The After Burn Effect

In the 80’s the slogan NO PAIN NO GAIN, was plastered on just about every gym’s wall to include the military bases where I was stationed. Despite the title No Pain No Gain, first things first you should not exercise early in the morning unless you’ve first performed a serious and prolonged warm up. Also, you may want to ensure you have some food in your system before you begin. The caveat that advice is that you should not work out right after eating a meal, either. Know your body, finding a sweet spot to give your body time to digest your food to ensure you have eaten enough to power through your workout.

Now that you have been forewarned, I urge you to give the Afterburn effect a shot at least once a week for optimal results in your weight loss journey. Clients I have trained have used this method with maximum success. To better understand the afterburn effect, first look at the way your muscles consume energy. During a workout (or any physical activity), your body increases its heart rate and breathing, bringing more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles. During the first moments of your workout, the muscle will adopt an anaerobic mode of operation (without oxygen) in opposition to the aerobic functioning, which will be triggered as soon as the supply of oxygen and nutrients through the blood takes over.

The Afterburn effect is based on this anaerobic muscle function. After training, your muscles restore all the reserves that they burned during the first minutes of training. The recovery of these energy stocks, of course, consumes energy. So, in my saying this, this is the catalyst of you burning calories even during recovery well after your workout is over. If you want to burn calories after or between your next workout session, try the “Afterburn effect” and you will obtain maximal weight loss.

20-30 minutes of intense body weight Cardio Blasting routines such as the ones done in military Boot Camp can burn anywhere from

272 – 300 calories in 30 minutes.

The secret: short but intense sessions

I insist that your sessions should last no longer than 30 minutes. This will burn the glycogen stores in your muscles.

Examples are as follows: 30 seconds of Sprinting in place, Jump Squats, Jump Lunges, High Knees, Skaters, Mountain Climbers, or (One of my all time favorites), Burpees.