There are different ways to burn fat, depending on how much you want to accomplish. Working at a moderately intense pace, such as brisk walking, burns a higher percentage of calories from fat than more intense aerobic exercise. More intense aerobic exercise, however, burns more total calories per minute, resulting in more total fat calories burned during your workout. Using exercise equipment to create aerobic workouts is your best bet for burning fat calories.
Step 1
Examine the different exercise equipment available to you and familiarize yourself with the machines, weights or resistance bands. Choose a piece or pieces of equipment you feel you will use.
Step 2
Inspect the equipment to learn how to use it. With exercise machines, learn how to control any electronic monitoring and programming systems, as well as any resistance, stride length or incline settings. With weights and resistance bands, perform one or two repetitions of an exercise to learn your limits before starting a workout.
Step 3
Calculate your maximum heart rate. Subtract your age from 220 if you are a male, or subtract 88 percent of your age from 206 if you are a woman. You will use this number to calculate your target heart rate range for aerobic exercise, which is 70 percent to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. Multiply your maximum heart rate by .70 and .80 to determine your target heart-rate zone for workouts.
Step 4
Warm up prior to working out. Use moderate arm and leg movements, such as jogging in place, arm swings or skipping in place. This will help you raise your metabolism and stretch your muscles, helping you start your workout more efficiently, according to performance coach and fitness author Brian Mac.
Step 5
Exercise using your equipment, increasing your intensity until you get into your target heart-rate zone. If you do not have a heart-rate monitor or your machine does not track heart rate, exercise at a pace that has you sweating, breathing hard, but able to talk.
Step 6
Decrease the resistance, incline and stride length settings on exercise machines to increase your speed. Lift lighter weights and decrease the tautness on resistance bands. Take only one-minute breaks between sets to keep your heart rate high. Increase your resistance as you build muscle strength. You can raise your heart rate based on the speed you perform your exercise or the resistance your muscles meet. Using more resistance to raise your heart rate may result in workout-ending fatigue.
Step 7
Maintain this pace for the duration of your workout. You can add short, higher-intensity sprints to your workout, consisting of 30- to 90-second bursts of high-intensity activity, followed by two minutes of rest. If you are new to exercise, work at a pace that lets you work longer, rather than harder. This will help you build stamina, which will allow you to work out longer and harder as you get in better shape.
Step 8
Work for 30 to 90 minutes, depending on your fitness and goals. The American Heart Association recommends 60 to 90 minutes of exercise at this pace for weight loss and maintenance.
Step 9
Lower your pace several minutes prior to stopping your workout. Cool down by repeating your warmup exercises at a decreasing intensity, until your heart rate and breathing get closer to normal. Stretch. These post-workout activities will help prevent blood from pooling in your joints and muscles, causing soreness later, according to Mac.
Member Comments