If your goal is to loose weight then burning calories is probably at the top of your list. A tool which we think is great for tracking this is myzone. At Elevate we run our my zone system on a big TV which shows everyone’s percentage of effort, calories burnt and all that jazz. The other week I had someone ask me why I had burnt more calories than them when my percentage of effort was not as high as theirs throughout the workout. Now before you start thinking I was being lazy, I was coaching at the same time too.
The answer though is due to my body being more efficient. Being at a lower fat percentage and having slightly higher muscle percentage the body becomes more efficient at burning calories. And that’s not me boasting its fact.
Everybody is always transfixed with how many calories they burn during their workouts and because of this the uneducated people seem to put themselves in the safety of the cardio machines where they can see the beloved perceived calories burnt and trudge their way into a sweaty state until they are happy with what they have burnt (but if thats what you enjoy, fair enough).
How would you like to burn more calories efficiently?
How about instead of jumping on that cardio machine you grab yourself some weight; a Kettlebell or a Bulgarian Bag or Dumbbell? If you start to increase your strength, your muscle density you’re actually developing a more efficient body and this goes for male and female alike.
As you increase your lean mass you can reduce body fat and burn more calories in a number of ways.
Increased daily metabolic rate
Your metabolic rate is the speed at which chemical reactions take place in the body to maintain homeostasis. Or basically in other words the speed at which calories are burned to maintain balance of body temperature and pH levels. By increasing lean mass we speed up this reaction during exercise and at rest.
Increased energy expenditure during exercise
Because of your understanding of the above its easier to see how your energy expenditure is increased.
One of the other great benefits of hitting some weights is the improvement in motor performance. You’ll get increased running economy, be able to jump higher, throw further, run faster and thats just to name but a few, no wonder calories are burnt faster.
If you’d like to track your calories with one of our myzone belts then get in touch, email info@elevatefitnessuk.com
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