People want to lose weight. Often people think that running is the best way to lose weight because runners are generally skinny. Although running does burn a fair amount of calories, it is not the highest calorie burning exercise. What is it? What is the fountain of skinny exercise? An exercise that uses more MET’s.
I am not talking about the New York Mets, but metabolic equivalent. When you boil it down it tells us how much energy you are expending. You probably have seen MET’s on a bike in the gym. The faster you ride the more MET’s. The higher the resistance, the higher the MET’s. So, the key is to ramp up the intensity and you will be higher on the MET scale. There are factors that make us all different; genetics, ability, fat content, and other things that will determine how many MET’s we can produce. So how do you produce more MET’s already?! Here are a few tips for producing more MET’s:
-Use more than one muscle group.
Engage in exercises that are full body rather than only one muscle group. Instead of curls, do curl and press. Instead of curl and press add in lunges. While normal weight lifting may only produce 5-6 MET’s, engaging your whole body in the movement will double that.
-Don’t rest much
In many types of exercises such as “normal” weight lifting where you rest between 1:00 and 1:30 between sets, (unless you are in a big box gym then it could be 3:00 because you have to text someone, talk to someone or wait for the equipment). Use circuit training and only rest between circuits.
-Ramp up the intensity
The more intense, the more MET’s. If you have ever gone mountain biking (vigorous riding produces 14.0 MET’s) or a modern spin class where you obey the instructor by increasing the drag when told, (vigorous riding produces 11-14 MET’s). Intensity creates a demand, and spinning or mountain biking is a full body engagement exercise. Go all out, do as much as you can safely!
I look at it like this. If you are driving a car and push the pedal to the floor to go faster, you create more fuel burning. If you attach a trailer to the car (extra weight), and you push the pedal to the floor, you will not only burn even more gas because the demand has gone up, but the demand will be sustained longer to get the same result. So if you want to lose weight, amp up your exercise time. Make it count.