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Fat Loss Help - Are You Training Your Metabolism or Your Muscles
Unfortunately many (not all) of the workouts you will see in the popular health and fitness magazines will do very little to meet your specific needs. Most of the workouts in these publications and ineffective and will only generate results for those with superior genetics and who get results off almost any training plan or training system. It hurts me to see the heaviest of individuals in the gym sitting down on the edge of a bench doing bicep curls and triceps kick backs, when I know they are seeking fat loss results. Or I'll see females who want to address all their 'TROUBLE SPOTS' so they'll head straight for the inner and outer thigh machine, use the total abs machine and perform numerous isolation based triceps exercises in an attempt to address their bingo-wings (the flab on the underneath of your upper arm). I not only see this, but have also had many people come to me for consultations and handed me in their program card they received from the fitness instructor in the club and everyone of them will have these exercises listed on their program and the typical 3 sets of 10 reps is what is prescribed. STOP TARGETING Your MUSCLES and TROUBLE SPOTS The problem with addressing your trouble spots is that these are generally sites of the body, which contain the smallest amount of muscle, and you have to understand that muscle is metabolically active. This means that it is calorie costly for your body to repair muscle tissue. When you train, your muscle fibers get damaged and need to repair and grow back stronger.
Don't get me wrong, I am not against isolation based exercises or arm curls. I do all these exercises myself, but you must earn the right to isolate and most people are too weak in their compound movements (the bigger lifts or movements such as squats, presses and pulls) to have any right to start arm curling 20 pounds. Isolation based exercises should be seen as 'SUPPLEMENTARY' exercises, and NOT 'PRIMARY' exercises in your training regime, especially a fat loss training regime. START TARGETING Your Bodies METABOLIC HOT SPOTS OKAY, so I've told you that isolation based routines are not the best practice for fat loss workouts… BUT what should you do??? Start targeting your metabolism and your bodies 'Metabolic HOT Spots' There are 3 main metabolic hot spots on your body and they are: 1) Back As you can clearly see these body parts have much more muscle mass than your arms or abdominals and addressing these body regions on a regular and consistent basis will ensure that you take advantage of your metabolism and the calorie expenditure associated with the muscle tissue repair process.
What you could do is devise two separate workouts and then alternate between the two routines, making sure at least one day is given between the sessions. It might look something like this… Routine A = Emphasis on Horizontal Pushing and Pulling with Quad Dominant Leg Exercises. Routine B = Emphasis on Vertical Pushing and Pulling with Hip Dominant Leg Exercises. Your weekly schedule would then look something similar to this…
NOTES: Horizontal pushing and pulling exercises would be exercises such as bench press, push ups, dips, 1 arm dumbbell rows, barbell rows, cable rows and inverted body rows. Vertical pushing and pulling would be exercises such as military presses, 1 hand dumbbell presses, upright rows and chin ups. Obviously sets, reps, set structure and rest periods are crucial components to any fat loss regime, but don't be fooled into thinking that you need to do 3 sets of 10-15 plus reps and use really light to medium weights. Mix it up, use different set and rep schemes, but make sure the loads you use are not too light. They should not be too heavy that speed of movement is ridiculously slow, not should they be too light that a metabolic effect will not be achieved. It's called 'RESISTANCE TRAINING' for a reason… ADD SOME! ADDITIONAL EXERCISES and ROUTINES As I mentioned earlier I am not against isolation based exercises, so provided you are doing the bigger compound movements and focusing on getting stronger in these movements it's ok if you wish to add in a small amount of isolation based work if you like performing these exercises, but realize that you could be spending that time performing some intervals or short duration workout finishers which will further stimulate your metabolism and accelerate your fat loss results. Alternatively you could perform some intervals on the days in between these resistance based sessions or even do some low intensity and recovery type work. Basically you want to keep active on the days between the main training sessions. KEY Takeaway Point Train your metabolism, not your muscles. Your muscles will of course be getting trained and taxed, but just make sure you are TARGETING those Metabolic HOT Spots with frequency and keep the isolation based exercises as supplementary type work and NOT the bulk of your program. By Ian Graham
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If
you're someone who is seeking real fat loss results then you need
to be very careful about how you structure your workouts and more
importantly, where you get your fat loss workouts from. 
Now
think about how much muscle tissue damage is going to take place
if you go to the gym and only train your arms and abdominal muscles???
Look at the amount of muscle mass in these areas of the body…
It's not an awful lot is it… and even if you DESTROY your arm
with every known arm exercise to man it doesn't matter, you're still
only going to stimulate the muscles in that region, unless you do
arm curls WRONGLY like most people (GUYS with egos) and start arching
your back and letting the elbows move forward and away from the
body, thus bringing in some shoulder involvement.
Your
metabolism is like a furnace and you want to feed it the right combination
of fuel in the form of a staple diet of appropriate exercises that
will not only have an impact on your metabolism during the hour
or so you train, but also impact on your metabolism the other 23
hours of the day that you don't train!!! 
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