There is confusion regarding the best exercises to do in your workouts if your goal is to lose weight. What are the best activities for burning calories?
Cardio is the ultimate fat burner, while strength training is the top fat burner. It’s not always true that the number on your watch or machine after a session indicates how successful you were.
Physical therapist and fitness coach Laura Miranda, CSCS, DPT, says cardio, like running or jumping rope, burns more calories than weight lifting. She said, “But anaerobic workouts keep our excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), or post-workout calorie burn, going for days.”
What makes weight training so effective? Miranda says that a higher-intensity workout causes your body to need more oxygen to recover and repair muscles. Here’s how trainers recommend adding calories to any session, keeping in mind that calorie burn is just one part of weight loss.
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Is There An Exercise That Burns The Most Calories?
Some types of workouts indeed burn more calories than others. The following exercises rank calories burned as trainers’ top weight loss exercises.
Jumping Rope
Gabbi Berkow, CPT, a nutritionist, and personal trainer, says jumping rope is good for developing coordination, calf and ankle strength, core strength, posture, and cardiovascular endurance. Berkow says jumping rope is best done slowly and in bursts of 20 to 30 seconds. When you jump, it takes 120 skips per minute to burn 667-990 calories per hour.
Sprints
A typical hourly burn rate is 639–946 calories. Whether on track or the sidewalk in a sprint workout, you’ll rev your internal engine by charging ahead at top speed. Berkow said, “Sprinting is a maximal effort that requires a lot of power from your glutes and hamstrings.” Miranda suggests starting with 10 to 15 stairs at a time.
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Kickboxing
Berkow said, “Kickboxing works your upper body and core without much impact to your legs, so it’s great if you can’t jump or have knee pain while jumping.” It burns between 582 and 864 calories per hour. Start by learning standard boxing moves and incorporate squats, lunges, and ducks into your routine.
Workout Tips For Burning More Calories
The best way to burn calories is to keep moving, says Jacobs. “There’s not one magic exercise; if there were, we’d all know about it, and we’d all be doing it,” she adds. It doesn’t matter if it’s cardio or strength training. Find what feels good to you, and keep at it.