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When your goal is to lose weight, the key factor is reducing calories. This can be done with a healthier diet (reducing calories) and choosing the right exercises.
Some various sports and exercises help burn calories:
- running
- swimming
- basketball
- ski
- dances
- lifting weights – with dumbbells or kettlebell
In the following lines, I will introduce you to the best exercises that will help you burn the most calories.
The first factor by which I will divide the exercises is the place to perform. You can perform each activity either at home or outside.
The following table includes the top 12 calorie-burning exercises. These exercises burn the most calories per hour. Remember, the calories listed are an estimate. Your exact calorie burn depends on factors like intensity, duration, and weight. (via https://www.healthline.com/)
| Exercise/body weight | 125 lbs | 155 lbs | 185 lbs |
| Running | 652 | 808 | 965 |
| Water polo | 566 | 703 | 839 |
| Bicycling | 480 | 596 | 710 |
| Calisthenics | 480 | 596 | 710 |
| Circuit training | 480 | 596 | 710 |
| Jump rope | 453 | 562 | 671 |
| Stationary bicycling | 420 | 520 | 622 |
| Rowing machine | 420 | 520 | 622 |
| Aerobic dance | 396 | 492 | 587 |
| Swimming (casual) | 396 | 492 | 587 |
| Jogging | 396 | 492 | 587 |
| Hiking | 340 | 421 | 503 |
Home workouts
Squats
Squats mainly work your lower body, specifically your quadriceps and glutes. As a strength training move, squats can be an essential part of any successful weight loss plan. Regular strength training helps speed up your metabolism and can decrease body fat. Multiply your body weight by 0.096 to determine how many calories you burn per minute of doing squats.
Plank
Holding a plank burns more calories the longer you do it, as your body starts struggling to support your weight and fires up all of its calorie-burning engines. You can burn significant calories in a plank, but it will take a while. Which is why working up to plank walks is a great idea. There are different plank types, so if you feel ok with regular planks, you can try some other variation – side plank, reach plank, plank jacks, and so on.
Burpees
Burpees are a challenging exercise that works many of the major muscle groups in your body. A burpee is essentially a two-part exercise: a push-up followed by a leap in the air. Doing several burpees in a row can be tiring. Still, this versatile exercise may be worth the payoff, especially if you’re looking for a way to build strength and endurance while burning calories and boosting your cardio fitness.
Jumping jacks:
Doing jumping jacks for 10 minutes can burn a whopping 100 calories. Don’t expect to be able to do them non-stop long enough to burn all the calories you want! Combining these exercises with others for a balanced circuit workout is the way to go. You’ll get all of the benefits without hurting yourself, and your calorie burn will continue long after your training ends. Jumping jacks engage all of your muscles simultaneously: upper body, abs, legs, and of course, your whole cardiovascular system. They can also help you loosen up at the beginning of a workout, like a super dynamic stretch. This makes them the perfect warm-up activity!
Walking Lunges
Walking lunges are a variation on the static lunge exercise. Instead of standing back upright after performing a lunge on one leg, as you would in a static bodyweight lunge, you “walk” forward by lunging out with the other leg. Walking lunges are a strength-training exercise for the lower body. They also work your quads, the muscles in your hips, and your glutes, helping tone all of the lower body’s most problematic parts. You can even hold dumbbells to add resistance if you find walking lunges a little too easy.
Mountain climbers
This super essential move is packed with so many benefits and is a staple in HIIT and strength training workouts. Mountain climbers are great for building cardio endurance, core strength, and agility. It’s almost like getting a total-body workout with just one exercise. It’s a cardio exercise. You’ll get heart health benefits and burn more calories.
High knees
High knees work your calves, quads, hamstrings, shins, and your abdominal muscles. This exercise is a combination of the run in place with exaggerated knee lifts. This is a great full-body warm-up exercise that increases aerobic fitness. Naturally, high knees exercise burns fewer calories, but still more than walking.
Jump rope
Jump rope is an exercise for faster fat loss results, particularly around your abs and trunk muscles. By pulling your core tight during a jump rope exercise routine, you can target that area and start sculpting abs. You can burn belly fat, but one point worth noticing that you cannot target one spot of your body to lose fat from the belly. It helps you to get the whole body toned.
Stationary cycling
Cycling is an excellent way to get your heart pumping. Depending on your workout intensity and body weight, you can burn more than 600 calories an hour with a stationary bike workout. It helps to burn calories and build strength, which, in turn, can lead to fat loss. Interval training allows you to alternate short bursts of intense exercise with longer intervals of less intense activity. This type of training can help you burn more calories in less time and elevate your cardio fitness. Stationary bikes allow for varied resistance levels so that you can exercise at low, medium, or high intensities. This makes it ideal for an interval training workout.
Kettlebell workouts
Most exercises using the kettlebell are explosive, full-body movements, revving your heart rate, and challenging multiple muscle groups at once. You can read more about Kettlebell Workout Routines For Weight Loss in my article.
Push-ups
Push-ups are an essential upper body exercise. They strain both the chest and the shoulder and arms. If it is difficult for you and you are a beginner, you can do different knee support push-ups. If you are more advanced, you can change the angle, add extra weight, gather your arms, etc.
Dumbbell workouts
Dumbbell exercises are an excellent way to lose fat, including on your stomach. While you can’t spot train away abdominal fat, losing weight all over your body will also help you lose weight on your tummy. Building muscle and performing dumbbell circuits are highly effective for fat burning.
Outside workout activities
There are many exercises outside the home that can help us lose weight and burn more calories. Working out has his positives – fresh air, see other people. You can perform a excellent workout with your own body, performing different types of exercises.
Running
Тhis is probably the best exercise for burning fat. The whole body is involved, and it is up to you what pace you choose.
Sprinting
Sprints burn more calories, so I would recommend doing your workout so that you include at least 3-4 sprints in it.
Swimming
Whatever to say about swimming will not be enough. Loads the whole body, helps burn fat, develops discipline, etc. The only drawback is that we can not swim everywhere – we need a pool or ocean. But if you decide to go swimming, you can’t go wrong. Swimming is a low-impact workout that burns energy while improving muscle strength, blood flow, and lung and heart capacity. Thirty minutes of casual swimming burns about the same number of calories as 30 minutes of jogging. However, swimming is less stressful on the body. It may be an appropriate exercise if you have joint problems or limited mobility.
Bicycling
The indoor cycling experience can’t compare to riding a bike outdoors. Cycling helps build lean muscle, improves mental well-being, and reduces stress.
Running Stairs
Running at stairs will burn fat quicker than many other types of cardio. For instance, a 155-pound woman will burn more than 1,000 calories in an hour of running up and downstairs.
The exercises are different in intensity. Some load more cardio, and others who rely on lifting more weights. Each activity can be different in intensity, depending on our goal.
According to many researchers and scientists, using only cardio injuries is not good because the body begins to burn muscles in addition to fat. That is why it is good to alternate weight training (dumbbells or kettlebell) and high-intensity exercise in your training plan.
Whether you are lifting weights or running, the intensity will change the number of calories burned.
HIIT (High-intensity interval training)
According to Wikipedia: High-intensity interval training (HIIT), also called high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) or sprint interval training (SIT), is a form of interval training, a cardiovascular exercise strategy alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods, until too exhausted to continue. Though there is no universal HIIT session duration, these intense workouts typically last under 30 minutes, with times varying based on a participant’s current fitness level.
The intensity of HIIT also depends on the duration of the session.
HIIT is a collective term for various workouts that include short bursts of powerful movement, followed by regular short rest periods. The idea is to push yourself to your limit for a short period, rather than spend half an hour or more practicing moderate exercises like jogging or cycling.
Tabata workout – a set of exercises to burn more calories
What makes Tabata a little different from other HIIT workouts is that it consists of the same exercise for four minutes. In contrast, other HIIT routines could be for time or reps. They can include various exercise movements (like our example above). With Tabata, the first 20 seconds, you give around 80% or 90% of your power. Then, you rest for 10 seconds. Repeat the exercise for another 20 seconds, then rest again for 10 seconds. Complete these intervals eight times for a total of four minutes, and you’ve got one Tabata.
Even just two rounds (8 minutes total) of Tabata can be a useful exercise that burns fat and gets your endorphins going. Still, you can continue adding more rounds as you level up in fitness. I like Tabata simplicity, as you can adapt to your body’s areas you wish to strengthen.
No matter which exercise you choose, you must remember one thing – the most important thing is perseverance. Know that nothing will happen without determination. Enjoy the change that is happening to your body, the progress you have with each exercise and do not give up if, at some point, there is stagnation. This is normal.
Continue with the plan you have to burn calories, if necessary, update or change something in it, and you will see that the results will come.