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What exercise burns fat all day?

Moreover, the high intensity of HIIT significantly increases the EPOC after burn, revving your metabolism for up to 24 hours after exercise. Great fat-burning HIIT exercises include plyometrics, running, cycling, stairs, jumping rope, and other bodyweight calisthenics.

marathonhandbook.com - Which Workouts Burn The Most Fat? 18 Fat-Burning Exercises Compared

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No matter where you are on your fitness journey, almost all of us would like to lose body fat and put on muscle. Even if you don’t want to lose “weight”—or perhaps you even want to put on some weight—most people are still interested in shifting their body composition so that they burn body fat and get more shredded with muscle and lean body mass. Losing body fat isn’t just a matter of achieving a certain aesthetic. Excessive body fat increases the risk of certain health conditions such as metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure, and it can contribute to premature mortality. When paired with a nutritious, calorie-controlled diet, exercise is a healthy, sustainable, and effective way to lose weight and burn fat. Physical activity burns calories and can rev your metabolism and influence your hormonal profile.

However, when it comes to fat-burning workouts and weight loss, not all types of exercises are created equal. So, which workouts burn the most fat?

Certain workouts and exercises will help you torch calories and shift your metabolism into a fat-burning mode more so than others, so if you have big weight loss goals, or want to get toned, keep reading for the best fat-burning workouts.

In this guide, we will cover:

How Does Exercise Burn Fat?

Which Workouts Burn The Most Fat? Fat-Burning Exercises Compared

Let’s dive in!

How Does Exercise Burn Fat?

Before delving into which workouts burn the most fat, it’s helpful to address what “fat burning” means. When most people say they want to lose weight, they actually mean that they want to lose body fat. “Weight” refers to lean mass as well, which includes muscle, bone, organs, etc., so fat-burning workouts are designed to help you lose body fat.

Importantly, exercise can help you lose body fat in several ways.

When you are physically active, your body burns stored fat for fuel to supply energy to the muscles to contract. Following a consistent workout routine can help you lose fat tissue if you’re in a caloric deficit. Certain workouts increase your metabolic rate and affect your hormones, which can help you burn more calories, even at rest.

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

#1: Exercise Burns Stored Fat

The first way that exercise burns fat, is that with any type of physical activity, the muscles have to create energy to perform work, so you oxidize, or burn, stored fuel for energy. This stored fuel comes from a combination of stored carbohydrates (glycogen in muscles and the liver), stored fat (triglycerides in adipose, or fat, tissue), and stored protein in muscle tissue. At pretty much any given exercise intensity, you’re burning some of every type of fuel, although carbohydrates and fat are the primary fuel sources for the muscles during exercise. The relative percentage of each fuel source your body oxidizes for energy depends on the intensity and duration of the workout. Interestingly, when you work out more vigorously, although you burn a greater number of calories overall, the relative percentage of these calories from fat decreases. Although somewhat of a gross simplification, at lower intensities, fat is the primary fuel. That’s why exercise machines that have a pre-programmed workout in the “fat-burning zone” have you moving at a lower intensity for a steady-state effort.

As the exercise intensity increases, the relative percentage of carbohydrates increases significantly.

For example, if you think about heart rate zones, workouts done in zone 1 or zone 2 are predominantly fueled by burning fat, whereas more intense workouts in zones 3, 4, or 5, are primarily fueled by oxidizing carbohydrates, or glycogen, for energy. Therefore, when you do a hard workout, a greater percentage of the calories you are burning are coming from stored carbohydrates rather than fat. However, as mentioned, while stored fat will be serving as a smaller percentage of the calories burned, the total number of calories burned when you exercise at a vigorous intensity will be higher.

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In this way, you still might burn more calories from fat during an intense workout.

Consider the following scenario when determining which workouts burn the most fat:

If you ride a stationary bike at a low intensity (heart rate in zone 2) for 30 minutes, you might burn 200 calories, of which 60% come from fat and 40% come from carbohydrates. In this fictitious scenario, you would therefore burn 120 calories from fat and 80 from carbohydrates. Note that protein usually provides less than 10% of the total energy needed for exercise except in extreme situations such as starvation, ketosis, or very long and intense workouts. Then, imagine you do a hard workout on a spin bike with mostly zone 3 and zone 4, sort of a “tempo run” but on a bike. You again bike for 30 minutes, but this time, because you are cycling much harder and your heart rate was higher, you burned 400 calories. Because the intensity was higher, carbohydrates supplied 60% of the energy and fat contributed 40%. This means that you burned 240 calories from carbohydrates and 160 calories from fat. Therefore, even though fat comprised a lower percentage of fuel you burned, you still burned more calories from fat than you did during the low-intensity “fat-burning zone” workout. For this reason, it can be confusing when people talk about which workouts burn the most fat. Theoretically, as just discussed, lower-intensity exercise burns a higher percentage of fat, but higher-intensity workouts may still burn more calories from fat as well as total calories. The higher the total number of calories you burn—regardless as to the substrate they came from (carbohydrates or fat), the more weight, or body fat, you will lose. This points to the second way that exercise burns body fat, referenced above. Let’s discuss this further.

#2: Exercise Burns Calories

Body fat is essentially stored energy.

Every pound of body fat provides approximately 3,500 calories of energy, meaning that when you consume more calories than you expend, you’ll put on body fat at the rate of one pound per 3,500 excess calories. Similarly, you’ll lose fat at the rate of one pound per 3,500-calorie deficit you create. All forms of exercise burn calories, so your workouts can generate a caloric deficit and help you lower your body fat percentage. Whether you choose to walk, swim, lift weights, take a yoga class, or do jumping jacks, you’ll expend a certain amount of calories based on the intensity of the workout, the muscles involved, your body weight and composition, and the duration of the workout. Exercises performed at high intensities and that involve your entire body or large muscle groups will burn more calories than low-intensity exercises or those working isolated muscles.

#3: Exercise Increases Your Metabolic Rate

Lastly, exercise increases your metabolic rate. While you always burn calories during the workout, you can also continue to burn more calories than your baseline rate for several hours after the workout, depending on the workout you did. Referred to as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), this revving of the metabolism occurs because your body is trying to repair and restore everything back to baseline. Furthermore, over time, a consistent exercise program can increase your overall metabolic rate as long as you’re building muscle because muscle is much more metabolically active than fat. Thus, gaining muscle mass helps you burn more calories throughout the day, which can create that deficit you need to lose fat.

Now, let’s take a look at which workouts burn the most fat:

Which Workouts Burn The Most Fat? Fat-Burning Exercises Compared

The best fat-burning workouts either torch a significant number of calories during the exercise, boost your metabolic rate afterwards, or help you become a fat-burning machine by putting on lean body mass.

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Below, we will share which workouts burn the most fat.

#1: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts, which involve repeated bouts of very vigorous exercise followed by easy recovery periods are one of the best workouts to burn fat. Research indicates that HIIT workouts burn as many calories as a moderate-intensity, steady-state workout in one-third to one-half the time. Moreover, the high intensity of HIIT significantly increases the EPOC after burn, revving your metabolism for up to 24 hours after exercise. Great fat-burning HIIT exercises include plyometrics, running, cycling, stairs, jumping rope, and other bodyweight calisthenics.

#2: Strength Training

Depending on the exercises you choose and weights you lift, strength training workouts can burn a decent number of calories. Total-body exercises and compound moves like squats, deadlifts, and power cleans, especially with heavy weights, expend a lot of energy. With that said, the real fat-burning payoff from strength training workouts comes from the metabolic benefits reaped from building muscle mass.

To best support muscle growth, use heavy weights for fewer reps.

#3: Plyometrics

Plyometric exercises involve explosive movements and rapid force development.

You can think of plyometrics as “jumping exercises.” Examples include squat jumps, jumping rope, jumping jacks, burpees, and box jumps. These exercises are not only cardiovascularly demanding, but they also involve large muscle groups. As with HIIT workouts, plyometrics rev your metabolism for hours after the workout is over.

#4: Steady-State Cardio

Exercises like running, cycling, swimming, rowing, hiking, stair climbing, and elliptical trainer workouts definitely burn a lot of calories, especially if your workouts are long, and/or vigorous. The after burn will be less than a more intense workout, but consistent cardio workouts performed regularly can certainly contribute to generating the calorie deficit you need to burn stored fat. When doing cardio, going up an incline will also increase your calorie burn. The following table can be used as a guideline for approximately how many calories you burn by doing a certain activity for 30 minutes to help you determine which workouts burn the most fat.

The data comes from Harvard Health and the Compendium of Physical Activities.

The more calories you burn in 30 minutes, the greater caloric deficit, and thus fat loss, you can expect. Exercise Activity 125-pound (56.8 kg) person 155-pound (70.5 kg) person 185-pound (84.1 kg) person Bicycling stationary, moderate 210 252 294 Rowing, stationary, moderate 210 252 294 Calisthenics: vigorous 240 306 336 Circuit Training: general 240 306 336 Running: 5 mph (12 min/mile) 240 288 336 Kettlebell training 240 296 353 Bicycling: 12-13.9 mph 240 288 336 Rowing, Stationary 255 369 440 Boxing sparring 270 324 378 Elliptical Trainer, moderate intensity 270 324 378 Ski Machine, moderate intensity 285 342 399 Aerobics, Step: high impact 300 360 420 Swimming laps, vigorous 300 360 420 Bicycling: 14-15.9 mph 300 360 420 Martial Arts: judo, karate, kickboxing 300 360 420 Bicycling, stationary, vigorous 315 278 441 Jumping Rope (Fast) 340 421 503 Running: 6 mph (10 min/mile) 495 360 420 Calories Burned Over 30 Minutes of Exercise Now that you know which workouts burn the most fat, you can use this information to help you efficiently burn calories and optimize your metabolism for mobilizing stored fat. Keep in mind that any type of exercise can support your weight loss goals, so pick an activity you enjoy, or be sure to include lots of variety for optimal results. To contribute to your weight loss goals, a healthy, nutritious diet is key to success. Here we have some of the best diets for athletes.

marathonhandbook.com - Which Workouts Burn The Most Fat? 18 Fat-Burning Exercises Compared

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