7 Exercises to Increase Metabolism
What is Metabolism?
Metabolism refers to all the chemical processes that occur within your body to maintain life. These processes include converting the food you eat into energy, building and repairing tissues, and regulating various bodily functions. Metabolism can be divided into two main categories:
Catabolism: Think of this as the breakdown process. It takes the food you eat and breaks it down into smaller pieces to release energy. This energy is what fuels your daily activities, from walking and talking to breathing and thinking.
Anabolism: This is the building-up process. It uses the energy from catabolism to help your body grow, repair tissues, and keep everything functioning properly.
Overall, metabolism helps your body grow, reproduce, repair damage, and respond to the environment. It's essential for maintaining overall health and well-being. The rate at which your body burns energy (metabolic rate) can be influenced by factors such as age, sex, pregnancy and breastfeeding, muscle mass, physical activity, and genetics.
How Certain Types of Exercise Can Increase Metabolism
Metabolic exercises are high-intensity workouts designed to boost your metabolism by increasing your energy expenditure during and after the activity. These exercises typically involve engaging multiple muscle groups through movements like burpees, squat jumps, and mountain climbers.
Because these exercises engage multiple muscle groups during exercise, they elevate your heart rate and create a greater calorie burn both during the workout and for hours afterward, thanks to something called the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) effect, also known as the afterburn effect.
The EPOC effect happens after an intense workout when your body continues to consume more oxygen and burn more calories as it works to return to its resting state
These metabolic workouts are efficient and effective, usually lasting anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, making them easier to fit into a busy schedule.
Metabolic exercises not only help in burning more calories but also improve cardiovascular fitness and muscular endurance, enhancing your body's overall efficiency at using oxygen and energy. Incorporating them into your routine can lead to better fitness results and a higher metabolic rate, supporting your health and wellness goals.
1. Burpees:
Modified Burpee:
Combines a squat, push-up, and jump for a full-body workout. Burpees engage multiple muscle groups including the chest, arms, core, quads, and glutes. This makes them an effective full-body exercise that helps build strength and endurance across various muscle groups.
Great for cardio and strength training. The high-intensity nature of burpees raises your heart rate, improving cardiovascular endurance. They also help with calorie burning and can be a great addition to a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) routine.
2. Jump Squats:
Modified Jump Squats:
Adds a plyometric element to traditional squats and develops explosive power and strength in the legs, particularly the quads, hamstrings, and glutes. This can enhance athletic performance and improve overall functional strength.
The dynamic, high-intensity nature of jump squats raises your heart rate and challenges your cardiovascular system. This helps improve cardiovascular endurance and contributes to overall calorie burning.
3. Mountain Climbers:
Modified Mountain Climbers:
Mountain climbers engage the core muscles, including the abs, obliques, and lower back. This helps improve core strength, stability, and overall functional fitness.
Engages multiple muscle groups and elevates your heart rate, providing an effective cardio workout. This helps improve cardiovascular endurance and aids in calorie burning.
4. High Knees:
Modified High Knees:
Cardio exercise that targets the lower body and core. The movement targets the hip flexors, quads, and calves, while also improving lower body strength and coordination. This can enhance agility and overall leg strength.
Increases core strength while burning calories. As you lift your knees high and maintain an upright posture, your core muscles work hard to stabilize your body. This enhances core strength and helps improve overall balance and stability.
5. Deadlifts:
Deadlifts effectively target the muscles along the posterior chain, including the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. This helps build strength and muscle mass in these key areas, which is crucial for overall strength and stability.
By mimicking natural lifting movements, deadlifts enhance functional strength, which can improve performance in everyday activities. Additionally, they help improve posture by strengthening the muscles that support the spine and pelvis.
6. Speed Skaters:
Modified Speed Skaters:
Speed skaters are a high-intensity exercise that gets your heart rate up, enhancing cardiovascular endurance and helping to burn calories effectively
The lateral movement in speed skaters helps to improve balance, agility, and coordination, engaging the stabilizer muscles in your legs and core, which can be beneficial for overall functional fitness and injury prevention.
7. Side to Side Squats:
Target the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and inner thighs. This exercise helps to build strength and stability in the lower body, enhancing overall leg and hip strength.
The lateral movement in side-to-side squats helps to improve the range of motion in the hips. This increased mobility and flexibility can enhance overall movement patterns and reduce the risk of injury.
In Conclusion…
To sum it up, exercises that boost your metabolism are like giving your body's engine a turbocharge. These high-intensity workouts convert the food you eat into the energy you need to live, grow, and thrive. By incorporating moves that engage multiple muscle groups and elevate your heart rate, you can help your body burn more calories and stay energized even after you've finished working out.
Remember, factors like good nutrition, regular exercise, and healthy habits all play a role in keeping your metabolism running smoothly. So, think of these metabolic exercises as your personal power-ups, helping you stay active, fit, energized and ready to take on the world!
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, mental health provider, or a licensed dietician, and therefore this is not official licensed medical, clinical, or nutrition advice. These are things that I have implemented in my own life and utilized in my personal training and health coaching practice after spending a substantial amount of time studying and practicing these techniques in fitness, habit change, and nutrition (still, I’m not a dietician). They are not meant to cure any ailment, and they are certainly not meant to serve as a replacement for any mental or medical healthcare treatment. It is important to always consult your own physician before beginning an exercise, mental health, or nutrition program of any type.