If you want to maximize building muscles and burning fat at once, this method is for you. What I am about to tell you will surely change your picture of how training could be done! Most people think that you have to build muscles in one session or periodization and burn fat in another. But that doesn’t have to be true. If you think about how fat is burned, you have to use more energy than you eat. And if you want to build more gains you have to eat more than you use.
Experiment Run
But what if we use energy to build muscles and boost our cardiovascular function to burn fat all at once? I discovered this for the first time almost twenty years ago with a client I had. He really hated to train cardio but loved to be at the gym. Somewhere he realized that he needed to have some cardio for his condition and heart function, so he did 30 minutes of spinning class each week besides his gym training. So, I decided to do an experiment that in theory would work perfectly to burn fat and build muscles at the same time. The answer to this was something I called pulse increases.
Pulse Increasers
The basic idea of this is that you should do your strength exercises with a high pulse—give your muscles a higher metabolism while you gain strength. At the same time, you will increase your condition.
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Well, this was how I thought it should work when I planned his training. So, we did a test for a couple of weeks. Suddenly he told me that he noticed that the spinning class wasn’t exhausting anymore. He had improved his condition from his gym sessions so much that the spinning class was too easy for him in just a couple of weeks. This sounds really amazing! But if you think about what he really had done it isn’t that strange. He did four sessions in the gym every week, so in two to three weeks he had done eight to 12 cardio sessions while he was building up his muscles. In the beginning, he had to lower the weights while he trained since he didn’t recover so fast as he needed to get ready for the next set since the rest time is short. His recovery got used to it very fast though, so soon he could get back to his old weights (even with a 30- to 45-second rest period between sets).
I have tried this on several clients after that and they all got similar results. So, this suggests that the theory I had works the way I planned. I'm sure many others have done the same thing in the past, do it right now, and will do it in the future. With this article, I want to inspire you and give an explanation to it if you haven’t tried this yet and want to get the same results as my client. The results will come pretty fast too, so you don’t need to do it for several months before you notice the results. I think you will notice a difference in your recovery and conditioning two to three weeks in.
Program Sample
Below is an example of how you could plan your training. The magic happens when you shorten your resting time between sets to 30-45 seconds and do a warm-up that gives you a high pulse. After two to three exercises, go for a max pulse at a bicycle, battle-rope, or something similar. You can use your old program if you want and make these changes to it.
Monday: Legs
- Sled pull as a warm-up 3x20 meters
- Squat 6x6 reps
- Stiff-legged deadlift 4x10 reps
- Battle rope 30-60 seconds at max pulse
- Glute ham raises 3x10 reps
- Leg extensions 4x20 reps
- Reverse Hyper® 4x12 reps
- Ab wheel 4x10 reps
Wednesday: Shoulders/Chest
- Battle rope as a warm-up with high pulse 30-60 seconds
- Bench press 6x6 reps
- Seated shoulder press 4x10 reps
- Battle Rope x30 seconds
- Inclined dumbbell presses 6x6 reps
- Lateral dumbbell raises 4x10 reps
- Reversed flyes (back shoulders) 4x10 reps
- Superset triceps pushdowns/biceps curl with barbell 3 x 10 (10 pushdowns followed by 10 curls in one set)
Friday: Back
- Airbike as a warm-up for 5 minutes
- Deadlift 6x6 reps
- Chins 3 x max reps (weighted if you perform over 10 reps and bands if you can't do 5 reps)
- Lat pull-downs 4x20 reps
- Airbike for 30-60 seconds at max pulse
- High row with wide grip 4x12 reps
- Seated row with chest support 6x6 reps
- Standing pullovers with rope 4x20 reps
Work with this program or integrate the strategy in your own program for a month and see the difference! You will feel weaker in the beginning, of course, but only in a few weeks you'll get back the most of the strength and recover so much faster than before. If you are competing in power sports, this might not be right for you, but otherwise, you should try it.
Benefits of Pulse Increasers
- Teach your body to recover faster.
- Notice better conditioning.
- Burn more fat in less time.
- Save time and enjoy your new results.
Stefan Waltersson is a professional strength coach certified by Westside Barbell, lecturer, physiotherapist, author, personal trainer, kinesiologist, sports massage therapist, nurse assistant, and founder of Seminoff Sport & Rehab in 2004. Stefan has previously worked in neurology (Sahlgrenska University Hospital) and with researching doctors in microbiology and clinical chemistry. Check out his website.
It would be similar to manipulating calories, which probably every reader here has noticed. If you taper down calories to 1,000kcal less than what you were eating before, but work your way up to using the same weights you were using at the higher calorie intake, then when you increase calories again, holy shit the weights start flying up.
But back to the point of fat-burning. Using training to illicit body composition goals is only going to work if the diet is already on point. This is probably also obvious to everyone reading this. Sure, you can train to achieve a higher metabolic rate, but if you just eat more to make up for it, it won't really help you cut fat.
As for building muscle and burning fat at the same time. Again, diet needs to be on point, but I do believe it. I'm sure by now we all personally know natty Crossfitters who are jacked and ripped year-round. We also know a bunch who actually get good at crossfit, but have perpetual dad-bods. So, it's pretty obvious there that diet is the key.