In Krissi's opinion, the best workouts to reduce overall body fat are "strength-based lifts and other types of resisted movement using weights, bands, and bodyweight." Total-body workouts are best where you focus on upper body, lower body, and core in each workout session. She said that you can also structure sessions to focus on certain areas like your arms, glutes, or core. If you need inspo, check out these strength training workouts.
"Work to increase your resistance or weights each week," Krissi suggested. As you get stronger you'll be able to move more resistance, and this is how you'll continue to get your muscles to respond to the exercise. Mix up the weight amount and exercises to prevent your body from adapting. Challenge yourself by learning new variations of the exercises you are currently doing, which Krissi said will increase your results.
"I recommend two to three days of full-body weight training sessions," said Rachel. "You can burn even more calories if you use one of those days as a circuit training day, pairing exercises in supersets, and limiting rest times. Always maintain form, go at a steady pace, and don't over train," Rachel said.
Don't forget about cardio! "I advise my clients to strength train three times a week and do cardio twice per week," said NASM- and ACE-certified trainer Holly Roser, "where their heart rate is elevated so it's hard to hold a conversation." Do cardio that's going to yield the highest calorie burn such as swimming, running, boxing, jumping rope, or an indoor cycling class.
"HIIT workouts are great at putting your body into an oxygen deprived state," ISSA-certified personal trainer Jamie Hickey said, "where it will burn the highest percentage of belly fat." ACE-certified trainer John Kersbergen agreed and said, there's no need to suffer for hours at the gym. "The whole workout, including warmup, doesn't need to be more than 45 minutes to be effective." Here's a 45-minute HIIT workout you can do.