One of the most sought after goals in the world of fitness is to lose weight and fat. In fact, approximately 65% of the people that I currently advise on a dietary and sports level are people who are looking for just that.
In this article we want to show you the three tools at the training level that can best serve you to achieve the goal of losing weight and fat. Of course, we will assume that our diet is hypocaloric.
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The best way to approach a fat loss process
The caloric deficit is essential, but so is the training. In fact, the caloric deficit can determine, in general terms, the magnitude of fat loss, but training is what will allow us to modulate that fat loss while maintaining our muscle mass.
We could talk about three key points when it comes to cementing our fat loss process. In order of priority they would be the following:
- Strength training (bodybuilding).
- Cardiovascular training or high NEAT.
- HIIT training if we are in good physical condition. The latter is important.
Strength training will help us maintain our muscle mass, cardiovascular training will allow us to optimize the mobilization and oxidation of fatty acids to a greater extent than the caloric deficit itself and, finally, HIIT can help us to be still more metabolically efficient when it comes to using energy substrates such as glucose or fatty acids.
All of the above “burn” calories, but I’m not talking about which more or which less because it is not important. The important thing is that at the metabolic level we work well and for this we must be strong on the one hand and enjoy a good cardiovascular condition on the other. Whoever achieves this ends up enjoying a body with a low percentage of fat and a good muscular base.
Training design
So that we can see how a week of training that combines strength, cardio and HIIT could look on paper, let’s suppose that we are designing it for a person already trained and in good condition but who needs to lose fat. This allows us to think of HIIT as an option. If you are a beginner, stick with just strength and cardio.
Let’s see how the structure would look over the course of a week.
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday or Sunday |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
TORSO | HIIT | LEG | CARDIO 20-40 ‘ | FULLBODY | HIIT-CARDIO-HIIT |
As we can see, we have chosen a three-day hybrid routine with a leg day, a torso day and a full body day. Let’s see how each section would work.
Strength training
Torso
exercise | series | repetitions | laugh | break |
---|---|---|---|---|
bench press | 4-5 | 6-8 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
dumbbell flat press | 4-5 | 8-12 | 1 | at least a couple of minutes |
pulls to the chest | 4-5 | 6-8 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
low pulley row | 4-5 | 8-12 | 1 | at least a couple of minutes |
Leg
exercise | series | repetitions | laugh | break |
---|---|---|---|---|
barbell squat | 4-5 | 6-8 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
bulgarian squat | 4-5 | 8-12 | 1 | at least a couple of minutes |
Romanian deadlift | 4-5 | 6-8 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
femoral curl | 4-5 | 8-12 | 1 | at least a couple of minutes |
Fullbody
exercise | series | repetitions | laugh | break |
---|---|---|---|---|
incline barbell press | 4 | 8-10 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
barbell row | 4 | 8-10 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
squat in multipower | 4 | 8-10 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
Good Morning | 4 | 8-10 | 2 | at least a couple of minutes |
Cardio workout
We can choose the modality we want, that is, treadmill, bike, elliptical, rowing, rope, swimming … However, our advice is that you choose a modality that involves low joint impact such as the bike or the elliptical. This will allow us to recover better between all training sessions and not cause interference.
The intensity of cardiovascular training should be between 60 and 70% of our heart rate reserve. To calculate it, we simply do the following operation:
208.75 – (0.73 * age) – resting heart rate
We will need a heart rate monitor to help us monitor our frequency during training.
HIIT training and HIIT-CARDIO-HIIT training
Our HIIT training will consist of the following:
exercise | duration | break |
---|---|---|
4-8 sprints at maximum intensity | 30-60 seconds | 1 or 2 minutes * |
Our HIIT-cardio-HIIT workout will consist of the following:
exercise | duration | break |
---|---|---|
4-8 sprints at maximum intensity | 30-60 seconds | 1 or 2 minutes * |
Moderate running | 15-30 minutes | |
4-8 sprints at maximum intensity | 30-60 seconds | 1 or 2 minutes * |
Rest times between sprints can be one minute if our rest is passive, that is, staying still, or two minutes if the rest is active, if we continue jogging smoothly.
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