The Secret to Weight Loss Without Cardio

Hours and hours of cardio are typically paired with dieting in an effort to lose weight and sculpt that lean body that you desire.

But there is an easier way to lose weight than spending so much of your time each week doing cardio workouts and dieting. By focusing on the two workout secrets below, you will sculpt a lean, healthy body that you can maintain over time.

1. Workouts should include high volume and short rest periods.

If you primary goal is weight loss, then you want to work toward increasing your resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is the amount of calories that your body burns in a resting state. Your RMR makes up the bulk of your daily calorie burn. If you can increase your lean muscle mass through weightlifting, then you can increase the amount of calories that you burn in a resting state.

If you want to increase your lean muscle mass, focus your weight work on compound (multi-joint) exercises like bench presses, pullups, squats and deadlifts.

Further increase your fat burning by keeping your rest periods between sets at 60 seconds or less and your rep range between 8 and 12 reps per set. This will increase the lactic acid build up in your body leading to growth hormone release. The growth hormone release will help build lean muscle mass and burn fat.

Mix it up occasionally and use 3-6 reps per set for strength building or use 13-20 reps for an even greater metabolic expense. Control your lifting tempo with a 3-6 second lowering (concentric phase) and an explosive lifting (eccentric phase).

2. Use sprint sessions to lose weight quickly.

Sprinting builds lactic acid in the body in a way similar to weightlifting with short rest periods. Lactic acid build up comes from maximum muscle application during exercise. Its this build up of lactic acid that leads to the release of growth hormone, which helps burn fat. Growth hormone is lipolytic, meaning it increases fat breakdown and metabolizes glucose and amino acids.

Sprinting also builds lean muscle through this maximal effort. The key is to train at or near your maximal effort (80-90% max effort) for the best fat loss results. Start by training in a 1 to 4 work to rest ratio and slowly building up to a 1 to 1 work to rest ratio. For example, do twelve:15 second sprints with 1:00 rests between sprints for a total 15 minute workout.

Avoid traditional aerobic cardio. Aerobic cardio actually preps your body to use the least amount of energy to produce the greatest amount of work. Look at any world class sprinter. They are well built and lean. On the other hand, distance runners are thin, without a lot of muscle mass. You will see much better weight loss results from three 20 minute sprint workouts each week than you will from three hour long jogging or cycling sessions.

These two secrets will take your weight loss to the next level quickly. In fact, I have seen people lose a lot of weight just incorporating short rest periods between sets into their weight workouts.

If you are serious about getting lean for good, you will want to check out the book, Truth About Six Pack Abs. This book is loaded with resistance training workouts, high intensity cardio training (think sprint and HIIT training) and nutrition advice that is guaranteed to strip off body fat and keep it off.

By James Baxendale