I've been in the fitness business for almost 17 years and there is one question every person I have ever met wants to know the answer to.
You may want to know the answer too.
That question is the following: "What is the BEST exercise to burn fat?" But before I answer that, let me tell you the story of how I found the answer to this question.
Fifteen years ago I was riding my bike and a lady opened her car door without looking.
Fortunately, the same thing happened to me the winter before, so I knew exactly what to do.
I swerved left.
Unfortunately, I was on a mountain bike.
Mountain bikes have a specific type of pedal (at least this one did) called a "bear trap" pedal.
It has toe-clips to secure your feet, but also has a shape that looks like the teeth of a bear trap.
Well, the very edge of the pedal caught the edge of her door.
I flipped butt -over - head - over - handlebars.
Fortunately, as a former wrestler, I knew to tuck my chin to protect my head.
Unfortunately, I landed on my left shoulder.
Hard.
Later that night, I had a splitting headache and had a hard time moving my left arm.
It turned out that I had separated my shoulder.
So, I had to take a week off from pretty much all physical activity, including working out.
A week later, I still had a hard time moving my left arm and riding my bike.
So, I couldn't work my upper body at all and had to drive to work.
Needless to say my activity level decreased dramatically.
Four weeks after my accident, I started upper body training again and started riding to work.
Interestingly enough, I kept just about all of my upper body strength and my legs and my wind was even better when riding my bike.
Not only that, and here's the important part: Without changing my diet, I actually lost body fat.
So what did I do for that three-week period that helped me lean out, keep my upper body strength, and increase my stamina? Squats.
Lots of squats.
I squatted three times per week, every other day.
Occasionally if I felt like it, I added some good mornings.
This was probably twice per week.
If you want to drop some pounds quickly or your fat loss has stalled completely, look at the exercises you are currently doing.
If the squat is not part of your routine, you are definitely cheating your ability to lose fat.
Why is the Squat such a great exercise for burning fat? Because it uses every single muscle in your body - especially the muscles in your legs and hips.
These muscles require a ton of energy to function.
And in order to lose fat, you absolutely must burn calories.
Now, I'm not talking about little tiny half-squats with a padded bar across your shoulders either.
Those are worthless - unless of course you can't even do those.
Then that's your starting point.
Otherwise, the kind of squats that will help you lose fat are the kind where your butt comes as close to touching your ankles or the backs of your calves as possible.
These full squats use every single muscle in your body and when performed correctly, give you a powerful cardiovascular wallop - which is also necessary to lose fat.
And you want to be able to use a weight on these full squats that allow you to perform somewhere between five and ten reps.
Somewhere between three to five sets will be about right.
Perform these twice per week at the beginning of your workouts.
Add squats to your workouts for the next six weeks and surprise yourself with new found fat loss!