Any exercise that raises your heart rate burns calories. However, certain exercises will burn fat faster than others, making them the most efficient way to lose weight or get fit. While doing a fat-burning workout, you can make it more intense by increasing your pace, adding weights or moving your limbs higher or wider. If you have health concerns, speak with your doctor before starting a new fat-burning exercise regimen.
Vigorous Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardiovascular exercise raises your heart rate, makes you sweat, increases your rate of breathing and burns fat. Choose vigorous cardiovascular exercises that burn more than 700 calories per hour to maximize your fat-burning. One of your top choices is running, which burns about 900 to 1,000 calories in one hour if you maintain an eight-minute mile. Other top fat-burning workouts include high-impact aerobics, kickboxing, tae kwon do, roller skating, jumping rope, boxing, and playing competitive basketball, volleyball, soccer or football.
Lower-impact Options
High-impact workouts can be hard on your joints, bones, muscles and tendons. If you need exercise that is gentler on your body but still burns fat fast, choose full-body workouts. A good example is swimming laps, particularly a challenging stroke such as freestyle or the butterfly. Certain types of yoga, if done fluidly and without resting, also burn fat fast. Power yoga, hot yoga, ashtanga yoga and rapid sun salutations are good choices. Gym machines in which your feet stay in contact with the machine can also provide an intense cardiovascular workout. Consider stationary cycling, climbing a stair treadmill or using a stationary rowing machine.
Combination Workouts
Some combination workouts provide multiple fat-burning benefits. If your exercise regimen alternates between aerobic activity that raises your heart rate and strengthening work that builds muscle, you burn fat and increase muscle mass, which raises your basal metabolism. The higher your basal metabolic rate, the more you burn calories around the clock, even while at rest. Boot-camp workouts that feature back-to-basics moves like uphill sprints, rope ladders, pushups and pullups offer this two-pronged approach to fat-burning. Circuit training also qualifies, although you should reduce or eliminate rest periods between exercise stations to keep your heart rate elevated.
Interval Training
Do interval training, in which you add speed intervals to your aerobic workout, to spike your heart rate and burn more calories. If you walk, run, jog or dance, do so at a challenging pace. Every five minutes, devote between 30 seconds and one minute to spiking your heart rate by doing jumping jacks, burpees, jumprope, rapid kickboxing, steep climbing or another intense activity. You should work out at your top capacity, then slow to a moderate pace to rest but keep moving. After 30 seconds, resume your challenging rate of exercise until five minutes have passed. Do another speed interval. Repeat this cycle several times during your workout.
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