density, or the accumulation of more work in the same amount of time or less from workout to workout. So, total body workouts are great, but why not turbo charge your results by using total body exercises within your total body workouts.
For example, let’s say you are doing a dumbbell lunge to work your lower body. The lunge is a unilateral knee-dominant exercise which when performed correctly dramatically increases single-leg strength and stability and is a key movement pattern to teaching your body how to decelerate or efficiently stop and go on command. Well if you add a dumbbell curl to press at the end of each lunge, you would transform this exercise from a great lower body exercise to an even better TOTAL body exercise by simultaneously involving your upper body.
The curl to press is in itself a combination upper body movement that works both pull-push components at the same time. Plus, your core is the link between all integrated upper and lower body movements so any time you perform an upper-lower body combo exercise your core automatically gets called into action. In other words, choose the right exercise and it’s one and you’re done!