Look when it comes to how to get lean, there are so many different opinions and methods, some or most or even all can get great results and are coming from a lot of people who really want to help you. If you are looking for the fastest, not easiest way to get fit faster than any other way I have THE answer for you.
When it comes to losing out you have to have a gym membership, if you don’t find and can’t afford to join high in clubs, find your local club with the lowest rates. Often times these clubs, clubs like Fitness 19 or 24 hour fitness among others will be void of having the extra fluff, like classes or swimming pools and basketball courts, but you don’t need these to get fit. So once you located a club that offers a reasonably low monthly rate and sign up fee, sign up and adhere to the advice below!
TIP 1 – Challenge Your Balance
Just like starting anything, you have to start slow. Learning the basics and building momentum is what it is all about. So the first thing I want you to do is find an inflated exercise stability ball and do pretty much EVERY single exercise on that ball. You can do your chest presses, bicep curls, shoulder presses and even back extensions siting on it if you attach a double handle to a cable and move back a bit to get good tension in the wire. These are just the beginning of the exercises you can do on a stability ball, which below is a great video of a myriad of different exercises you can crank out with a stability ball.
Also, on the standing exercises that you do, challenge your stability. Start by trying to stand on one for when, for example doing your bicep curls. Once you’ve mastered balancing on one foot, start alternating arms instead of doing the exercise with both extremities. From here you can then start to stand on a foam pad or even a BOSU ball to really challenge your stability, or as we call it in the industry “a proprioceptively enriched environment”!
Doing exercises that challenge your balance do two great things that both in turn burn extra calories. Doing your exercises this way will force you to engage your core which will not only create better posture for you in everyday life, but will also burn more calories as engaging your smaller muscles both force your body to maintain balance, which equates to doing more work as well recruit more muscles than you would doing your exercises on stationary machines. Recruiting more muscles forces your body to work harder which makes your burn calories at a faster rate.
2nd Tip – Alternate Resistance Levels in Your Cardio Session
Most people get on a piece of cardio equipment and set their pace and stay at the pace for their entire workout. This is great, and will burn calories but there is a better way that will not only allow you to burn more calories during the exercise but create what is called an “after burn” effect where you actually continue to burn calories when you step off the machine. Even more important, it will force your cardiovascular system to work harder which will create better breathing, slower resting heart rate and better detoxification. So next time you are on your favored cardio machine and say you start at a resistance level of 5, go up to 6-9 after your warmup and alternate back and for from low to high every minute.
Image Credit: Fitgirlsdiary.com
Tip 3 – Compound Exercises
These are often referred to as full body exercises or multi-joint exercises. They call them these names because they are engaging more than one joint and muscle group when performing the exercise. By engaging more muscle groups and joint movement you will burn more calories than just isolating one muscle group at a time and will do it at a faster rate. Before I list them off and provide a video tutorial of the best compound exercises, I want you to know that these are advanced exercises, so again build up momentum by doing more simple exercises and challenging your core, which will give you a good foundation to do compound exercises.
So now that that is out of the way, the best compound exercises that you can do that will allow you to burn calories at a fast rate as well as put on lean muscle are:
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- Deadlift
- Squat
- Bench Press
- Clean and Press
- Snatch
- Lat Pull Downs
- Back Rows
- Dips
TIP 4 – Core & Diet
Doing core exercises are another guaranteed way to lose calories fast as well as build a solid foundation for when you start to integrate your more advanced lifts. Great core exercises can be:
- Planks
- Lying Oblique Crunches
- Dumbbell Side Bends
- Leg Flutters
- Supermans
- Seated Leg Lifts
- Bird Dogs
- Rope Climbing
- Floor Bridges
- Russian Twists
- Jackknife Sit-Ups
- Lying or Standing Bicycles
Here is a great video to give you some good visual ideas on core exercises that you can integrate into your routine!
So diet obviously plays a crucial role in weight loss, but keep it simple. If you are gaining weight you need to cut out some of what you are ALREADY eating. The culprit isn’t the food your eating it is the AMOUND you are eating. Drinking more water can help you feel fuller longer and most importantly having good gut health will allow you to have better digestion and enable you to utilize the vitamins and minerals you are eating.
Bettering your gut health can begin with simply eating more fiber, introducing a once a day probiotic, eating less sugar as sugar activates inflammation not only in the gut but everywhere else where information may already be present.
Utilizing these tips will get you to shed pounds a lot faster than you may think and they are health and effective ways that will allow you to keep the weight off as they will be tried and true ways versus fad diets and weight loss pills.
