15 Minute Sprint Intervals For Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

15 Minute Sprint Intervals For Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

People often ask me, “what’s the best cardio exercise for burning body fat quickly”?

Well, from my personal experience, sprinting is high on the list.

A lot of guys still make the mistake of doing low impact cardio for more than 30 minutes and expect to lose weight quickly.

I’m talking about aerobic exercises such as Jogging, Running or Cycling.

These are all good exercises but aren’t as effective for burning body fat as anaerobic exercises do, such as sprinting.

Sprint Intervals for Fat Loss and Muscle Gain

My favorite cardio exercises are outdoor sprints, hill sprints and HIIT on a treadmill.

Sometimes I do body weight HIIT workouts like Pushups, Burpees, Box Jumps, Mountain climbers, high knees and bicycle crunches.

These are all great exercises for burning body fat in less time and get you in the best shape of your life as long as you stay consistent and train with enough intensity.

Any high-intensity exercise, where you are pushing your body to its limit with fewer rest periods will leave you gasping for air.

But sprinting is without a doubt an amazing way to blast body fat quickly and all you got to do is sprint at your fastest speed for a short amount of time and repeat 8-10 times in total.

It definitely beats long distance walking or running on a treadmill for an hour.

I still enjoy long distance running now and again. I did a few triathlons in the past that I enjoyed.

But when it comes to fat loss and getting ripped ABS, there is nothing quite as effective as sprint training.

Not everyone can sprint at a high intensity, it requires some level of fitness to do it.

Just like any other exercise it takes practice.

But if you’re like me and you just want to burn fat and build muscle and a six pack, then I recommend sprint training.

I like to do sprints one day a week and weight lifting on other days.

Benefits of Sprinting

1. Total Body Workout – Improves overall body strength.
2. Improves insulin sensitivity so that you can eat more cabs and still lose body fat.
3. Decreases Body Fat by 10% -20%, while maintaining lean muscle mass.
4. Boosts your metabolism so that you burn a lot of calories in a short amount time, especially long after you’re finished.
5. You develop a six pack without doing any crunches, sit ups or other ab exercises.
6. Builds muscle the same way weight lifting exercises do as well as building incredibly strong legs
7. Improves heart capacity
8. Uses several muscles at the same time, making it a complete muscle building workout.

Most people wouldn’t even consider doing HIIT or sprint training and would rather stick to basic aerobic exercises that doesn’t require a lot of physical effort and energy.

That’s fine too, but it does depend on what your fitness goals are.

So HIIT is not for everyone.

Kiss Chasing and Sprinting

Give sprinting a try if you have never done it before. Sprinting is for anybody who wants to lose weight fast.

You don’t have to go crazy in the beginning. Take your time and allow your body to get used to this workout.

Yes, it’s hard in the beginning, but remember when you were a kid you use to love running. I know I did.

It was even more fun when we played kiss chasing when we were kids.

Some of the girls were good looking, and if we were able to catch them, they’d have to kiss us.

And some of those girls were super fast, and it was worth being out of breath just to get a kiss back then.

Gradually Improve with Each Sprint

Just because you’re a bit older now, it doesn’t mean you can’t still run fast.

You can gradually work your way up from doing two sprints to doing 8-10 as long as you commit yourself to it.

I have no problem doing 2-3 50 yard sprints at full speed, but after that it gets tougher with each sprint.

I do my sprints on a football field or sprint track once a week that only takes me 15 minutes max.

Once you get good at sprinting, it will only be a matter of time before you get visible results.

From my experience sprinting burns more calories than some guy running on a treadmill for his dear life, struggling to lose pounds of body fat.

This is one of the reasons why I never count my calories when I eat.

Not saying I can eat whatever food I want, but I’m confident that when I do high intense cardio like sprinting, I don’t need to worry about gaining weight.

I still still have cheat days, but I never spend money on it but, if someone hands me a 12 inch pizza, I’ll eat it.

Sprinters Body Versus Marathon Runners Body

Sprint training is the ultimate fat burning and muscle building exercise and you can see why this is true when you look at the physical difference between a sprinter and long distance runner.

Although, long distance runners have very little body fat, particularly in their legs.

But if you look at sprinters, for example, they are a lot more muscular and ripped.

Not just in their lower bodies, but in their upper bodies too.

This is why I much prefer the sprinters body any day!

Improve Your Technique With Speed Training Drills

To prevent any injuries from happening, make sure to warm up and stretch properly.

Sprinting can be very hard on the joints, so it’s important to give the hamstrings a good stretch.

Here’s a very short video on how to stretch before sprinting.

Once you know how to stretch properly, you need to do some speed training drills.

Every sprinter needs to do sprint training drills, depending on their goals and the event they will be competing in.

But as a beginner, there are a few basic training drills you should do. You don’t need to do all of them just pick 3.

• High Knee Raises
• Glute Kicks
• Side To Side Squatting
• Straight Leg Kicks

Once you improve your technique, I recommend doing sprints once a week and as you get better at it you can increase it to 2-3 days a week.

Wear The Right Footwear

You don’t need to spend much money on clothes and footwear. But make sure to wear good footwear that will make a huge difference in your running speed. You can buy shoes designed for sprinters that are lightweight with sprint spikes on the soles of them.

I made a video on sprinting that you can check out below. You don’t have to copy what I do, but if you think you are capable enough then go for it.

I still need to improve my sprinting technique and I’m working on it.

But it doesn’t stop me from getting out there and running as fast as I can in a short amount of time.

You might even be as good as I am at sprinting. But definitely give it a shot and let me know if it has helped you or not in the comments below. I really think sprint intervals are great for fat loss and muscle gain.

Okay, here’s the video below. Check it out.

I hope this article helped you.

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Original article and pictures take www.justinkavanaghfitness.com site