When it comes to fat loss, research has shown over and over again that fast, metabolic workouts are the best way to ignite crazy fat burning and take your fitness to the next level. Working faster (not longer) and taking super short breaks will help create a massive metabolic disturbance, putting you on the fast track to fat loss.
That’s actually why I like kettlebells so much for fat loss, and why I'm stoked about Neghar Fonooni’s Lean & Lovely program.
This type of total-body, progressive, multi-phase metabolic training should be the foundation of what you do in the gym. It will make sure that you are simultaneously building strength, developing lean shapely muscle, and of course blasting fat like crazy. It’s the most efficient and effective way to get fit, as it combines everything you need into one workout—saving you time without costing you results.
But again, what makes these workouts so effective is how intense they are. Because they are so completely challenging, you simply cannot expect to do these workouts every day.
*I highly caution you against taking a “balls to the wall” approach every single day, as you’ll find that it actually stalls your fat loss goals rather than supercharging them.
It's about getting the balance of workout intensity to recovery just right.
Most people naturally assume they should be doing cardio on their off days to encourage fat loss, which is actually not the most effective choice. In fact, you could totally take it to the next level with something you might not expect: YOGA.
You might think that yoga isn’t really effective for losing fat—but I want you to look at it another way.
Yoga isn’t just stretching, and it isn’t always slow. It can be challenging and fast paced, and can be an amazing combination of strength, cardio, and flexibility, and still not compete or compromise your other workouts.
Yoga is, without a doubt, the perfect way to add low-impact, high-yield exercise into your routine on days when you aren’t hitting the gym. It’ll help you to recover from intense, metabolic resistance workouts, and won’t steal from the energy necessary to crush it at the gym.
So here are three cool reasons to consider yoga for your workout off days:
YOGA USES YOUR ENTIRE BODY (WITHOUT OVERUSING IT)
Vinyasa yoga (or flow yoga) is a total body, power based type of yoga practice. This means that you’ll be moving from one pose to the next, using your own bodyweight as resistance. You’ll flow from standing poses to inversions, arm balances, and core focused movements.
In a Vinyasa yoga practice, you’ll use your legs as a base, often attempting one-leg poses, and engage your glutes for stability. You’ll strengthen and sculpt your shoulders through inverted poses and plank poses, and you’ll work on core strength and stability the entire time. With Vinyasa, you are constantly moving, and constantly using your entire body.
While these flows are incredibly challenging, they’re also incredibly low impact. This means that even when you aren’t crushing you metabolic workouts, you can use your entire body to tackle fat loss without overtraining.
YOGA WILL HELP YOU RECOVER
When your muscles are sore after a challenging weight training workout, what they really need isn’t dormancy—it’s blood flow. That’s why it’s super useful to incorporate active recovery on your off days, encouraging blood flow to broken down muscle tissue.
Yoga is the perfect form of active recovery because it’s low impact, total body, and works on flexibility and mobility—all in one.
Practicing yoga on your off days will help you train harder on gym days by improving blood flow through active recovery and diminishing delayed onset muscle soreness.
YOGA WILL HELP YOU GET BETTER AT YOUR GYM WORKOUTS
Metabolic resistance training, as discussed, is the surest way to blast fat and simultaneously gain strength and lean muscle. But strength training can also make muscles tight, and without focused flexibility your body can begin to move inefficiently due to limited range of motion.
When your body moves freely, you will actually be able to recruit more muscles, increasing power output—which means more fat loss. The more you can incorporate your entire body through movement, the more your metabolism will benefit as a result.
Yoga will naturally stretch your muscles and mobilize your joints by flowing through a variety of poses. Plus, you get to do so while also doing some pretty fun and challenging things with your body. With this increased mobility, your body will be able to move more efficiently, ensuring that when you lift weights you’ll actually recruit more muscles and burn more fat while you’re at it.
Now, I know you've got lots of stuff to do and commitments and the amount of time something takes you is always a factor. That’s why I encourage fast, metabolic workouts, and why I think Lean & Lovely is such a great program—it saves time, which is totally awesome.
Yoga will supercharge your fat loss efforts and enrich your workouts, and I don't want you to miss out on it because of time. I don't want lack of time to ever be a reason for not doing something that is going to so deeply impact your fitness.
That's why I’m so excited to share with you a special bonus for anyone who picks up Lean & Lovely this week: Lean & Lovely YOGA! (<<< Only available this week)
With Lean & Lovely you already get 12 weeks of intense fat-burning metabolic workouts, 100 pages of nutritional guidance, fat-burning recipes, and 25 bonus sweat sessions—and now you’re getting yoga, too.
It's a cool package, and that's why I'm stoked about it.
- Follow along yoga flow videos
- Each flow is only 20 minutes
- The flows are fast paced and just the right amount of intensity to work with your kettlebell fat loss workouts
- Three levels so you can benefit from them whether you're brand new to yoga or advanced (I started with the beginner and worked up to intermediate)
- It's sort of like yoga for kettlebellers, it's kindof awesome like that
It's a really cool package: Lean & Lovely includes metabolic workouts, nutritional guidance, AND yoga.
This program is all about becoming the strongest, leanest, happiest version of you.
If you're up for supercharging your fat loss, you should get Lean & Lovely
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