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4 Exercises To Burn Fat And Lose Weight

July 12, 2022 17:42 IST

Have 20 minutes to spare?
Spoorthi, strength coach at Cult.fit, tells you how to burn calories without hitting the gym.

Spoorthi

IMAGE: BURN workouts are designed to improve functionality and burn maximum calories, says dancer turned fitness coach Spoorthi. Photographs: Kind courtesy Spoorthi/Cult.fit

Most fitness enthusiasts would agree that high-intensity workouts (HIIT) are one of the quickest and effective ways to lose weight.

However, most high-intensity training can also lead to a lot of joint stress and injuries.

High-intensity training is generally high-impact, not very goal-oriented and risky too. If you get injured while performing a routine, it might increase the recovery time, thsu .

In the quest to meet the demands of fitness enthusiasts who want something intense but less risky, BURN was born.

BURN is a high-intensity format with multiple benefits:

In this format, low-impact high-intensity exercises are coupled with exercises that would help increase strength, mobility, and stamina, develop weak muscle groups and make you more functional while ensuring maximum calorie burn.

A typical BURN class would consist of a mobility section, strength section, weak muscle building section and a High-intensity section.

All these exercises ensure that you burn the most calories via EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption). This is a phenomenon through which you burn calories even after exercising at home or at work.

What makes the workout unique is the fact that the workouts are split into four sections --warm up, strength and core, core and HIT followed by cooldown.

With each set lasting between 2-5 minutes, you can finish the entire routine in less than 30 minutes.

In high intensity workouts, mostly injuries happen due to weak posture and imbalances which can easily be avoided and fixed by having a well-rounded programme.

For example, if you do a lot of upper body pushing movements then upper body pulling movements you might end up with overdeveloped chest and shoulders and underdeveloped back muscles which can give rise to a lot of mobility-related problems thus increasing the risk of injury.

This can simply be avoided by doing an equal amount of pushing and pulling movements, an advantage of BURN workouts.

Another important feature of BURN is the fact that it focuses on developing weak muscle groups like core, glutes etc.

Weak core and glutes are a common reason for back pain and weak workout form.

BURN has a separate section of the workout that focuses on building your core and glutes in a truly functional way.

To make it accessible to all fitness enthusiasts, BURN follows a time-based format.

For those who have little time to spare and want to focus on all aspects of fitness like strength, mobility, posture, speed, stamina etc, this is a great workout to begin with.

Presenting four such workouts you can try at home that employs the basic principles in BURN:

1. Tall plank shoulder taps

Tall plank shoulder taps

This movement will help improve your upper body stability and core strength.

How to do it

2. Thrusters (using backpack or water bottles)

Thrusters

This exercise will help improve your full body strength and endurance.

How to do it

3. Grappler sit ups

Grappler sit ups

This movement will engage the core and work on the abs and oblique muscles.

How to do it

4. Sprawlees

Sprawlee

This movement is great for a full body burn.

How to do it

Spoorthi is a professional dancer, strength, conditioning and nutrition coach at Cult.fit. She holds an ISSA Specialist certification in strength and conditioning and a PN (Precision Nutrition) L1 certification.

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SPOORTHI