Wondering what to do to terminate those last few stubborn pockets of fat on your quest to get shredded? Lose fat and get the physique you want with our top fat-burning, muscle-chiseling tips.
When you need to get dialed-in quickly, you don’t want to hear a lecture on advanced meal planning, periodized cardio and weeks’ worth of fat-burners. You want to know what you can do right now to get your body tight and lean. Here, our roundtable of expert trainers, physique artists and lab rats fill us in on what you can do to get the job done, pronto. Luckily, there’s more than one way to kill the fat.
Here are 3 ways to get lean fast.
1. Dont Panic
“Panic is the worst thing you can do when trying to get ripped up,” says physique competitor David Sandler, MS, CSCS. “That leads to overdoing cardio, simply trying to sweat it out, which in turn forces your body to hold back its fat stores. Instead, I restrict my calories a bit and time my carb intake around my workouts. I up the pace and volume of my workouts to help with additional calorie burning while forcing the muscles to suck up the water around them. It probably goes without saying that you need to increase your overall protein intake to maintain muscle and metabolism.
I also do a water depletion cycle rather than trying to drop it all at the last minute, thereby reducing overall water and forcing the muscles to pull it in. The end effect is achieved even if I don’t hit my desired body fat – my muscles are harder and leaner overall. Besides, you can always just suck in the gut, don’t slouch, and when you need to let it all out, make sure no one is looking!”
2. Evaluate, Reevaluate
If you’re not as lean as you want to be, more work may not be the easy answer to your problem, says WWE strength coach Rob MacIntyre.
“If a client has already been trying to get lean and still has work to do, then I find out what they haven’t been doing,” he says. “Since the body adapts so quickly to aerobic exercises, it is important to mix it up because of the difficulty with 10-20 min high intensity work this is often a tactic they haven’t tried. It is hard to push yourself to the limit to do this on your own and much easier with a partner or trainer. It can be any movement really. I like to combine barbell complexes with sprints or strongman work. If you can hold a conversation when it is over and stand up under your own power you may have gone too easy on yourself.”
In other words, train like a boss and the results will follow. It may not suffice to do traditional workouts that your body is accustomed to, even if you think they’re challenging. Using a training partner or coach to push you can really take you out of your comfort zone and into Leanville.
3. Find A Hill
When trying to get ultra lean, people often bemoan how much time is required of them at the treadmill. Well, these folks are not only limiting how much fat they can burn – and how fast – but they are displaying a gross lack of imagination.
“Without a doubt, when you need to get lean in a hurry, nothing can compare to some challenging hill sprint workouts,” says Jim Ryno, CPT. “They are the best way to blast fat without tapping into quality muscle, which long, steady-state cardio is known to do. No other cardio-type workout produces fat loss results while also actually building muscle as quickly as hill sprinting does. To get peeled quickly, do 15-20 short sprints per workout up to five times per week. If you have more time and want to take advantage of what they have to offer, 2-3 times per week should suffice.”
Ryno says to be sure to start with a detailed, dynamic warm-up and to finish with some static stretching.
