Summer Fitness Challenge: Burn Body Fat Quickly

Has summer arrived quicker than you thought and you haven’t had time to get in the shape you were hoping to? One of the most frequent questions we receive, especially in summer, is how we can burn fat fast and effectively.

Our philosophy is to maintain a healthy diet and practice daily exercise that allows us to not only burn calories but also to maintain long-term health and physical vitality, avoiding sudden changes in our body. However, our personal trainers have some tips for those people who need to burn fat quickly, thanks to the popularized form of training known as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) consisting of fat-burning exercises done in intervals and in high intensity.
High Intensity Interval Training is a functional training based on generating an “oxygen debt“, alternating series of exercises that require your full effort with series of lower intensity to get to burn fat faster.

When we train to the best of our ability, our bodies cannot send enough oxygen to the muscles, which generates an oxygen debt, which is what makes us feel exhausted and out of breath. Because of the oxygen debt in our body, when we are in recovery mode in between sets, we breathe faster and faster to catch our breath, and this makes us burn calories faster, so it’s a good way to lose fat. In fact, the fat-burning effect can last for hours after completing our workout, a process known as EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption).

HIIT exercises consist of giving your maximum effort for a few seconds to the best of your ability, interspersed with recovery times. Examples of this type of High Intensity Interval Training exercises would be:

• Running: Do sprints of 30 seconds at fastest speed possible, alternating with 60 seconds of active recovery (walking) for 60 seconds. Repeat this sequence 5-10 times.
• Jump rope: Skip for periods of 30 seconds at the fastest speed possible, alternating with 60 seconds of a lighter speed. Repeat this sequence 5-10 times.
• Cycling, rowing, swimming…: Just like running, alternate sprints of either of these sports with periods of recovery.
• Circuits: You can create your own circuit with exercises using your own body weight such as burpees, squats, lunges, mountain climbers and planks. Do each exercise for 30 seconds at high intensity, and alternate with 20 seconds of recovery. Repeat this circuit 3-5 times depending on your fitness level.

Any exercise can be adapted to HIIT training and the best part is that we don’t need a gym and barely need any equipment for these exercises.

And if it can’t get any better than this, doing 20 minutes of HIIT training, burns more fat than normal exercise and can be done in the comfort of your own home or when you’re on holiday and to keep motivated and make it fun, try it out with your partner or friends.

There are no excuses, get training!

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• Health benefits of practising paddle
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