5 Calorie Burning Exercises

Category: Weight Loss |

The main reason that people exercise, is to lose weight. In order to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you eat each day. Here are five of, what I think, are the best calorie burning exercises out there:

1. Swimming
This exercise is at the top of my list for a reason. Swimming is a great cardio that works more than just your legs; it works your whole body. Having to hold your breath and not waste it will improve your lung capacity, as well as endurance. It’s not just good for cardiovascular reasons either; it helps improve your flexibility, and your overall coordination. The health benefits of swimming are almost innumerable. Swimming is probably the best thing you could do for your body if you are overweight, or even just wanting to lose a few pounds. It’s low-impact, meaning less harmful on the joints, and burns those calories away like it’s nothing!

2. Running
Running/jogging is, of course, the most popular exercise for losing weight and burning calories. This, too, has many health benefits. It’s a nice, go at your own pace exercise. One problem running is how high-impact it is on your joints. By the constant pounding you make on the ground each step, it takes quite a toll on your knees and may cause permanent damage. With advances in modern technology, treadmill companies are knocking out some of the negative effects of running, and also increasing your capabilities with running. Take incline trainers for example, running on an incline can increase the amount of calories you burn by a large margin. Treadmill companies are now making their machines with built-in shock absorbing technology to make it a lesser-impact exercise.

3. Cycling
Riding your bike is probably a lot more fun than running, right? Cycling is good exercise as well. While you may not get as much of a workout from cycling as you do from running or swimming, you can also exercise for much longer with a bicycle. You probably won’t burn as many calories in the same amount of time as running; you are able to go for a lot longer time and distance to burn more calories. Cycling is pretty low-impact but you may still experience effects from the constant use of your knees. Planning challenging routes that go up hills, on dirt paths, etc. will increase your calorie burn by a large margin.

4. Zumba
Zumba is a pretty big and groundbreaking thing. As it turns out, constantly moving at a fast pace will burn a lot of calories! Yeah this one is a no-brainer. But, honestly, are you ever going to do all of these crazy things in your living room? That’s what is so great about the Zumba program. They put you in a room with tons of other people so that if you are slacking, it makes you feel like an idiot for not doing what everybody else is doing. I would say that is some pretty good motivation. Zumba is designed to make you get up and move your whole body at a constant and fairly rapid pace.

5. Jumping Rope
I know, it sounds girly and childish. I’m sure that the last time most of you saw a jump rope was back in elementary school. The truth is that this is one kick-butt exercise that will whip you into shape. It requires you to use a lot of coordination and timing. You are basically doing a calf-burnout workout, but actually following through with the jumping motion, multiple times. If you become really good at it, you can start doing double-unders and that will surely increase the amount of calories burned. Watch the movie Rocky III for motivation with this!

Well, those are the greatest calorie burning workouts that I know of. Focus on one, or combine them all into an ultimate routine and start shedding the pounds! See MayoClinic for more information about metabolism and burning calories.