Fat loss is all about full body exercises…
Especially if you want to keep that fat off (for good) AND get strong at the same time.
And you should want that because losing fat and losing strength (or muscle) isn’t a sexy combination. You want exercises that give you strong muscles so that you are able to accomplish more in life with greater ease. The stronger you are, the better you’ll perform in any sport and you’ll find daily tasks so much easier as well.
And the RIGHT full body exercises can help you do that.
They can also help you burn fat – big time!
And in this post, I’ve 3 got new full body exercises for you.
But before we get to them, I want to share something with you that I feel is important to understand. Especially, since most of our readers want to lose fat.
It’s the concept of long-term vs. short-term investing…
In relation to burning calories and losing fat.
Cardio is a Short-Term Investment
Typically, cardio is used as an “acceleration” tool to burn more calories, right? That’s why so many people believe that spending an hour on the elliptical or treadmill and burning 500 calories (or more) is the secret to creating that lean body.
As you know, I’m a huge fan of interval training but even the best HIT give you a short caloric burst at best. And long, slow cardio I find is more useful for recovery than anything else.
Cardio is a short-term investment because it burns calories in the short run. Doing an intense cardio session will spike your metabolism for a few hours and thus you’ll be burning more calories during that time.
However, your cardio workout from last week will have little “metabolic” carry-forward to today or the future. Sure you can continue to rack up the cardio sessions and continually try to burn more calories. But at what cost? Your muscle mass?
Not a great trade-off, especially because building muscle is the greatest long-term investment you could ever make for burning calories 24/7.
Full Body Exercises Are a Great Long-Term Investment
Full body exercises activate a huge amount of your body’s muscle – hence the name. And, when performed with heavier weights in the 6-8 repetition range, will produce phenomenal strength gains and fat loss results.
Notice how I didn’t say low weights for 20-25 reps? That’s the old school way of fat loss training from the 1980s which simply doesn’t work – unless you want a weak and flimsy body.
The reason that full body strength exercises are great for long term fat loss is that, since they stimulate more muscle, they inherently raise your metabolism. This happens because the more muscle you have, the greater your metabolic rate.
And that’s very very important because in the long run it’s your metabolic rate that will determine how lean you are. This is so because your resting metabolic rate accounts for 70% of the calories you burn each day!!!
So, it makes all the sense in the world to do things that will raise your metabolism, right?
And I’m not talking about stupid gimmicks like eating negative calorie foods or using thermogenic fat burners.
The easiest and most sustainable LONG TERM plan for losing fat and staying lean is to use full body exercises with a focus on lifting heavy – not light – weights.
Here’s my general fat loss exercise prescription for any given full body exercise:
1. 6-8 reps
2. 2-3 sets
3. little to no rest between sets
4. 2-3 times per week
That’s it!
Obviously you want to change things up every few weeks and use different training methods (ie. supersets, circuits, etc..) but generally, that’s the simple formula.
That’s the fat loss formula that forms the basis of my Fitter U Fitness workouts and that’s why these workouts produce such amazing long-term body transformation results!
With That Said, Here Are 2 Amazing Full Body Exercises
The following are 3 of my favourite full body exercises. They challenge a lot of muscle mass, your stability, and they get you “huffing and puffing” – great features of any fat loss full body exercise.
Give them a shot and let me know in the comments what you think.
Reverse Lunge Bottom Up Kettlebell Press
Knee Drive Hold
.
The Squat Press
So there you have it…
3 amazing full body exercises for serious fat loss. Give these exercises a shot and you’ll quickly see that they’re a little more demanding than the Saturday morning body pump class.
And if you want to more of my acclaimed fat loss workouts, then…
==> CLICK HERE
Kay Wallace
Hi,
I have a question. I do the eliptical machine 3 times a week. I am 54 years old and I am trying to loose some of my thighs and of course all my belly if possible.
What exercise(s) do you suggest?
Yuri
Start with the 3 that I just described.
Andy Spink
Hi Yuri. I’m with you all the way on the ‘lift heavy/full body exercises. That said I want to get ‘picky’. You advocate 6-8 reps and 2-3 sets. Can I assume that’s to ‘failure’ (or as near as possible without risking injury), and if you’re advocating repping to near failure but you are advocating “little or no rest” between sets then are you not really doing 12-24 reps anyway? Surely you need to recover somewhat if you’re going to get the next set done with the appropriate form.
Yuri
Good question. I should clarify that the weight should be heavy enough that 6-8 reps would be the most you can do. The rest can obviously vary quite a bit from one workout to the next but you’re still moving from one exercise to the next – not all 3 sets of the same exercise at once. Although you could do that as well.
Tyler
Hi Yuri,
I’m a little bit confused about changing the diet and workouts. Following your videos I have learned that my body is ectomorf (slim). So I would like to put on some quality weight with good diet but on the other hand i have a bit belly fat which obviously covers my abs which i would like to burn. So what to do? Is there a way to achieve both belly fat loss and muscle gain or I need to do one at a time and which first?
Thanks!
Yuri
I would highly recommend joining our Fitter U Fitness program as it gives you the exact workouts and daily food plans to achieve those goals.
http://www.fitterufitness.com
Jack Harris
I respectfully disagree with your 6-8 reps and 2-3 sets as mentioned as the only way and your reference to it leading to a weak and flimsy body. When I am in full swing and at about 6-7 week I am usually doing my body weight and am totally tight and cut. I am 54 years old and used to do heavy lifting( Bench 300 + etc.) I have been doing 100s since the 90′s whenever I hit a plateau to get through to the next level with great success and to help ease stress on my joints. I do one 70-100 rep set of each exercise, yes I do full body exercises, and achieve tremendous results rather shortly. I agree in mot have real prolonged workouts as mine usually finish in 45-50 minutes. The burn and lactic acid levels are tremendous and there is less stress on my joints as well. I do these to potentially fail @ 75+ reps and once I attain 100 I move the weight up 5-10 lbs at a time. There are many other benefits I glean from this kind of exercise, such as great endurance and mental toughness to break through the burn and lactic acid build up. Much like in competition when one has to suck it up and push through. BTW I am an extremely competitive and accomplished sailor and often run circles around guys half my age. The real reason I check your stuff out is for the diet side of things.
Irina
Yuri, my husband had/has a back injury that has kept him from working, lifting and walking for any distance. He is 57. What exercises for him would you recommend?
Yuri
He probably should getting specific advice from a physiotherapist until he’s back to “normal”.
Angela
Hi Yuri, whats your opinion on static squats I am super setting with single leg press for 30 secs. After reading your only lift heavy not sure if I’m wasting my time. Thanks.
Yuri
I guess they have their place in a well varied program. However, I wouldn’t focus most of your leg workouts on static exercises – not much transfer to real life.
Pinkesh soni
how can we workout if dont have necessary instruments like dumbbells etc is there a another way
Yuri
You can do tons of stuff with bodyweight exercises. Push-ups, lunges, squats, stairs, core work, etc…
Anna-Carin Rahm
Hi Yuri,
It is so amazing what you share with the world. Thank you. I would like to say something and that is that I am Swedish and my english is fairly good but I have difficult understanding or more hearing what you say, it is in almost all videos, maybe it is too fast that you speak for me to pick up. In this videos I cannot understand, I see what you do but miss out on a lot of things you say. I am not complaining I just would so much like to hear what you say, all good pieces of advice. The music is on and that of course makes it more difficult for a non-english ear to pick up the words.
sheila
Hi Yuri, I work out a lot and need to changes things up and liked the 3 full-body exercise vidoes you posted here. So, I want to add that to my mix of workouuts. But I have a question as a follow-up to the response you gave to Andy Spink. When you say you “not all 3 sets of the same exeercise at once”….are you saying then, assuming these 3 full-body exercises can be one complete workout, to do (6-8 reps of) the Reverse Lunge Bottom Up Kettleball Press, immediately followed with Knee Drive Hold, then right into Squat press…and then repeat that set 2 more times? Is that correct?
Scott Jones
Looks like a rough circuit. Can’t wait to try it.
sheila
Yuri, I just tried your circuit early yesterday morning and it was awesome! I started out by first doing a HIIE (high impact intermittent exercise, for those who don’t know) on a treadmill of walking fast on a high incline for two minutes, then ran fast for two minutes and then walked slowly for a minute, and did this 5-min cycle 2 more times equaling 15mins. (Though next time I’ll do a total of 4 cycles making it 20mins.) Anyway, right after that I did your 3 full-body excercises, 3 sets with maybe 15-20 secs rest inbetween sets and it was challenging! I had to use a regular dumbbell (15lbs) because I had no access to a kettleball, so i can only imagine that would make it a bit tougher. I’m definitley going to add this circuit to my workout programs. Thanks again for sharing!
Yuri
Well done Sheila!
Stephen Brown
Hi Yuri,
I have just commenced your Eating for Energy and I was wondering if you could give me your views on coffee considering the latest research below…
Thanks for your thoughts…
Steve…
A growing body of research shows that coffee drinkers, compared to nondrinkers, are:
less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia
have fewer cases of certain cancers, heart rhythm problems, and strokes
“There is certainly much more good news than bad news, in terms of coffee and health,” says Frank Hu, MD, MPH, PhD, nutrition and epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.
But coffee isn’t proven to prevent those conditions.
Researchers don’t ask people to drink or skip coffee for science’s sake. Instead, they ask them about their coffee habits. Those studies can’t show cause and effect. It’s possible that coffee drinkers have other advantages, such as better diets, more exercise, or protective genes.
So there isn’t solid proof. But there are signs of potential health perks — and a few cautions.
Here is a condition-by-condition look at the research.
Type 2 Diabetes
Hu calls the data on coffee and [type 2] diabetes “pretty solid,” based on more than 15 published studies.
“The vast majority of those studies have shown a benefit of coffee on the prevention of diabetes. And now there is also evidence that decaffeinated coffee may have the same benefit as regular coffee,”
In 2005, Hu’s team reviewed nine studies on coffee and type 2 diabetes. Of more than 193,000 people, those who said they drank more than six or seven cups daily were 35% less likely to have type 2 diabetes than people who drank fewer than two cups daily. There was a smaller perk — a 28% lower risk — for people who drank 4-6 cups a day. The findings held regardless of sex, weight, or geographic location (U.S. or Europe).
More recently, Australian researchers looked at 18 studies of nearly 458,000 people. They found a 7% drop in the odds of having type 2 diabetes for every additional cup of coffee drunk daily. There were similar risk reductions for decaf coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. But the researchers cautioned that data from some of the smaller studies they reviewed may be less reliable. So it’s possible that they overestimated the strength of link between heavy coffee drinking and diabetes.
How might coffee keep diabetes at bay?
“It’s the whole package,” Hu says. He points to antioxidants — nutrients that help prevent tissue damage caused by molecules called oxygen-free radicals. “We know that coffee has a very strong antioxidant capacity,” Hu says.
Coffee also contains minerals such as magnesium and chromium, which help the body use the hormone insulin, which controls blood sugar (glucose). In type 2 diabetes, the body loses its ability to use insulin and regulate blood sugar effectively.
It’s probably not the caffeine, though. Based on studies of decaf coffee, “I think we can safely say that the benefits are not likely to be due to caffeine,” Hu says.
Just because coffee contains good stuff, it does not necessarily follow that it’s good for us, says James D. Lane, PhD, professor of medical psychology and behavioral medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
“It has not really been shown that coffee drinking leads to an increase in antioxidants in the body,” Lane tells WebMD. “We know that there are antioxidants in large quantities in coffee itself, especially when it’s freshly brewed, but we don’t know whether those antioxidants appear in the bloodstream and in the body when the person drinks it. Those studies have not been done.”
Regular coffee, of course, also contains caffeine. Caffeine can raise blood pressure, as well as blood levels of the fight-or-flight chemical epinephrine (also called adrenaline), Lane says.
Heart Disease and Stroke
Coffee may counter several risk factors for heart attack and stroke.
First, there’s the potential effect on type 2 diabetes risk. Type 2 diabetes makes heart disease and stroke more likely.
Besides that, coffee has been linked to lower risks for heart rhythm disturbances (another heart attack and stroke risk factor) in men and women, and lower risk for strokes in women.
In a study of about 130,000 Kaiser Permanente health plan members, people who reported drinking 1-3 cups of coffee per day were 20% less likely to be hospitalized for abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) than nondrinkers, regardless of other risk factors.
And, for women, coffee may mean a lower risk of stroke.
In 2009, a study of 83,700 nurses enrolled in the long-term Nurses’ Health Study showed a 20% lower risk of stroke in those who reported drinking two or more cups of coffee daily, compared to women who drank less coffee or none at all. That pattern held regardless of whether the women had high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and type 2 diabetes.
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases
“For Parkinson’s disease, the data have always been very consistent: higher consumption of coffee is associated with decreased risk of Parkinson’s,” Hu tells WebMD. That seems to be due to caffeine, though exactly how that works isn’t clear, Hu notes.
Coffee has also been linked to lower risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. A 2009 study from Finland and Sweden showed that, out of 1,400 people followed for about 20 years, those who reported drinking 3-5 cups of coffee daily were 65% less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, compared with nondrinkers or occasional coffee drinkers.
The evidence of a cancer protection effect of coffee is weaker than that for type 2 diabetes. But “for liver cancer, I think that the data are very consistent,” Hu says.
“All of the studies have shown that high coffee consumption is associated with decreased risk of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer,” he says. That’s a “very interesting finding,” Hu says, but again, it’s not clear how it might work.
Again, this research shows a possible association, but like most studies on coffee and health, does not show cause and effect.
Pregnancy
In August 2010, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) stated that moderate caffeine drinking – less than 200 mg per day, or about the amount in 12 ounces of coffee – doesn’t appear to have any major effects on causing miscarriage, premature delivery, or fetal growth.
But the effects of larger caffeine doses are unknown, and other research shows that pregnant women who drink many cups of coffee daily may be at greater risk for miscarriage than non-drinkers or moderate drinkers. Again, it’s not clear whether the coffee was responsible for that.
Calories, Heartburn, and Urine
You won’t break your calorie budget on coffee — until you start adding the trimmings.
According to the web site myfoodapedia.gov — part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion — a 6-ounce cup of black coffee contains just 7 calories. Add some half & half and you’ll get 46 calories. If you favor a liquid nondairy creamer, that will set you back 48 calories. A teaspoon of sugar will add about 23 calories.
Drink a lot of coffee and you may head to the bathroom more often. Caffeine is a mild diuretic – that is, it makes you urinate more than you would without it. Decaffeinated coffee has about the same effect on urine production as water.
Both regular and decaffeinated coffee contain acids that can make heartburn worse.”
Yuri
Thanks for posting that Stephen. It’s always good to learn more. I personally don’t think coffee is the end of the world. I do believe it has some health benefits but it also has some not so great benefits (as I mention in the book).
I now usually drink 1 latte a day – that’s my treat.
However, moderation is key but for some people drinking 3-4 cups a day is the norm. At that rate, it’s only a matter of time before your adrenal glands would be shot and a host of other issues relating to fatigue could begin.
How you think about what you’re drinking/eating could be more powerful than the actual effects of what is being consumed.