What is the afterburn effect?
In simplest terms, the “afterburn
effect” is essentially the calories you continue to burn after exercising. The usual thinking is that working out gets rid of those calories intended ti burn out. But in reality, calories continue to burn even after you've stopped working out. This is because the body utilizes more calories to bring down the body temperature to normal, scientifically. this is known as excess post-exercise oxygen
consumption. (ECOP)
The Afterburn Effect
Explained
For effective weight loss, what one can do is try and maximise the pruductivity in one exercise session. Meaning, it's a lot more valuable to do heavy bouts of exercises for a short interval instead of continuing easy exercise schedules over a long interval. A common example to elaborate this is opting sprints instead of long jogs. It is said tha a fast sprint of 5 minutes is equivalent to a job og 20 minutes. This is termed as high intensity interval training — HIIT.
For effective weight loss, what one can do is try and maximise the pruductivity in one exercise session. Meaning, it's a lot more valuable to do heavy bouts of exercises for a short interval instead of continuing easy exercise schedules over a long interval. A common example to elaborate this is opting sprints instead of long jogs. It is said tha a fast sprint of 5 minutes is equivalent to a job og 20 minutes. This is termed as high intensity interval training — HIIT.
In general, the more intense the exercise, the greater the afterburn
effect is going to be. Another advantage of a rapid bout of exercise is that there's a higher afterburn effect compared
to doing steady-state exercises .
Using the Afterburn
Effect to Burn More Fat
A 2011 report published in the Journal of Obesity states that
although generally the effects of regular aerobic exercise on body
fat is negligible, intense form of exercise may have a major impact on body fat
“Emerging research examining high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE)
indicates that it may be more effective at reducing subcutaneous and abdominal
body fat than other types of exercise.” This is exactly why I believe that
burst training is the best exercise to burn belly fat, fast.
Here are three ways to practice
high-intensity exercise in order to dial up your afterburn effect:
1. Cycling, Using
the Elliptical or Rowing
Cycling at a speed which races your heart instead of cycling at a speed at which your heart is comfortably pumping, improves the productivity of your work out. This also increases the after burn effect and provides effective results.
2. Weight Lifting
or Resistance Training
Supersets instead of Sets!
Supersets are when you go from one weighted exercise straight into the next, without resting in between. You work one muscle group hard until it’s fatigued, then move on to another one right afterward. For example, you might start with squats working your legs primarily, then move onto bench presses working your upper body primarily. Or you go from back rows to chest presses. This improves muscle development and provides much better results.
Supersets are when you go from one weighted exercise straight into the next, without resting in between. You work one muscle group hard until it’s fatigued, then move on to another one right afterward. For example, you might start with squats working your legs primarily, then move onto bench presses working your upper body primarily. Or you go from back rows to chest presses. This improves muscle development and provides much better results.
3. Sprinting
This is likely the most popular way to practice HIIT and achieve high
afterburn effects. This model follows the same idea as that for cycling or
rowing mentioned above — you swap a longer steady workout for a shorter but
intense one. And I mean intense!
A suggested time frame is- sprinting for about 30seconds really hard followed by a break of 30seconds.
Repeat the cycles until you’re at
about 15 minutes or slightly more once you’ve been practicing HIIT for a while. This is how you can improve your workout productivity with minimum time investment.
