Free-weight workouts are a great way to stimulate the body to burn fat and lose weight. Dumbbells and barbells are known as free weights because they are not attached to a weight stack or pulley system like other resistance training equipment. According to "Xtreme Lean" authors Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman, free weights target muscle fibers for fat burning better than any other form of resistance training. Add a few potent fat burning techniques to your free-weight training workout to burn fat faster than ever.
Step 1
Work out with free weights five days per week to burn more calories and accelerate your weight loss. You may opt to work out a sixth day, but always take at least one day off of all formal training to allow your body to recover fully.
Step 2
Use a five-day training split to focus on hitting each muscle group separately, and keep your workouts very short and efficient. A good weekly schedule is to hit shoulders, arms, legs, back and then chest. Take the weekend off and start this cycle again on Monday. If you have one particular day that is too busy to get a workout in, use one of your rest days when needed.
Step 3
Add one or two high-intensity interval training sessions per week as your cardiovascular training. "The Abs Diet" recommends this because it burns calories for hours even after you finish your workout. Simply do any form of cardio for 20 to 30 minutes, with 30- to 60-second high-intensity sprints every two minutes or so.
Step 4
Do full body workouts three days per week if you cannot commit to five days of training. This can also be very effective, particularly if you use circuit training. Circuit training means doing one or two exercises for each muscle group and doing them back to back with very little rest in between. For example, do squats, leg curls, lat pull-downs, bench presses, shoulder presses, triceps pushdowns, biceps curls and crunches, and complete two to three circuits per workout.
Step 5
Build your workout around the compound movements, rather than isolation exercises. "Combat the Fat" author Jeff Anderson says exercises that utilize several large muscle groups at once burn more fat, leading to greater weight loss. These exercises include barbell squats, deadlifts and bench presses.
Step 6
Use one negative-accentuated set per exercise to increase fat burning for up to 72 hours after your workout. According to Lawson and Holman, the "negative" of the movement is the lowering action. "Accentuating" it means counting a slow six seconds as you lower the weight. Lift the weight naturally to a one- or two-second cadence.
Step 7
Do 20 to 30 minutes of low- to medium-intensity cardio immediately after your free-weights workout, says Anderson. This helps to directly target body fat stores---especially in trouble areas---which are triggered to release fatty acids during resistance training.
Step 8
Drink a post-workout protein shake to enhance your muscle recovery. Your free-weights program will not be very successful if you are too sore to train at your next workout session. Try getting 30 to 50 grams of whey protein and 30 to 60 grams carbohydrates. The amount of protein depends partially on your body weight and your personal preference.
Tips and Warnings
- Dumbbells provide a greater range of motion and a unique stabilization training stimulus, and they can be safer than barbells if you are training alone.
- Never train with heavy barbell free weights without a spotter.
Things You'll Need
- Whey protein
References
- "Xtreme Lean"; Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman; 2005
- "The Abs Diet"; David Zinczenko; 2004
- "Combat the Fat"; Jeff Anderson; 2008
- Muscle & Performance: Lean in Less Time; February 2010
Member Comments