Subject:
IRON MAN E-Zine: Issue #625:
Best Fat-Torching Tactics and Metabolic Afterburn
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TRY THIS AT YOUR NEXT WORKOUT
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Best Fat-Torching Tactics and Metabolic Afterburn
Q: I got into an argument with a guy at the gym. He says you absolutely need cardio to burn fat. I said that weight training is better than cardio for burning fat because of muscle damage that requires fat energy during repair after. Who is right?
A: That depends on how you do your weight workout. If you train power-bodybuilding style with heavy weights and long rests between sets, you aren’t doing much for fat burning.
True, you’re inflicting some muscle damage with heavy weights, which boosts your metabolism outside the gym during repair, as you said, but there are other factors you need to maximize fat burning, including growth hormone release, fortifying mitochondria and slight oxygen debt.
To get all those fat-torching effects, you need short rests between sets. That gives your weight workout a slight cardio component without having to do cardio. You also need heavy enough weight to tax the muscles without too much cortisol release. Cortisol eats muscle and encourages fat gain. That’s why the 4X method is so great at both building muscle and burning fat (if we had to choose between cardio or weights, we’d choose this style of weight training, no contest)…
You take a poundage with which you can get 15 reps, but you only do 10; rest 30 seconds, then do it again–and so on until you complete 4 sets. You go all out on the last set, and if you get 10, you add a bit of weight at your next workout or you try for 4×11. That will give you a number of fat-to-muscle benefits that we mention often…
1) GH release. The short rests between sets cause fatigue buildup in the target muscle. That produces muscle burn, which studies show leads to heightened growth hormone release. GH is a potent fat burner–and it’s anabolic too. Moderate weights keeps cortisol release low, which also encourages GH.
2) Mitochondria building. Doing 10 reps with a one-second-positive/three-second-negative cadence on every rep will give you a long tension time–40 seconds. That will stress the sarcoplasm, the energy fluid in the fibers, where the mitochondria are located. Those energy powerhouses are where fat is burned–your lean machines–so you want to rev these often.
3) Muscle trauma. Emphasizing the negative with a three-second lowering on every rep will produce microtears in the myofibrils, the force-generating strands in the fibers. That trauma will require repair outside the gym, which will ramp up your metabolism–the metabolic afterburn. (You can enhance that effect with X-centric, or negative-accentuated, sets to start or finish a 4X sequence.)
4) Oxygen debt. The short rests will have you breathing somewhat rapidly, especially when training large muscle groups like quad and back. That will help stoke your fat-burning environment via hypoxia (slight oxygen debt–the guy in the photo may be breathing hard for other reasons too).
You can use a total-4X session, as outlined in The 4X Mass Workout, or you can mix power and 4X, as shown in The Ultimate Power-Density Mass Workout (see our previous e-zine for more on that mixed method).
Either way, you can do a short cardio session after your workout for even more fat burning. The lifting will have depleted the sugar from your blood, so a short–15-to-20-minute–cardio session right after will tap into fat stores quick so you get leaner faster.
Till next time, train hard–and smart–for BIG results.
Note: The 4X Mass Workout e-book and The Ultimate Power-Density Mass Workout are now only $19.99. Our fat-burning nutrition guide with diets and training, X-treme Lean, is only $9.99 (less than 10 bucks)–or get it with X-traordinary Abs for only $19.99 (Double-Shredded Combo Offer at the X-Shop).
–Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
LIMITED-TIME $19.99 BEST-SELLERS: We’re offering each of these at their lowest price ever to get you big and ripped by spring. Click on the title you’re interested in for more info…
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3) The X-centric Mass Workout–the negative-accentuated training manual
4) The Ultimate Fat-to-Muscle Workout–total body transformation training
5) X-traordinary Muscle-Building Workouts–10 complete mass programs
6) X-traordinary Arms–includes the 3D HIT workout system with big-arms routines
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8) X-treme Lean—Fat-Burning and Nutrition Guide (with training too)
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To follow the ITRC training program in “Train, Eat, Grow,” get a copy of the latest issue of IRON MAN.
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This Special Report was submitted by Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman.
The IRON MAN Training & Research Team
www.ironmanmagazine.com
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