Q: I’m an 18-year-old male. I have a little bit of belly fat. I can see my top two abs when I tense. My question is, how can I get a six pack by spring break? What do I need to do? – Will

A: A six pack by spring break? Doable! Get ready to shed excess fat and build muscle—the two keys to a “fast track” six pack.

P.S. You probably already have a six pack underneath that “little bit of belly fat.” Especially if you can see definition in the top abs. Ready to bring it forth?

Attack the Flab Around Your Midsection

1. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Interval cardio will burn more fat than steady state cardio (like running or cycling at a steady pace). And, you’ll build more muscle. Interval cardio consists of short bursts of high intensity exertion, followed by brief periods of “active” rest. This keeps the body off balance so it can’t adjust and hoard calories, and it also works multiple muscle groups. Best of all, not only will you burn more fat during a HIIT workout,  you’ll get EPOC, or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. What does that mean? More calorie burn post-workout! Get the full scoop in our metabolic circuit post.

2. Eat Healthier. Skip the refined sugar (what’s that?), the fries and other junk food, and focus on maintaining a healthy, well-rounded diet. It’s important to incorporate lots of variety into your meals to make sure you get ample nutrients. We recommend eating 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day, instead of 2-3. This will enhance your metabolism, reduce unhealthy cravings, and deliver plenty of energy for your workouts. You’ll want to steer clear of carbonation, as well—soda and beer are the enemies of a washboard stomach!

3. Drink Green Tea. It’s a metabolism-booster and antioxidant with proven stomach fat-blasting benefits. Don’t like the taste? You can take Green Tea in extract form, on its own or as a compound supplement (get it at any grocery store). Read more about the benefits of green tea.

While you’re losing that little bit of excess fat, you can jump right into your ab muscle workouts! Lean muscle mass burns more calories, so your strength training will fuel your fat burn.

4 Moves for a Rock-Solid Stomach

1. Keep Your Abs Engaged. Your core region (lower back, abs and glutes) make up your “stabilizer” muscle group. This powerhouse is constantly at work when you’re doing ANY kind of workout, so take advantage of this! When you’re lifting weights, or doing anything that uses your stabilizer muscles, consciously tap into that strength—keep your abs tight and posture solid, and you’ll see big results.

2. Use Compound Movements.  When targeting your abs, compound exercises are better than isolated ones. Why not work multiple muscle groups at once? Some compound movements that work the whole ab region include Planks and the Bicycle Maneuver:

• For Planks, lie face down, forearms and toes pressed into the floor, and lift your hips up off the floor. Engage your abs, straighten your back and hold this position for as long as you can. Trust us, you’ll feel your entire ab region engaged! When you progress, you can also try a plank variation using an exercise ball.
  

• For Bicycle Maneuver, lie with your back on the floor, hands behind your head and elbows spread wide. Keeping your lower back pressed into the floor and abs contracted, crunch across the body—one elbow to the opposite knee. Alternate continuously. This will work more muscles than a standard crunch.

3. Eat Protein.  Protein will allow your body to rebuild muscle after your workouts. Great sources include lean meat, nuts, eggs, cheese and legumes. Another excellent source of protein is a protein shake, which can be one of your 5-6 daily meals. A whey or soy protein powder, when mixed with soy or skim milk, can give you roughly 20 grams of protein. Drink your protein shake at the right time for maximum results.

4. Get Plenty of Rest.  “Fast-track” doesn’t mean you need to work out every single day. If you work the same muscle group two days in a row, you’ll make it hard for your body to recover—which is when the actual muscle development takes place. If you are committed to working out every day, do cardio or active stretching on the days in between your strength training workouts. And make sure you get the right amount of sleep, too, because it’s prime muscle recovery time.

You’ve got a big goal, but it should be easy to get a six pack quickly if you follow these steps diligently. (It will require the same determination to keep that six pack when you return to school, of course!)

Get a six-pack your own way with a little push from 4-Hour Body.

More good reads:

• Are you training your core or your abs?
• Ab-blasting got you sore? How to prevent second-day soreness
• Is Final Phase Fat Loss the ticket to your six-pack?

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Want to burn fat faster, especially in those trouble spots? Then stop zoning out to the wheeze of the treadmill. It’s time to switch up your routine with metabolic circuits!

“Metabolic circuits are a lot of fun and can really benefit your health and fitness,” says Lori Incledon in her book Strength Training for Women. The fitness world is abuzz over metabolic training because it delivers a super-effective workout for muscle gain AND fat loss. Did we mention you can do a circuit in 30 minutes or less?

“Metabolic conditioning” or “metabolic training” refers to exercise designed to replicate the types of exertion used in sports—high energy, high engagement, total body movements. The “circuit” is simply the cycle of exercises you set up in your routine.

So why does metabolic training lead to increased muscle mass and fat burn?

Reason #1 – Metabolic Circuits Use Resistance Training

“Study after study show health benefits from resistance training,” Craig Ballantyne told The Nate Green Experience. “After all, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that a good superset lifting session works your muscles and cardio-vascular system a lot better than a 30-minute walk in the park.”

As in sports, you’ll be doing some serious muscle multitasking in your circuit. By using compound instead of isolated movements, you work multiple muscle groups for a balanced, full-body workout.

And with brief rest periods, active rest, or simply resting one muscle group while you work the other, you’re able to do even more strength training in a short amount of time.

Increasing your lean muscle mass will accelerate your calorie burn, but to get the full effects, “you need to lift heavy,” says Jade Teta, ND, CSCS. “Your muscles should be burning.” The idea of a metabolic circuit is to get close to muscle exhaustion fairly quickly, so you shouldn’t be able to do 12+ reps in a set. If you can only lift 2-3 reps of a heavy weight while maintaining control and flawless form, that’s fine.

Reason #2 – Metabolic Circuits Get Your Heart Rate High

By incorporating intense bursts of exertion at intervals—2 minutes of jumping jacks, say, or spinning on a bike as fast as you can—you’re getting your heart rate up for great cardiovascular benefits. Alternating between high intensity and low intensity (active rest) keeps your heart rate up, while allowing your body to rest between exercises.

As with the resistance component of your circuit, the goal is to emulate sports training, so focus on intensity over quantity. It’s not as important how long you jump rope, but that you do it as hard as you can. “You shouldn’t be able to talk,” Teta explains. So if you’re chatting with a pal or humming a tune, you aren’t making the most of your circuit.

Reason #3 – Metabolic Circuits Generate Afterburn

Varied, high intensity exercise is proven to create EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption), also known as “afterburn.” For one, you’re exerting energy at full capacity, which creates an oxygen debt. And two, the varied movements prevent your body from adjusting to your level of exertion and conserving oxygen (as it would in steady state exercise). So, metabolic circuits increase your energy expenditure during and after training, burning up calories to do so.

Are You Getting Full Metabolic Effects?

“There are four reliable ways to stimulate the maximum caloric burn both during and after the exercise session,” says Teta. “We call these the ‘Bs’ and the ‘Hs’, breathless, burning, heavy and heat. Each workout should work to generate all four of these components.”

In other words, when you finish your circuit you should be wobbly, sweating, striving to catch your breath, and clawing for your water bottle. Your muscles should be fatigued, and if you’re just starting out, you can probably expect a few days of soreness.

You should not be dizzy, faint, precariously wheezing, or on the verge of pulling a muscle. It’s especially important when doing metabolic training to eat right and stay hydrated. You should also prevent soreness with stretching and foam rolling, both before and after your circuit.

Keep Your Circuits Short and Sweet

In your eagerness to get started, be careful not to over-train. If you’re a beginner, ease your way in slowly. Diving into an intense workout could easily cause injury, which is NOT going to get you any closer to your fitness goals. Nor are extended soreness, pain, or an inability to walk for two weeks.

The beauty of metabolic circuits is that they’re designed to be short and sweet, so you don’t need to overdo it. The goal of lifting in your circuit is to expend maximum strength with control and correct form. You’re not going to be able to do that for very long.

To get the most from your metabolic circuits, don’t push yourself beyond your capacity, and always allow adequate rest between heavy workout days. 30 minutes, 2-3 (non-consecutive) days a week should be plenty. And, to start out, 10-20 minutes is just fine.

It only takes a short period of high energy, high effort, total-focus activity to get exceptional fitness results. So set up your metabolic circuit and start reaping the rewards!

Have you tried metabolic circuits? Can they replace cardio in your workout regimen, or do you do both?

Should You Use a Dumbbell or Body Bar in Your Circuit?

Protect Your Muscle Quality for Better Gain

Full Body Licious: 5 Big Fat Female Fitness Myths

Q:

A: There are many ways to calculate your body fat percentage. This test from Health Central is a good place to start: enter your stats and a few measurements and it will calculate your body fat percentage with a very narrow margin of error.

Health Central says 18% body fat is in the healthy normal range for Asian men, 15% for Caucasian men, and 12% for African-American men. And for the ladies: 25% is healthy for Asian women, 22% for Caucasian women, and 19% for African-American women. According to this site, Asians tend to have a slightly higher percent body fat than African-Americans and Caucasians, because their bones are less dense. So, Jon, if this test gives you 15%, you’re definitely in the healthy range.

If you’re worried about the rolls, keep in mind that a little bit of extra flesh is normal when you bend forward or sit down. There’s gotta be a little give!

Furthermore, if your abdomen is flat when standing, then the folds and lingering lines could have more to do with the elasticity of your skin than with fat. When your skin loses elasticity, it doesn’t contract as much when you sit or bend, and it doesn’t bounce right back when you stand back up—the fold lines stick around for a while. This happens with age, certain skin types, and dehydration. Drinking plenty of water and using moisturizer can improve skin elasticity.

And, of course, keep working on that taut stomach with nutrition and exercise. A few recommendations:

AB-FRIENDLY FOODS

For starters, go easy on starchy carbs, carbonated beverages, and sodium. Instead, drink lots of water and look into the fat-blasting benefits of green tea, which you can easily get in supplement form.

To lose a few extra pounds, Core Performance’s Joe Kita swears by incorporating fiber into your diet. “Fiber’s bulk naturally fills you up, so you eat less,” he explains. Another great way to scale back the munchies—while shedding excess fat and increasing abdominal muscle—is a weight loss protein shake. IdealShape has a great one; be sure to read up on its nutritious ingredients.

You can also check out MSN Health’s flat ab food fixes. And finally, remember that your eating habits are just as important as what you eat. This post will tell you when and how much to eat to keep your stomach slim.

EXERCISE FOR A TONED TUMMY

If you’re trying to lose excess fat, you should absolutely be doing interval cardio and metabolic circuit training. Find out why they’re better than steady state cardio for whittling down stubborn fat.

Next, check out these solid tips for driving away that last bit of belly fat, and putting a six pack in its place.

And finally, don’t forget to track your results!

Easy Ways to Score a Six-Pack

Is Sugar the Enemy of Your Slim Figure?

The Real Reason Your Belly Fat Won’t Budge

“Use interval training to burn the fat and resistance training to sculpt your body,” instructs fitness pro Craig Ballantyne. We’re getting the best of both worlds with metabolic circuits. Yet, while the varied exercises and intervals are what make them so effective, they aren’t plateau-proof.

To keep getting optimal results, you need to continually make your metabolic circuits more challenging.

Is It Time for a Change?

People often ask how often to adjust their circuit routine. Well, there’s no general rule: it’s going to be different for everyone. Your level of conditioning depends on how often you work out, how hard, and lots of other factors. While many advise that you should vary your exercise routine every month, you can usually just feel when you’re ready to progress. The routine becomes less challenging… You’re hungry for more… You’re just plain bored.

There are several ways to mix up your metabolic workout. Incorporate one progression at a time:

1. Reduce rest time
2. Increase intensity
3. Change/add exercises
4. Increase reps or time spent on each exercise

Switch It Up By Splitting It Up

Split circuit routines let you alternate working opposite muscle groups. One circuit focuses on lower body, one focuses on upper. Do the lower body workout, wait two days and do the upper, and in another two days, do lower again or do a full body workout. Instead of alternating upper and lower body workouts, some people switch off between pushing movements (squats, lunges) and strengthening movements (pushups, chest presses, deadlifts, leg curls).

There are lots of benefits of doing split routines. By focusing on a few muscle groups, you can max them out for a powerful workout. And with split routines, DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) will be less likely to interfere with your workout. If you often find that your legs wobble or your arms feel like putty just when it’s time to train again, you probably need more recharge time. By doing split circuits, the most you’ll work a muscle group is twice in a week, allowing four days to recover instead of one or two.

Alternate Muscle Groups During a Single Workout

If you need to make the most of your gym time, you can do non-competing circuits to work your whole body without straining your muscles. “Non-competing exercises simply refer to putting a series of exercises together that allow one muscle group to rest while another muscle group is trained,” explains Ballantyne. An example would be alternating upper and lower body movements (called a superset). Not only does this give you a full body workout, but it lets you power through your lifting without shifting to cardio to rest.

Pointers for Your Circuit Lineup:

• By doing upper, lower, core and cardio—in that order—you can demand the most of each muscle group. You need the most strength for your upper body movements, so get your kettlebell presses and bent-over flys in early. Abs can come later, and when your muscles are maxed out, finish with cardio.
• You shouldn’t be able to do more than 6-8 reps with free weights—buck up and lift heavy.
• You can mix cardio into your routine as long as you don’t wipe yourself out too early in the game. Stationary bikes, treadmills and ellipticals can all be incorporated in your circuit. Just remember to go hard!
• Protect and improve your muscle quality by starting with active stretching and foam rolling. End with a cool-down stretch and roll your muscles out again. You’ll notice a huge difference in the way your muscles feel the next day (and you’ll be able to walk up and down stairs).

Finally, it’s important not to up the ante too quickly: increase intensity or duration too fast and you’ll probably hurt yourself. Listen to your body for cues about when and how much to progress.

Is your metabolic circuit routine becoming harder instead of easier? Find out why.

What is hypnosis for weight loss?

Stubborn Cravings? Tell Your Brain Who’s Boss!

A: It sure can be frustrating to work hard and see zero results. Like Sisyphus pushing the same boulder uphill day after day, when we’re stuck in a weight loss rut, our commitment to fitness feels eternally pointless.

And normally you should be seeing fat loss with metabolic circuits, or any other type of training that involves high-intensity interval cardio and resistance exercises. But there are still a lot of reasons why your squeaky-clean fitness routine may not be working. Take a look at these five possible causes:

#1: Repeating the Same Routine.

Your body will always adapt to exercise, so you’ve got to switch it up—and ramp it up—to keep from plateauing. If you want to keep doing metabolic circuits, you need to periodically increase intensity, add reps, add weight, go longer, rest shorter… you get the gist. Spice it up every few weeks or sooner if you feel ready. Or, throw your body off balance by changing your game every month: try spinning, join a fat loss boot camp, do combat workouts, then come back to circuit training.

By the way, there’s no harm in bulking up while you burn fat, is there? If you’ve been doing metabolic circuits, which incorporate resistance exercises, you are probably already well on your way to more developed muscles. And why not do both at the same time? After all, more lean muscle mass means stronger workouts and increased fat burn!

#2: Working Out Too Much.

Yes, it’s possible to overdo it, and people commit this exercise error often. “You only need three hard workouts per week,” says Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS. That’s welcome news for those of us who can’t spare more than a couple days a week at the gym. And, in fact, if you put in more than a handful of hard, full-body workouts per week, you could be hindering fat loss.

Better to have fewer higher-intensity workouts than more ineffective ones. Remember, it’s during rest that your body builds muscle and recharges for your next high-energy workout. Without adequate rest, you won’t allow muscle recovery, you’ll wear your body down, and you could become overly fatigued and injure yourself during your workout. Check here for signs of over-exercise.

Try to avoid working the same muscle groups on consecutive days. If you want to work out every day, mix in some steady state cardio or light activity on the in-between days.

#3: Being Sedentary Outside the Gym.

Here’s an ugly truth: working out for an hour a day, but being desk-bound (or couch-bound) for eight, will leave you in worse shape than someone who doesn’t exercise at the gym but stays active in their daily life.

Joe Kita of CorePerformance was surprised to discover that a fitness buff can be “sedentary.” “Like many people, I’ve put my exercise in a box,” he says. “But outside of that box, am I really any different from all those grandmothers in housecoats watching QVC from their couch?”

If you really want to be in good shape, you’ll need to make fitness your lifestyle. Squeeze action into every minute of my day? Sounds hard! But actually, it isn’t. And CorePerformance says picking up a pedometer will help you become more aware of your activeness. We’re guessing this’ll put a halt to indulgent elevator rides and shortcuts through the grass (which No More Bacon’s Ryan Sullivan pinpoints as the real reason we’re fat).

Of course, if you’re a student or work a desk job (that covers most of us), it’s tough to be active all day. But you need to keep yourself moving. How about a 10-minute stroll/bounce/cartwheel to the water cooler and back, once an hour?

#4: Diet Missteps.

It sounds like you’re eating healthy—consuming balanced meals and keeping your caloric intake under wraps. Make sure, though, that your calorie count doesn’t fall too low: calculate your caloric need here and don’t go less than 300-500 below that to lose excess fat. If your caloric need is 2,200, for example, then you can eat between 1,700-1,900 calories. Go lower, and you’ll kill your metabolism by sending a message to your body that it needs to hold onto fat in preparation for the “famine” it expects.

Two more ways to rev up your metabolism: take a metabolism-boosting weight loss supplement and eat 5-6 small, nutritious meals a day (starting with breakfast). While you’re at it, why not try this innovative approach to eating for weight loss?

#5: Not Seeing the Bigger Picture.

If there’s a chance you might have mood imbalances, dietary imbalances or a health condition, set up an appointment with your doctor. A lot of emotional and physiological factors can cause a person to gain weight, from stress and depression to endocrine system issues. If your body is trying to send you this kind of alert, not all the dieting and exercising in the world will make a difference.

If there are no health concerns, perhaps you could simply benefit from hiring a personal trainer or weight loss coach. Many people find it’s a great investment because they learn fitness and nutrition principles that last a lifetime. A trainer can also help you pinpoint what you’re doing wrong in your routine, and arm you with simple tips to maximize fat burn. Best of all, weight loss professionals will help you create exercise and diet plans based on your body, your needs and what you have time for.

Whatever you do, don’t get discouraged! You may have to try several things before you find out what works for you. In the meantime, take a look at more ways to push past the plateau, and spend a few minutes scrolling through Cranky Fitness’s fun tips for freshening your workout plan.

If you can look at health and fitness as a lifelong journey, you’ll be more patient with your body, more committed, and better able to appreciate your successes. Believe it or not, these are three ways to get quicker weight loss results!

Still stumped? Maybe the obstacles lie below the surface. Uncover subconscious saboteurs with weight loss hypnosis.

Stationary bikes: are you shaping up, or spinning your wheels?

How to Prepare Your Muscles for Metabolic Circuits

Lose Weight with… Seaweed?

My details:

Gender: M

Age: 23

Height: 5’11″

Weight: 200 lbs.

I started working out a few days back, burning 500 calories every day. My daily intake is around 1,500 calories. I’m doing weights also. – Raj

A: Unfortunately, the midsection is where most guys tend to put on the pounds. But there are lots of ways to send that fat packing!

Here are some of our favorite middle-fat-blasters:

Skip the Steady State Cardio – When it comes to trimming your midsection, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a better use of your gym time. So bypass the stationary machines and triple your fat burn with routines like metabolic circuits.

Add Green Tea to Your Diet – The evidence supporting green tea’s fat-blasting properties is irrefutable. The only question is, should you sip a cup or take green tea extract?

Work That Core – Find out how to blast stomach fat and put a six-pack in its place!

Eat More Protein – Protein shakes are an efficient, easy way to get your protein, which boosts fat loss by helping you build lean muscle mass. Be sure to have a protein shake within 60 minutes of your resistance training workout for maximum muscle recovery.

Suppress Your Sweet Tooth – We all know sugar makes us gain weight, but the reasons may surprise you!

Double Up with Compound Exercises – We’re glad to hear you’re doing strength training on top of your cardio. Lifting weights is a good way to tone your chest, abs and back—not just your arms and shoulders. But in order to make the most of your lifting, you need to focus on getting full-body results.

A Note About Your Diet

Are you eating enough of the right foods? Nutrition is key to losing weight and staying healthy, and it’s about more than caloric intake. To begin with, try to cover all your bases: the government offers helpful dietary guidelines, and they’ll also tell you how much of each food group to eat based on your age, sex, height and activity level.

Next, calculate your caloric need. Remember, you only need to consume 300-500 less than your caloric need in order to lose excess fat. As a tall, young male, you probably need more than 1,500 calories a day, especially if you’re burning 500 of them! Eat too few calories and you’re just as likely to gain/keep weight because you’ll send your body into starvation mode. Your metabolism will slow down and your body will hoard fat.

What you want to do is keep your metabolism high. To do that, meet your caloric need, stay active throughout the day on top of exercise, and eat 5-6 small, healthy meals. One of those meals can be a nutritious protein shake. And whatever you do, don’t skip breakfast!

Sticking to Your New Fitness Routine

Since it sounds like you’ve just kicked your exercise regimen up a notch, we thought we’d give mindset a mention. Frame of mind is often overlooked in fitness, and yet it’s the most important aspect: staying on track is the only way to achieve and keep your results. Once you’ve geared your mind for weight loss, you’re ready to apply these tips from other experts about starting a new regimen and staying on track.

Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress! We want to hear what works for you and what doesn’t.

Abs Are Out, Core Is In! Find Out Why

Unspoken Rules at the Gym

Which Fruit Ingredient Can Help You Lose Weight?

So maybe you like flipping through Men’s Health while you run laps on the treadmill. Or your fitness hour coincides with White Collar on Tuesday nights, so naturally you combine the two. There’s nothing wrong with reading or watching TV while you exercise, right?

Wrong.

This exercise multi-tasking could be the one thing standing between you and your future hot body.

Researchers say multi-tasking is killing our productivity at work? It’s doing the same thing at the gym. Edward M. Hallowell, an expert on both multi-tasking and ADD (no coincidence, surely), says it’s like “playing tennis with three balls.”

So we tote a magazine to the gym thinking we’re killing two birds with one stone, but we’re doing the opposite: throwing two stones, and missing both times.

If you plan on rocking that swimsuit this summer, put the magazine down and bring some Zen to your workout.

Here’s how.

Read ‘Em and Weep

Personally, I don’t understand how people can read and exercise at the same time. I’ve tried it, and my feet seem to find every part of the treadmill except the conveyor belt.

But people do it.

The problem is, when you’re not paying attention to your workout, you lose steam—especially when you’re doing a repetitive activity on a stationary machine. As soon as that People celeb story gets juicy, you might not realize your legs have completely stopped moving.

So, not only are you “spinning your wheels” on the stationary bike, but you’re probably not soaking up much of what you’re reading as the magazine bobs around in front of your face. That means you’ll have to work out again and reread that story.

Not so time-efficient after all.

Hitting a Wall

Even if you don’t misstep and literally hit a wall, you can be sure your weight loss results will. Zoning out is an all-access-pass to comfortable, which means you’ll stop thinking of ways to switch up your routine, which means p-l-a-t-e-a-u.

That’s why interval training is so effective. Not only does it keep the body off balance, but it demands total engagement. Just try to read while pounding out 50 jumping jacks or crab-walking at full speed. (And if you do, please send the video.)

Reading isn’t the only diversion, of course. Watching TV, talking, texting… all can lead straight to an exercise plateau. Music can add pep to your step, as long as you’re listening to something upbeat. But ultimately, ditching all the distractions will give you the body you really want.

Benefits of a Focused Workout

When you focus on your breathing, you have more oxygen and energy for your workout. And by focusing on posture and form, you have maximum strength to perform each movement.

You’ll also remember to engage all your muscles so you can cash in on compounded results.

Example:

• Deadlifts while watching TV = stronger arms and improved balance
• Deadlifts while focusing on deadlifts = stronger arms, improved balance, solid core, stronger legs, tighter glutes

The second one seems like a much smarter kind of multi-tasking. And by performing each movement with deliberation, you’re also less likely to over-train or injure yourself.

But Exercise is Boring…

So make it fun! Get creative with your routine. Put together a high-energy playlist. Buy a new pair of shoes, or work out in your “energy” color. Giving your exercise plan a little love is the first step to making it stick.

Got exercise ennui? Try interval training and metabolic circuits. Get claustrophobic at the gym? Take a fitness or dance class (I’m a fan of Zumba) or do martial arts in the park. Can’t stay focused without a performance goal? Train for a bike race or 5K.

If you’re one of those people who really hates to work out, then you’re only hurting yourself by tuning out. You’ll just have to spend twice as long at the gym.

Let’s see: slog through an hour on the elliptical while watching Oprah reruns, or crank out a metabolic circuit in 20 minutes, double my fitness results, and be done.

Sorry, Oprah. I’m going with the latter.

More good reads:

• When to Stop Googling ‘Fitness’ and Work Out Already!
• Why Your Workout is Putting You to Sleep
• How to Karate-chop Your Gym Funk in Less Than 30 Seconds

Metabolic circuits are the perfect exercise for hectic schedules and short attention spans. A metabolic circuit is a series of exercises performed quickly with high repetitions, and you can do a full sequence in under 15 minutes. Doing metabolic circuits is a quick way to get a great workout, especially if you’re trying to lose fat.

You don’t need to waste time pausing between exercises – alternate muscle groups and keep going! “Because the exerciser switches between muscle groups, no rest is needed between exercises. This gets the heart rate up, which usually doesn’t happen during resistance exercise,” says WebMD’s Carol Sorgen.

Do non-competing metabolic circuit exercises. Each week, add repetitions, increase resistance and introduce a new exercise to the lineup. If the same circuit routine is getting harder every week, go here.

Switch It Up for Doubled Calorie Burn

When you’re jogging on the treadmill, ever notice how – after 20 minutes of scanning sitcom subtitles, or listening to the same iPod playlist on repeat – your pumped-up pace has dwindled to a crawl?

Steady mid-intensity cardio rarely gives you a focused and engaged workout. Even if you manage to stay amped, your body won’t! The body adjusts to steady-paced exercise and begins to conserve energy.

Interval cardio (like metabolic circuits) keeps the body off-balance so it can’t hoard calories. The brief bursts of movement demand focus and generate momentum, giving you a much more efficient workout than stationary treading and cycling. Being able to progress and diversify your routine will help prevent plateauing.

Circuits at Home in 30 Minutes

If you don’t like the thought of performing the exercise version of musical chairs at your gym, set up a circuit at home. It’s cheap and easy. Get a pair of dumbbells for bicep curls and shoulder presses, and a sturdy chair for bent-over rows. You don’t need any equipment to do squats, lunges, leg extensions, push-ups or crunches. And you can jog in place or run circles around the living room couch. If your full circuit only takes 10 minutes, replenish fluids and repeat at least two or three times.

Circuit training is most effective with a game plan. Make a chart that lists each exercise in the order you’ll do them. If you need inspiration, here are two basic circuit routines. Write down your goals and make a note of your weight or measurements. Decide the number of reps you want to do and how many times you’ll repeat the circuit this week. Add to it each week and update your chart to see your progress!

The Workout That Keeps on Giving

Another reason metabolic circuits are more effective than steady cardio: they cause you to burn additional calories post-workout. Many call this the “afterburn” effect. Varied, high-intensity exercise boosts EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). EPOC is your body’s way of recovering after exercise, and it uses calories to do so – much of which comes from body fat.

Keep in mind we aren’t cardio-bashing. It’s good to let your body recoup with some moderate-intensity exercise between rigorous interval training workouts. The combination of interval and aerobic training can be especially powerful for those trying to lose 20 pounds or more. Just don’t bank on stationary treading and cycling alone for major calorie burn.

If you’re short on time, metabolic circuits are one of the best ways to get your heart rate up, work multiple muscle groups, and burn extra calories for up to 48 hours after the workout.

Don’t forget to maximize your warm-up, too! Watch this complete active stretching routine for ways to increase your range of motion and prepare your muscles for a great interval training workout.

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Q: Will a treadmill or exercise bike help me lose weight faster? -Emily

A: The simple answer is a treadmill because you are going to burn more calories.

The complex answer is treadmills are much harder on your joints.  Every time your foot hits the treadmill when you are running, it puts a tremendous amount of stress on your joints. The chance of injury goes way up with a treadmill. Bikes produce much less impact on your joints because your foot is constantly in contact with the pedal.  To get the calorie burn up closer to treadmill levels, you can use an Airdyne Bike that requires you to pedal your arms and legs.

It also depends where you want to lose fat.  There is some evidence that a treadmill will target the abdominal area better than a bike, and the bike will target the hips and thighs better than a treadmill.

If you really want to lose weight it isn’t about what machine you use, but about what you do when you are on the machine.  If you are doing steady state cardio where you just stay at the same speed and resistance for your whole workout, you aren’t going to get the weight loss benefits you want as quickly as if you did interval training.  Interval training requires changes in resistance and speed throughout your workout.  Interval training not only burns more calories while you workout, but can continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours after your workout.

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