The ability to burn fat is directly proportionate to muscular endurance and caridorespiratory conditioning. As you will learn here, the more endurance you have, the more efficient the body will be at burning fat in the aerobic energy systems.
Endurance relies on repeated muscular contractions over a long period of time. Cardiorespiratory conditioning is the efficiency in the way our bodies use oxygen to get to the working muscles. The more efficient the heart can pump blood, oxygen and nutrients to the muscle, the greater your body’s endurance. The way to increase your muscular and cardio endurance is by maintaining your heart rate in its target heart rate zone (between 55-90% of your max heart rate) for at least 20 minutes. The longer time and the more frequently you do that the better your endurance.
The benefit of better endurance is a lower resting heart rate, a higher stroke volume,
which is the amount of blood pumped from the heart. The quicker you will get to your target heart rate and a more efficient use of your aerobic energy systems, for glycolysis and fat burning.
The body also needs anaerobic conditioning as well, for those short bursts of high energy needs. This anaerobic energy system uses ATP, Creatine Phosphate, and glycogen within the first 2 minutes of your immediate high energy needs, and then converts to the aerobic energy systems which burn fat.
The best way to achieve muscular strength, power and endurance, is by interval training. Interval training requires maximum amount of energy for a small finite period of time, followed by a submax, or recovery period for a longer period of time, alternating between max and submax conditioning. Refer to my web site, www.fitnessfromthepro.com for more on interval training.
The more flexible we are the less risk of injury, because we will have a greater range of motion. Although, that ROM is joint specific and direction specific. No matter how flexible we are, our knees and elbows will NEVER bend backwards. Our flexibility, is genetic which determines the length of the ligaments and tendons. Flexibility is also based on lifestyle, and past athletic history. Flexibility becomes limited with age, so it is good to incorporate stretching into all workouts even if they don’t burn fat!