How to Burn More Calories Weight-Lifting

Contrary to popular belief, weight-lifting is an excellent way to burn a significant amount of calories, which can help you lose weight and shed body fat. A weight-lifting workout can be tweaked and altered to provide both a stellar and effective muscle-building workout as well as a shockingly energetic calorie-burning session. Read on for details!

Things You'll Need

  • A Plan
  • Effort
  • Knowledge
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Instructions

    • 1

      Lift Heavy (Heavier) - Lifting heavy weights (or heavier weights than normal) is a great way to both shock your muscles, which helps to induce muscle growth, and blast a large number of calories at the same time. Lifting a heavy weight 6-8 times burns more calories and induces more muscle growth than lifting a lighter weight 8-12 times. Gradually increase the amount of weight you lift as your muscles become stronger.

    • 2

      Take Shorter Rest Periods - Take shorter breaks/rest periods between your workout sets to keep your heart rate up, which burns more calories and keeps your metabolism revved up. Instead of resting 2-3 minutes between weight-lifting sets, aim to rest for no more than 1 minute between sets. Doing this will turn your weight-lifting workouts into quasi-cardio routines, which will help you burn a lot of calories!

    • 3

      Do Multi-Joint Exercises - Multi-joint, or compound, weight-lifting exercises utilize more than one body joint to execute and recruit more muscle fibers and burn more calories than single-joint exercises. Bench presses, squats, shoulder presses, pull-downs - these are very good multi-joint exercises that require a lot of effort to perform and consequently burn a lot of calories.

    • 4

      Go Heavy on Legs - Leg workouts utilize the largest muscle groups in the body and, consequently, burn the most amount of calories per exercise. Squats, leg presses, leg curls - these are all great muscle-building weight workouts that burn a lot of calories. To increase the calorie-burning potential of these exercises, go as heavy as possible and rest as little as possible between sets!