What Training Should I do to Lose Weight?
If you've been struggling to transform your body and you're not sure what type of training you should do this is for you!
When you think about losing weight usually what people really want to lose is body FAT.
Losing weight versus fat can look and feel a lot different. Here's a visual from our friends at Results Fitness.
Now before I jump into the training aspect, I want to be completely clear that no training will outperform a focus on healthy nutrition habits (like protein every meal, drinking half of your body weight in ounces of water per day, and eating 4 servings of fruit/veggies per day) that most importantly allows you to get in a calorie deficit (eating less food then your body needs to maintain its current weight).
That has to be the priority when it comes to losing weight and specifically fat for the long haul.
Your nutrition works hand and hand with your training.
Cardio isn’t the Answer for Weight Loss
Most people usually are compelled to start a weight loss journey by doing vast amounts of cardio and that recipe is a disaster for long-term success and actually achieving the look you’re striving for.
The biggest reason is the body will fight back harder!
When it comes to doing more cardio as the sole way to lose weight, the body will adjust the hormones Ghrelin and Leptin to tick up your appetite and make losing fat much harder.
Cardio can also become challenging to continue to progress in.
Usually people revert to running which starts to increase the risk of injury as you start to increase your intensity.
What tends to happen is when weight loss is taking with just a cardio approach 75% of the weight loss is from muscle tissue and water, while only 25% is from fat.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do any cardio because I personally enjoy running and playing flag football—and I do them regularly—but that doesn’t mean it’s efficient or should be a top priority if your goal is to lose fat.
Now if you want to completely flip those ratios and not only look the part but reap all of the internal changes, you must take a different approach.
To develop a toned & strong physique, it behooves (I like that word) you to do strength training.
We’re not the only ones to think this. It’s proven time and time again. Just look here and here!
Why Strength Training Works for Losing Fat
The biggest benefit is physical transformation that happens through muscle building. As you lift weights, your body goes through an anabolic process of repairing tissue to structure a stronger and more defined appereance.
Strength training creates internal change through your digestive system called nutrient partition which means your body processes food better because of the demands of resistance training. Your body starts to build tissue rather than store fat.
Another amazing perk is the metabolism being up-regulated from the new muscle growth. Your resting metabolic rate increases (where you see an immense drop in metabolism from those who only do cardio) because of the new muscle which helps you keep the weight off for good especially when you go into a maintenance phase of your fitness and nutrition.
If done correctly your strength work can easily be cardiovascular work as well. During a good workout you shouldn’t be resting entirely too much. We prescribe about 30 secs - 1 min during low intensity exercises and about 3-4 mins for high intensity exercises. This means your heart is working hard and your body is burning hella calories.
How to Start a Strength Training Program
First we would recommend working with a personal training who can take the guess work away. We know some great ones ;)
>>> Schedule a health & hotness session to see if we would be a good fit for you.
What we would do next is set a schedule and we recommend dedicated at least 2x/wk for your strength work and if you have more time you can add another strength day or start implementing some cardio training (which in combo with resistance training works great).
Now you’ve got your schedule, it’s time to overview your training split which is what you’re going to focus on during each workout.
We think a full-body approach is usually best because it’s going to allow you to use more muscles during the week (releasing more hormones to elicit change) and maximize your time spent.
How to Program Your Exercises
When you think about putting together a workout we like to use The Big Five!
The Big Five consists of five categories that make up a sound and balanced workout.
1. Upper Body Push
2. Upper Body Pull
3. Knee Dominant
4. Hip Dominant
5. Core
You might be wondering what exercises fit into these categories?
Here are a few:
Upper Body Push Examples: (Push up, DB Bench Press, DB Incline Bench Press, Machine Chest Press, Shoulder Press)
Upper Body Pull Examples: (Lat Pulldown, DB Row, Machine Seated Row, Band Single Arm Row, Cable Row)
Knee Dominant Examples: (Squat, Lunge, Split Squat, Step Up, Leg Press)
Hip Dominant Examples: (Deadlift, Romanian Deadlift, Reverse
Lunge (torso bent), Single Leg Deadlift, Stability Ball Leg Curl)
Core Examples: (Plank, V ups, Hollow Body Hold, Dead Bug, Band Core Rotations)
As you can see a lot of different variations are possible. Now that you know the 5 categories, let’s talk about how to use them to create a workout.
Workout Set Up
You can set up your workout any way you like, but we know how important your time and efforts are so we think starting with 2 tri-sets is a great choice. You’ll do all of the exercises in A1-A3 before you move to the B exercises.
Workout Example:
A1) Knee Dominant
A2) Upper Body Push
A3) Core
Break
B1) Hip Dominant
B2) Upper Body Pull
B3) Bonus (add something you like, core, arms, finisher)
Can I Switch Up The Order?
The structure of your workout doesn’t have to necessarily be exactly like the one above, but it should have as much balance and practicality as possible.
You’ll want to make sure the paired exercises in the tri-set don’t negatively affect each other. Exercises that work the same muscles like doing squats then right into lunges will make keeping form difficult. Spacing them apart will give your muscles time to relax, so your form isn’t jeopardized. Remember quality > quantity.
You’ll also want to determine your order by what your gym setup looks like. If you have lat pulldowns with bench press it might be difficult to do that because you’ll need to walk 2 miles between the two exercises.
Guidelines for The Big 5
Choose an exercise from the 5 categories. Do those exercises for roughly 6 weeks then you can progress them to new ones.
Follow the scheme of 8-14 reps.
Focus on progressing your reps for each exercise - each workout. When you can do more than 14 reps add 5-10lbs. Document your reps/weight!
Focus on compound exercises that work multiple muscles vs. isolation exercises that target only one muscle - unless it’s a bonus exercise.
Challenge yourself but always focus on form over weight; quality over quantity.
Below is an example of two workouts you can create and follow for 6 weeks before you change out the exercises to more advanced versions.
Workout A:
A1) DB Squat 3x12
A2) DB Row 3x10e
A3) V Ups 3x10
B1) Bridge 3x12
B2) Elevated Push Up 3x8
B3) Bicep Curls 3x14
Workout B:
A1) Split Squat 3x12e
A2) Lat Pulldown 3x10e
A3) Dead Bug 3x8e
B1) DB Romanian Deadlift 3x8
B2) DB Bench Press 3x10
B3) Mountain Climbers 3x20e
If you’re doing three workouts per week, you could cycle between workout A and workout B.
When it comes to sets or rounds, doing about 2-3 is ideal and time-efficient. Most beginners might start with two sets for the first couple of weeks then move into three.
If you’ve been training for a few months you’ll be fine jumping right into three sets.
Now Off You Go
I hope this gives you an idea of what you could do and allows you to create your own workout that gets you to your goals in the safest and sexiest way possible.
If you feel like you need a little more support, we would love for you to come try us out with no strings attached.
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