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5 Tips to Burn Fat (NOT MUSCLE!)

5 Tips to Burn Fat (NOT MUSCLE!)

by | Apr 7, 2024 | Blog, Diet, Exercises

If you feel lost as to what to do and like your hard work in the gym isn’t showing, I want to help you avoid common body recomp mistakes with 5 tips to dial in your workouts and your diet to help you lose fat NOT muscle!

The first key component for fat loss is adjusting your diet to not only fuel your training but better help you recover from it.

Because we can only train as hard as we can recover from! 

And our nutrition is a key component of our recovery! 

Now…this tip is one most of us know we should be doing…yet we often try to find a reason NOT to do…

It’s why I really want to take a second to explain the WHY behind it.

While we often just want to know WHAT to do….

Knowing the what without the why doesn’t help us truly embrace the changes, especially when we don’t…well….like them to some extent. 

So what is probably the most important thing we can be focusing on nutrition wise if we want fabulous body recomp no matter our age?

Increasing our protein! 

You’ve heard me harp on this before, but that’s why I want to really focus on WHY higher protein is so key.

First reason why protein is key…It’s the building blocks of muscle. 

By increasing our protein, especially when in a calorie deficit, we are making sure we’re getting our muscles the fuel they need to repair and rebuild from our hard training sessions.

If we aren’t getting our muscles what they need, we risk losing more muscle as we try to lose fat, especially the harder we train and the more cardio we include. 

And we want that muscle!

Building and retaining lean muscle helps us look more defined as we lose fat.

It also helps us avoid metabolic adaptations to burn more calories at rest.

And when we are getting our body the fuel it needs to truly repair from our workouts, we are preventing the catabolic environment that can often occur during a fat loss phase, leading to us losing not only fat but ALSO muscle.

Now you may have heard that you can only use about 20-30 grams in a meal for muscle protein synthesis. 

And tried to use this as an excuse to not eat higher protein.

But protein isn’t just used for building muscle….we are literally made up of protein.

So that 20-30 grams you’re eating, isn’t just going to cover your muscle needs. It’s being used for other body functions as well. 

And as we get older, we also aren’t as able to utilize protein as efficiently.

So the harder you’re training as you’re trying to see body recomp, especially as you get older, your protein needs increase. 

Second, protein makes the fat loss process easier not only because of it’s muscle building benefits but also because of it’s thermic effect and satiating effect.

Higher protein diets have been shown to increase satiety, partly because they even help you create higher volume meals. 

And higher protein diets also lead to a daily higher calorie burn because it requires more energy to digest protein than the other macros. 

So you can feel fuller with technically a higher calorie intake, and ultimately create a bit more of a deficit through the fact your body has to work harder to turn that protein into the fuel you need!

Not to mention…it’s way easier to create and maintain your calorie deficit with higher protein for many people. 

We just don’t want to eat more of the protein than we have to so we are less likely to overeat!

And if you do happen to overeat your calories, high protein diets are the only diet shown to help you avoid gaining unwanted fat with a slight calorie surplus. 

High protein diets give you that extra wiggle room!

With increasing your protein, and the extra flexibility it can give you in your calorie intake, you also want to fight to keep your calories as close to your current maintenance as possible. 

Creating a SMALL calorie deficit is key if you want to lose fat and not muscle.

Our body doesn’t like change.

The more we can adjust from what we’re currently doing, the better as our body won’t rebel as much. 

And if you are currently under eating protein, you may even keep your calories where they are at as you increase your protein first.

Because even by increasing protein, due to the thermic effect, you could put yourself into a slight deficit. 

With also building muscle from your training because you are eating enough calories for muscle growth, you may then find what was your maintenance is now a small deficit.

So with calories, fewer isn’t better.

Extreme deficits put us at more risk for muscle being lost NOT better or faster fat loss results. 

And this can lead to us looking softer and needing to slash our calories lower and lower to see further progress. 

Keep your calories as high as you can, first changing protein levels. 

Then consider even starting by subtracting 100-200 calories from what you’re consuming CURRENTLY to create that deficit. 

These diet changes then need to be paired with your workouts strategically.

Especially the harder you train, the more you need to avoid extreme deficits while focusing on increasing protein.

And you want to make sure your workouts are designed with a focus on muscle.

Yes, muscle. 

Even if your goal is fat loss.

This makes sure you’re retaining lean muscle while in a deficit to lose fat as efficiently as possible.

And KEEP IT OFF.

Now, there are lots of workout designs that can work. 

But your focus when you design your workouts is on how you can lift more quality loads during your session. 

Too often we try to add more quantity, more training volume.

Instead we want to focus on the QUALITY of the volume we are doing. 

Not only does this help us get more out of short sessions, but it truly challenges our muscles with the intensity and progression they need to be forced to adapt and grow stronger.

More reps and sets, more volume, can just lead to training we don’t recover from without actually pushing us to the extent we need to create that stimulus for growth. 

We need more quality loads lifted over the session.

That’s where cluster sets can be a great technique to use. 

If you’re struggling with going heavier, only able to do a few reps with your current weight in a row…

Or even slightly fear your form breaking down as you begin to lift heavier so hesitate…

Cluster sets can be a great technique to use.

They can help you get out 8 reps with a weight you would only usually be able to use for 4 or even 5 reps. That’s a lot more weight lifted over the workout! And it’s all because you broke down those 8 reps into mini sets.

With cluster sets, you are breaking up your traditional set of 8 reps, mini sets of 2 or 3 in a row, with just 10-30 seconds of rest between those mini sets, before you rest longer and do another round.

Because you are only performing 2 or 3 reps before the short rest, you will find you can use more weight for the full 8 reps than you would have been able to if you had tried to just do 8 in a row. 

Using this technique to lift more weight for quality reps will lead to faster muscle growth in a safer way and us losing fat NOT our muscle! 

It’s a great way to really create the needed stress and stimulus for muscle growth even as we get older and don’t have the same anabolic hormonal environment we did when we were younger.

But no matter what techniques you include, and especially the more advanced an exerciser you are, the more you have to really focus on pushing yourself in your training sessions. 

This doesn’t just mean adding more loads.

It means creating progression in different ways.

And one way we often don’t discuss as a way to create progression in our training is exercise order!

The order of the exercises we include can have a huge impact. 

Ever become aware of how much a muscle is actually working in a move because of another exercise you recently started including before it? 

That can be used to your advantage!

Include an isolation move before a compound lift and you can use “pre-exhaust” or pre-fatigue technique to your advantage. 

You may find you better activate the muscle you targeted with the isolation move in your following compound lift for more quality of movement.

Or that you are able to fatigue the prime mover in your compound lift with lighter loads and better quality of movement.

If however fatiguing the muscle with the pre-haust technique leads to you compensating, you may find that using an isolation move right AFTER a compound lift works for you better.

This post-exhaust training technique can be a great way to push a muscle past failure.

You’ll do the compound lift to fatigue, compound then use an isolation move to further target a muscle involved in the lift to work to failure.

You can also use BOTH techniques over progressions, especially to help you both take muscles past fatigue but also fully fatigue prime movers that usually won’t hit failure with a compound move because you’re usually limited by smaller, weaker muscles fatiguing first! 

But they are both great ways to progress and create that stimulus for muscle growth without just focusing on adding more weight!

Then remember, we can only train as hard as we recover from.

When you’re working hard toward a goal, you’re going to get burned out.

That’s why planning in breaks is key!

And breaks are not only rest days every week, but also strategic diet breaks and recovery weeks.

This doesn’t have to mean, and honestly shouldn’t mean, just lying on the couch doing nothing.

Nor should it mean excuses completely blowing your calories and macros.

The goal of these breaks is to help you mentally and physically have a break from the grind.

It’s like refilling your gas tank.

You don’t want to end up on empty by the side of the road.

You want to pull into a gas station when the light comes on. 

This allows you to keep moving forward faster.

These strategic breaks can help you from avoiding hitting burn out or letting cravings get the better of you.

So don’t fear sometimes backing off to ultimately do more!

Take time where you include more foods you love and even increase your calories out of a deficit. 

Take time at points to lower your workout intensity or recharge with workouts that are new and fun and address any weak links. 

Embrace even doing the minimum as you shift your priorities to come back wanting to keep working toward your goals! 

But stay focused on the fundamentals and use these 5 tips to help dial in your diet and your workouts together to lose fat and NOT muscle!

The best results happen when we follow a “recipe” – a clear plan…

Learn more about my 3-Step Recipe For Results”

–> Watch now

If You’re Not Building Muscle, Try These 5 Training Techniques

If You’re Not Building Muscle, Try These 5 Training Techniques

by | Jan 28, 2024 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

We can’t out exercise our diet.

HOWEVER, while many of us have heard that diet is more important, I’d actually argue they both matter equally especially in that both need to work together.

And so often we don’t place enough importance on proper training because we’ve only seen our workouts as a chance to burn more calories.

But our training shouldn’t be about the calorie burn.

It should be about building muscle.

When we focus on better movement and building strength and muscle in our training, we create true muscle growth.

Without proper stimulus, no matter how you eat, you won’t build muscle.

So while our diet is especially important to lose fat, and important to make sure we fuel our training sessions to gain…

Our workouts have to be designed strategically if we want to improve our body composition.

And this honestly means going against what most of us have always done to lose weight…

Instead of more cardio, we often need less.

And we need to stop turning our lifting sessions into simply cardio workouts – cutting out more rest and adding a ton of volume.

Now note…I’m not telling you that cardio isn’t important to your health and that you can’t do it if you enjoy it…

I do want to make it clear that to build muscle so we can lose fat faster, we can’t default back into this cardio, calories, do more training mindset.

That’s why I want to share 5 training techniques to help you build muscle, which in turn will boost your metabolic rate and help you look leaner faster…

Training Technique #1: Focus on double progression.

If it challenges you, it will change you.

But just because your workout feels hard doesn’t mean you’re creating a consistent progression so your muscles have to adapt and grow stronger week after week.

That’s why it’s key we not only progress the movement, adding weight, slowing down the tempo, doing a harder variation, but also adjust our exact reps to create that week over week progression.

Using these two forms of progression to complement we can ultimately move more loads over our training sessions, resulting in faster and better gains.

Often when we have a workout there will be 8-12 reps listed.

Let’s say right now you’re doing 12 reps of front lunges with 20lbs dumbbells and you manage that for all 4 sets you have assigned.

It feels hard.

Good.

But you’re at the top of the rep range so next week, GO UP in weight or progress the move in some way.

If you can still do 12 reps that first round, go up in weight for that next step until you can’t do 12 reps.

Let’s say on your 3rd round, you hit 8 reps with 35lbs dumbbells. Maybe you stick there for the final round.

The next week instead of going up in weight, you try to get out 9 or 10 reps. Once you can again do 12 reps, you again want to go up.

This double form of progression is the perfect way to max out the loads you can lift with volume and truly make sure you’re challenging yourself to create that muscle growth!

Training Technique #2: Train areas more frequently with the same but different.

Studies have shown that training an area 2-3 times a week can be optimal for muscle growth.

This doesn’t mean do 1000s of reps multiple times a week. It means definitely dropping volume a bit per session to increase the frequency and spread it out.

This allows for often more QUALITY volume as you may notice you are fresher for all the exercises and sets spread out over more days over doing that same volume in one.

This also allows you to use a diversity of movements and tools to work the same muscles.

And this can be key because changes in posture and position alone can impact even what aspects of a muscle are worked.

For instance a Romanian deadlift works the hamstrings through hinging at the hips. A seated leg curl works the hamstrings with knee flexion with flexed hips while a bridge and curl works the hamstrings with knee flexion with extended hips.

All three are different postures that address different aspects of that hamstring muscle group. And including three different moves over the 3 days can be key for optimal gains.

So don’t repeat just the same move 3 times a week. Consider different types of movements, ranges of motion and even different tools!

Training Technique #3: Combine rep ranges in a single workout.

If you want to gain muscle, you want to use a variety of rep ranges combined.

This can not only help you build strength and improve your strength and endurance and recovery, but even target stubborn muscles and push them past failure to see better results.

Some of you may have seen my 6-12-25 workout progressions in previous YouTube videos and podcasts, but this design is so fabulous because it does include maximal strength, hypertrophy and strength endurance rep ranges in a single series – moving from compound to more isolation exercises.

This helps you get in that quality of movement while isolating those more stubborn areas.

So don’t fear higher reps. Don’t fear lower reps.

Include a diversity in a single session even.

But be conscious of the types of moves you use with each.

Often in our workouts we want to go more compound to more isolated, with heavier lower rep work first and the higher rep, more isolated work later to work a muscle fully to fatigue.

However, like in the 6-12-25 and even compound burners, you can use 2 or even 3 rep ranges combined to lift heavy for lower reps then right after isolate that muscle that is already fatigued to recruit more muscle fibers with higher rep work.

And note, while you will go “lighter” with higher rep work, you aren’t going light.

Especially when you are working with higher reps, to push yourself, consider using a weight or variation you have to pause to get out 5 more and hit in the middle or top of the range.

That need to pause and do 5 more past failure is so key to those amazing gains!

Training Technique #4: Do more timed workouts.

Too often when we want to lose weight, our workouts get longer and longer as we add in more and more.

But this often just burns us out and leads to a lot of wasted volume.

By doing intervals or work or even timed sets, we can increase our training density without our workouts getting longer.

We can focus on that quality work and create that density by just trying to do MORE in the time set out.

I find that often when I use intervals over having do count a certain amount of reps, I eek out reps I wouldn’t have done had I been able to stop at 6. I end up doing 8 because I have the time and have to work through it…even if I have to pause for a second.

I also find I’m focused and more intentional over just rushing through because I can’t finish any faster.

And when it comes to timed sets or circuits, like Density Sets, you can lower the reps and increase the weight and keep moving the entire time to actually lift more quality loads without your workouts getting longer.

So consider timed intervals of work or timed sets to help yourself really push with each rep over simply doing MORE.

Especially since so many of us complain we don’t have enough time, why not plan for what you have and really be intentional and focus on quality with every rep!

Honestly the only reason our workouts should ever get longers is because we have the time and do more mobility work OR have increased rest periods to lift heavier with lower reps or to do more high intensity true sprint work.

Workouts become longer because of recovery not because we’re doing more work!

Training Technique #5: Vary intensity of workouts and type of drivers.

For the best results, some workouts should feel easy. Not every workout should slaughter you.

Because if you don’t recover, you can’t train at a true 100% intensity.

Not to mention, if you’re tearing down muscles constantly, they can’t regrow stronger.

It’s a cut. If you’re constantly working and picking off the scab, it’s not going to heal back!

You’ve got to give it time to heal…although unlike a cut we do want to reopen the wound to make our muscle feel pushed to adapt more and more!

So over the course of your week, vary what areas you are working. Give muscles time to recover.

And vary the intensity of your workouts. This helps areas recover while still driving growth. And it also helps you MENTALLY stay focused and push hard when you need.

We can’t mentally make ourselves extremely uncomfortable every session or we will burn out. So having a workout or two each week that isn’t taxing, especially programmed on busy days, can actually help you get more quality work done overall for the week.

And those recovery sessions can help you move better in future workouts.

So vary intensity!

And this doesn’t just mean easy or hard workouts. It also means varying the types of movements and what driver of muscle growth you use as some create more muscle tissue damage and take longer to recover from.

For example, maybe one day you do a deadlift, another a hip thruster and the 3rd day you include only mini band work for your glutes.

These all use different drivers of muscle growth and allow you to train your glutes 3 times that week and go hard in each session without just constantly beating your body down!

So consider the types of movements you’re using and even the tools!

WARNING: Stop seeking to be sore.

I mean this because if you vary intensity and use different drivers or muscle growth, you won’t be sore all of the time.

GOOD!

Soreness is not an indicator you worked hard enough.

And while it can feel good and satisfying at times to know you pushed, not being sore doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard.

Honestly, you shouldn’t constantly be sore if you’re truly creating progression to build.

Over the weeks of your workout progression, you should feel like you can even do more, more easily without getting sore.

Because soreness is often just an indicator we did something new or different.

That we didn’t give ourselves enough recovery.

That we focused only on the eccentric and mechanical tension as a driver of muscle growth.

That we aren’t eating enough.

Or hydrating well.

Constant soreness actually means we’re probably not doing something we need to see results.

So focus on that clearly mapped out progression you repeat and track those numbers to see progress instead of just pushing to be sore!

Weight Training To LOSE FAT Faster (5 Proven Methods)

Weight Training To LOSE FAT Faster (5 Proven Methods)

by | Apr 23, 2023 | Blog, Exercises

“My weight loss results are so slow! I should probably just do more cardio!”

Many of us have turned to cardio in the past to try to see better results faster.

But not only may this additional cardio actually be SABOTAGING our fat loss results, we may see better results by simply adjusting our weight training routine.

And if you’re about to say that diet is key, yes it matters most for fat loss.

However, the most efficient results, and most lasting, happen when our diet and workouts work together. 

And when it comes to amazing body recomposition, weight training wins out over cardio in terms of the biggest benefits! 

Better fat loss happens when we see our training as a chance to build muscle! 

So how is cardio sabotaging your fat loss and what are 5 ways to see better results? 

First let’s ask Why do we turn to cardio in the first place?

We turn to cardio in an attempt to burn more calories.

And it does…At least to start.

But not only do we adapt to not actually burn as many calories over time as we get used to the distance and pace, but we can also end up creating too extreme a deficit to start between our training and calorie intake, which can result in metabolic adaptations. 

We can lose muscle mass through this overtraining and underfueling. 

Not to mention we can send our body into survival mode, which means we will actually find ways to expend less calories during the course of our day. 

This ultimately NEGATES the increased calorie burn from our training.

Now if you’re a runner or cyclist or endurance athlete, I’m not telling you to stop doing what you love. 

I’m just saying that if your goal is fat loss, don’t jump to doing more cardio just to try to burn more calories.

What we also don’t realize is that doing more, training for longer and harder, especially if we are in a calorie deficit, can simply make sticking to our diet even harder. 

Ever notice you’re HUNGRIER when you start adding in more training sessions, especially more cardio?  

Another big thing we don’t consider when we add in cardio is how much HUNGRIER it can make us, especially if we are already in a deficit to lose.

So while the under eating while overtraining itself can create metabolic adaptations and hormonal imbalances, it can double sabotage us by making us feel like our body is fighting the deficit even more.

And ultimately, often we not only give in and eat more, but we end up overeating. And overeating for awhile. 

This quickly leads to us falling off our new healthy routine and makes us feel like we’ll never have the willpower to make a change.

Plus we end up gaining the weight back and usually more…and let’s face it, it’s not muscle we are regaining. It’s fat. 

When we repeat this yo-yo dieting cycle, each and every time it becomes harder and harder to lose. 

While we start to blame getting older or hormonal changes, often it is simply these previous attempts to out exercise our diet or time that have added up! 

So how can you stop this cycle and dial in your STRENGTH workouts to see the results you deserve? 

Tip #1: Address all of a muscle’s functions!

When you think about a specific muscle group, you have a “go-to” move. And often, they are go-to moves for a reason.

They work!

However, the more experienced a lifter you are, the more you want to consider including a variety of movements to work specific muscles to challenge yourself. 

This can lead to better muscular development and definition because you’re addressing all of the actions a muscle performs.

We need to focus on retaining and building muscle if we want to look leaner and lose fat. You aren’t going to become the hulk lifting heavy.

So if you want to see the best results, consider implementing different moves for the same muscle group over the course of the week.

If you want to work your hamstrings, maybe you include an Romanian Deadlift, but also a seated hamstring curl or a glute bridge and curl. 

Not only do these moves then address the fact that your hamstrings work during hip extension , but you also address their ability to flex or bend your knee. 

And then even while addressing the hamstrings ability to flex your knee, you are putting your hips in two different positions (extended with the bridge and flexed when seated) to again work the hamstrings in different ways.

Use those different postures and positions, not to mention even single leg vs two legged movements, to progress exercises and challenge your muscles!  

Tip #2: Extend rest periods.

Now this doesn’t mean standing around on your phone for 3-5 minutes looking at instagram between sets.

But it does mean realizing that if we want to keep working at a true 100% intensity, we need to give ourselves TIME to recover between rounds.

Often when we are short on time or want to make workouts FEEL harder, we cut out rest.

But this also causes our intensity to dip. 

If you want to really challenge yourself to really work muscles, you’ve got to be able to push each and every round.

So use that rest between sets!

But this doesn’t have to mean full rest.

You can even make sure a muscle group is given time to recover by alternating areas worked in supersets or trisets. 

This can help you work more areas efficiently, resting one area while working another, especially if you need a quicker training session.

And by working more muscle groups in a session, while being able to push hard, you will even increase your calorie expenditure during your training session.

Tip #3: Push to failure.

If you’ve ever just thought to yourself, “I’ll do 10 reps” and stopped at 10 because it felt hard enough, you need to push harder.  

Now this doesn’t have to mean you literally can’t lift the weight or you faceplant in a push up. 

But you need to push to that point where you wanted to stop 2 reps ago but could complete the round while still engaging the correct muscles.

You need to push closer to that point of failure.

Don’t be afraid, if your workout says 8-12 reps, to even have to put the weights down at 6, rest for 15-30 seconds then finish even 2 more reps to push slightly past what you could have done in a row. 

This push almost past failure will help you see really efficient muscle gains and will help you challenge your body.

If you want to lose fat, increasing your lean muscle mass is the best way to boost your metabolism and see lasting results! 

Tip #4: Use a variety of rep ranges.

How many reps and sets? What rep range is best?

The simplest and best answer is, use a variety.

Focus on building strength and working with those big heavy lifts in the 3-5 rep range. 

Focus more on muscle gains with compound movements that make you max out in the 6-12 rep range. 

Or focus on that strength endurance by working up toward 20 reps even! 

All of these rep ranges benefit each other, allowing you to lift more to drive muscle growth or even have better endurance to recover faster while lifting heavier!  

The key is making sure you challenge yourself for the reps you do.

No load should ever feel “light.”

And what reps you assign may even be impacted by the muscle group and type of exercise you’re including. 

For isolation moves, like bicep curls, you may do slightly more reps, working in the 10-15 rep range, over attempting a 5 rep max.  

For a heavy compound lift like the Barbell Row, you may try to hit failure at 5 reps when including it first in your workout.  

Both moves and rep ranges could be included in the same workout as you go from heavier more compound movements to more isolation exercises to target stubborn areas! 

Tip #5: Focus on intensity over doing more. Quality not quantity.

Too often we think we don’t have time to get in the workouts we need to see results. 

And sure, having a bit more time for training can have benefits.

But if you design for the time you have and focus on the QUALITY of your training sessions and giving your 100% effort, you are going to see results.

So stop making that excuse. And stop wasting your training sessions just going through the motions! 

Too often we increase the number of rounds or res to increase the difficulty of the workout, instead of focusing on maximizing the intensity of each round.   

Rather than feeling like you have the capacity to do more, figure out how can you push yourself to make the existing rounds feel more challenging.

Be intentional and get the most out of each rep. Don’t just go through the motions.

This will help you build that lean muscle!

And because diet is key, I want you to check out this video with tips to adjust your nutrition and a full day of eating next. 

–> Meal Plan To Lose Fat 

And guess what? One of those tips WILL be about one specific macro. 

Because if you want to gain muscle while being in a deficit, macros, and specifically this macro, matters most…

Check out that video to learn why! (I know you want to know now ;-P ) 

Weight Training For Fat Loss (5 Simple Tips)

Weight Training For Fat Loss (5 Simple Tips)

by | Oct 23, 2022 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

Don’t waste your time commenting that diet is key for fat loss.

Yup. 100% it is.

BUT the best results always come when we dial in our overall lifestyle as a system to work together.

And too often we turn to cardio when we want to lose fat.

We think we even need MORE cardio to improve our results.

But not only do workouts NOT have to be just cardio or just strength, but you could technically see BETTER results by dialing in your strength training over simply adding in more cardio type workouts.

That’s why I wanted to share 5 tips to get better fat loss results from your strength workouts.

But before I do, I want to highlight why strength training and building muscle is so key if we want to look leaner and KEEP the fat off…

Why Strength Training Is Key:

 

To build muscle, we need to challenge our body to grow stronger.

While you can 100% lose weight without working out by just adjusting your diet, you need the challenge of training to help you build that muscle.

Not to mention a consistent workout routine can make it so much easier to lose fat faster and maintain those results long term.

Working out though isn’t just about burning more calories. And weight training especially improves your hormone levels for easier fat loss and a better body composition. 

Weight training, and increasing muscle mass, can even increase insulin sensitivity for better fat burning benefits and a higher metabolic rate.

And that is why paying attention to your workouts and not just your diet is so key.

Through your strength training, and creating progression in your workouts, you can build lean muscle.

While we often think about creating progression through using heavier loads, progression can also occur by adding in instability, using variations of movements, changes in tempos and even changing up the range of motion you’re performing during movements.

But we need that clear challenge to create the change no matter how we create it.

We can’t just see our workouts as a time to burn more calories, and do MORE, which is why we often turn to cardio.

We have to also recognize that cardio can be catabolic to muscle tissue and, when combined with a calorie deficit for fat loss, can actually lead to us losing more muscle mass over the course of our weight loss journey.

It’s why strength training is so key.

It helps us do what we can to increase lean muscle mass and at least preserve even the muscle we have.

And we want to do everything in our power to preserve our lean muscle mass to make sure the weight we are losing is as much fat as possible to look our leanest.

While, especially if we have more weight to lose, some muscle mass loss will occur, the leaner we get, the more we want to do what we can to avoid more muscle loss than necessary.

Because muscle is metabolically costly.

What this means is it requires more calories to maintain more muscle on your body.

More muscle therefore means a higher metabolic rate and more calories burned at rest.

So if you’re looking to lose more fat faster, you want to retain and even add muscle.

Focusing on strength training to build and retain lean muscle will help you avoid some of the metabolic adaptations that often occur with weight loss and allow you to eat more as you lean down.

Muscle will then make it easier to maintain your weight loss long term not to mention actually LOOK LEANER because you truly will have lost fat in the process!

Now…What Are 5 Tips To Help You Dial In Your Strength Training For Better Fat Loss Results?

#1: Focus on compound moves.

Compound moves or moves that work multiple joints and muscle groups at once allow you to move heavy loads and build lean muscle efficiently.

They are a perfect way to work more areas in less time, which is key if you are trying to create efficient workouts to match your busy schedule.

And while we don’t want our training to just be about burning calories, compound moves will help you burn more calories during your sessions than isolation exercises will.

You are working large muscle groups and more muscles at once, which means your body needs to utilize more energy to perform these lifts.

You may find you get more out of breath and see your heart rate increase more when focusing your workouts on compound movements, especially when you challenge yourself with heavy loads.

Working muscles require increased blood flow to deliver glucose, oxygen and other nutrients to muscles, which will increase your heart rate to match these demands aka you’ll burn more calories.

And not only will you burn more calories during your sessions but these muscles that have been worked during your session will require more energy to support the healing process so they can grow stronger.

Especially if you are in a slight calorie deficit, your body will need to utilize stored energy to fuel the repair and growth!

#2: Avoid body part splits.

You’ll see many bodybuilding splits working very focused areas of the body each session.

This often limits the large muscles you are actually targeting per session and decreases your training frequency for areas over the week.

Especially for stubborn areas, increasing training frequency may be helpful so you can more efficiently build that lean muscle.

This may mean full-body, anterior-posterior or even hemisphere splits may be more beneficial so you can target muscle groups more than once a week easily.

This will also allow you to hit more large muscle groups each and every session to more efficiently build strength and muscle.

Targeting more large muscle groups each and every session also allows you to ultimately create a more anabolic hormonal environment which can also assist you in burning more fat even at rest.

With these harder training sessions that focus on more large muscle groups each and every session you can elevate levels of growth hormone and testosterone and reap their fat burning benefits.

Besides initiating fat burning, growth hormone also facilitates protein synthesis for faster recovery and greater muscular development. 

Testosterone also is key to creating that anabolic environment which not only promotes fats burning but the development of lean mass.

Not to mention, again working those large muscle groups leads to more calories being burned not only during your sessions but even in the follow time as your body repairs and rebuilds!

#3: Use fewer single lift workout designs.

While you don’t want to turn every strength workout into a cardio session or that will fight against your muscle gains, you do want to use the cardio-strength spectrum to your advantage.

While single heavy lifts with longer rest periods can and should be included strategically, especially to build strength, they aren’t necessarily the most efficient for muscle hypertrophy.

Intense heavy lifting sessions with at times shorter rest periods, not no rest periods, can even better optimize those hormone levels.

By using more supersets, trisets and circuit type workout designs, you can allow areas to rest while still working other areas.

This often allows you to work more muscle groups in a shorter time frame and keep your body having to work harder to again, burn more calories to rebuild stronger.

The metabolic element to these sessions can also help you get cardiovascular benefits and stay in great conditioning shape, even improving your lifting.

Plus, by alternating areas worked, you can still get adequate rest to keep using those heavy loads to encourage muscle hypertrophy or growth!

#4: Mix up the tools you use.

Often when we think about building muscle, we think about lifting heavier and getting super sore.

While you may find at times during your fat loss phase, you do get more sore as you are in a slight calorie deficit, you also don’t want to try to make yourself sore after every session.

Soreness isn’t an indicator you worked hard enough. And it isn’t needed to build muscle.

While muscle tissue damage can lead to soreness, it isn’t the only driver of muscle growth either – there is also mechanical tension and metabolic stress.

That is why you want to consider not only adding heavier loads but different types of moves and resistances to your training routine!

Consider a barbell hip thruster but add in a mini band around your legs. Or even test out a double banded variation.

Don’t be afraid to use banded moves that change where and how tension is applied during a movement.

Don’t even avoid including some isolation work that does use bands to create that pump and burn to really target those stubborn areas!

These different tools and different moves help you use all three drivers of muscle growth to get the best results possible and even increase your training frequency over the week.

Not to mention they can make training fun, especially if you are finding your motivation at times fading. It can be fatiguing at times to keep trying to drive to lift more or do another rep.

And that is also why including progression through different tools and even the same but different can give you another way of progressing that mentally may be more fun and motivating!

#5: Do a proper warm up – Don’t skip the activation!

This tip is extremely unsexy but the one so many of us are guilty of doing…Especially when we think about designing workouts for weight loss and we’re short on time.

Our warm up is the first thing to go in our workouts so we can “get to the good stuff” and burn a ton of calories.

But if you want to get the most benefit from every training session and really make sure the correct muscles are working, you don’t want to skip your warm up, especially the activation.

Activation exercises not only create metabolic stress to drive muscle growth, but they can be used to establish that mind-body connection.

Through focused activation of one muscle they do also stretch the opposing muscle group as you go through the movement. A glute bridge, where you focus on those glutes will in turn stretch out those hip flexors!

And the more we are able to FEEL those correct muscles working in our training, the more those muscles are truly benefiting.

That ability to recruit muscles and feel them working, that activation, can improve our muscle hypertrophy.

For example, if you feel only your quads or hamstrings during a weighted glute bridge, your glutes aren’t getting the benefit they should. You want to feel them as the prime mover.

Doing glute activation in your warm up can help you establish that mind-body connection so you can better engage those glutes during your workout.

That way you’re not overloading muscles, which can lead to injury AND you’re also really truly using those muscles correctly so they get the full benefit of the workout lifts you’re including!

SUMMARY:

We want to be intentional with our training to get the best results possible.

The more we can use every tool in our toolbox to get results, the better and faster our results will be.

So if you’re really working to lose fat and have your diet dialed in, don’t ignore how beneficial strength training can be to building that lean, strong physique and even maintaining your results long-term!

Learn more about my 3-Step Recipe For Results…

What Is The Best kind Of CARDIO For Fat Loss?

What Is The Best kind Of CARDIO For Fat Loss?

by | Aug 12, 2021 | Blog, Exercises, Workouts

Cardio is often the most misused fat loss tool. And your exact level of leanness may impact how you implement cardio in your training routine.

For instance, if you’re super lean with your macros and strength training routine all dialed in, but struggling to break through a plateau and get rid of that last little stubborn bit of fat, you may benefit from some low-intensity steady state cardio AFTER your strength workouts.

This can be done in the form of walking or riding…

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It’s a great way to get in a cardio workout any time you need from the comfort of your own home whether you need to do interval work, intense steady state cardio, tempo training or even include that low intensity post workout cardio to help you bust through a plateau and reach that new level of leanness.

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But before I dive more into using that steady state cardio at the end of your training, and other upsides and downsides to different types of cardio for fat loss, I want to discuss the “myth” of the Fat Burning Zone.

The Myth Of The Fat Burning Zone

First off, what is this supposed fat burning zone?

When you do cardio in that lower-intensity, steady state range or that 55-70% max heart rate zone, you’re supposedly in the Fat Burning Zone.

But this name is kind of misleading.

There is not some magical heart rate zone where you ONLY burn fat as fuel.

But this became the name of that lower intensity heart rate zone because, 50% of the calories burned during a session can come from fat whereas at higher intensities that number may only be about 35% of total calories burned.

So yes, “technically” you do burn more calories from fat at that lower intensity…

However, you’re also burning fewer calories during that same length of time.

That’s why a higher intensity session may ultimately lead to more fat burned during the same workout duration.

A higher intensity session means more calories burned. And while only 35% of the total calories burned may come from fat, that could still overall more fat burned in the same length session.

So while using lower intensity cardio sessions may be a great way to achieve body recomposition it isn’t because you’re staying in some magical fat burning zone.

Now let’s talk about how you can use this steady state cardio to achieve some fabulous body recomposition results.

Really quick before I do though, I feel the need to mention that, honestly, too often we turn to cardio to try to rush those results.

However, there is no out exercising or out dieting time.

Strength training may be even more key for fat loss because it aids in muscle growth and retention which helps us avoid the metabolic adaptions often associated with losing weight. By retaining lean muscle mass, we burn more calories at rest and will ultimately look leaner as we lose fat.

Not to mention we can design our strength routines to still work a diversity of energy systems to maintain our overall cardiovascular health.

That being said, it’s never bad to know how to use every tool in your toolbox to create a routine that you ENJOY that matches your specific needs and goals.

So…What is the best type of cardio for fat loss?

Low intensity steady state cardio!

When I’m talking about lower intensity steady state cardio here, I’m talking about cardio that allows you to talk as you perform it.

You aren’t trying to crush yourself with this form of cardio training.

Actually the exact opposite.

You are riding, walking or rowing at an intensity you feel like you can do for extended periods of time with no real strain.

So how can this “easy” form of cardio be better than running or even HIIT?

While running or riding hard for a longer period of time may burn more calorie and therefore more fat during each session, it can also be catabolic to muscle tissue and fight against your body recomposition goals.

Not to mention over time your body adapts and becomes more efficient, which is great for performance but not so great in terms of trying to burn more calories during your training session. So you actually burn fewer calories over time during these same training sessions.

You also have to be careful with these intense sessions and schedule them correctly around your strength workouts so they don’t hinder your results.

Same actually goes for high intensity interval training sessions.

While there are a ton of different interval designs you can use to work different energy systems, these quick and efficient workouts will drain you.

They are often touted for their effectiveness for weight loss because you can create a calorie burn equal to those longer steady state sessions BUT in less time.

And they can be fun for those that get bored with steady state cardio since you can use a diversity of moves.

They’ve even been recommended for fat loss because of the “after burn” they create.

The After Burn is technically called EPOC or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

Basically…The harder you workout the more your body has to work to recover or return to homeostasis after and the more energy we have to expend during the recovery process to return to our resting state.

This means we continue to burn calories even AFTER the workout is over. Hence the name AFTER BURN.

But far too often we really overestimate the calories burned from the after burn. And we would see far more benefit from building muscle with strength training.

This is all why, if you’re looking to tweak your routine and expedite those results, the best cardio to include specifically for fat loss is low intensity cardio session.

Casual cardio that’s almost relaxing in a way.

These sessions are easy to add in without hurting your strength training sessions. And they allow you to ADD in this extra movement during the day to help avoid metabolic adaptations and increase your daily energy expenditure.

They won’t fight against your muscle gains either.

AND they may even help you “spot reduce” those stubborn areas.

Now note, this is NOT a magic pill nor a quick fix. So if you’ve every heard you can’t spot reduce, that is basically true.

But there have been some interesting studies showing that low intensity steady state cardio AFTER a training session working those stubborn areas with that last little bit of stubborn fat CAN help you with fat loss or spot lipolysis.

It’s key to note that this will benefit you most when your diet and exercise routine are fully dialed in and you’re trying to break through that plateau to lose that last little bit from those stubborn areas.

So why or how does it work?

You mobilize more fatty acids from tissues surrounding the muscles worked. So if say you have that last little bit of stubborn belly fat, you may choose to work your abs at the end of your strength session to mobilize those fatty acids.

Then by including that low intensity cardio after you’ll utilize those mobilized fatty acids.

Basically, the studies showed you burned the fat from those surrounding tissues!

And because this cardio isn’t super intense, you won’t drain your energy stores further to hinder you from training hard in your next strength session, which is key to allowing you to build lean muscle to only improve your body recomposition results.

Not to mention this lower intensity cardio won’t put you at risk for as much muscle loss as that higher intensity steady state training would.

So if you’re looking to keep your metabolic rate higher, utilize spot reduction or spot lipolysis as much as possible and allow yourself to work hard during your strength session to lose fat as fast as possible, include these low intensity steady state cardio sessions in your routine a few times a week AFTER your strength workouts.

Ready to dial in your diet AND your workouts to get the best results as fast as possible?

Check out my 3-Part RS Formula…

–> The RS Formula