Fat Loss Specific Training

It’s that time of year where everyone is trying to get lean (me included) for the summer weather. That means you need to be ready to program some metabolic work and fat loss specific training into your clients workouts, but how much?

Oh, and what is fat loss specific training?

Great questions!

Rule #1 of Fat Loss Specific Training

The first rule of fat loss specific training is that you need to be able to maintain your muscle mass while creating a big enough demand from your training that your clients are burning excess calories. The tricky part? That varies based on the individual, their training history and numerous other factors. It’s actually much tougher to lose muscle mass than what you might be led to believe…assuming your are doing some type of resistance training, even circuits.

This especially holds true for your regular clients, you know the ones that aren’t gracing the cover of Men’s Fitness or Shape on the regular. Frequency is also a big player in fat loss specific training, being active every day doing something you enjoy will lead to more fat loss and better conditioning.  But, we have to take that off the table for now because most of your clients are only going to be able to dedicate 2-4 days of training. Anything extra would be considered bonus.

If you can encourage them to walk daily, go for a hike, swim, etc on their off days you’d be doing them a favor. Being fit is more than just hitting the gym a few times a week.

Rule #2 of Fat Loss Specific Training

The second rule of fat loss specific training would be to increase the metabolic demand of your workouts whenever possible.  That can mean lower rest, adding in supersets, metabolic boosters, adding metabolic resistance training, or including finishers to the workouts.

If you only have two days per week to work with a client I would focus on total body strength sessions with short rest, utilizing super or tri sets and focus on the 8-12 rep range for 2-4 sets of each exercise.  At the end of each day I would include 5-10 minutes of a finisher or metabolic resistance training to cap off the workout.

For 3 days per week I would focus on same program as mentioned above but add a third day using one of my fat-loss training program design templates utilizing circuits.

If you are lucky enough to have a client that can train 4 days per week I would program in 1 upper body strength day, 1 lower body strength day, 1 total body strength day, and 1 metabolic resistance training day.  The first two strength days using the upper/lower split would include some type of conditioning at the end of the workout using a finisher or metabolic resistance training.

Most of your clients are only going to be able to dedicate 2-4 days of training. Anything extra would be considered bonus.

Another approach is to use two total body days of training and then two metabolic resistance training days throughout the week.  You can see a quick review of a program here:

 Do you want to ensure that your programming hits all the critical components for optimal fat loss?

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