When it comes to your fitness program, one of the key things you’ll want to be focusing on if fat loss is the goal is doing whatever you can to jumpstart a sluggish metabolic rate.

Your metabolic rate represents how many calories you burn off on a day to day basis, so the faster it’s running, the faster your progress unfolds.

Sadly, many people are just not optimizing their metabolic rate like they should, thus they fail to see ongoing results.

The good news is that with a few tweaks to your workout program, you can definitely get your metabolism back on track and humming along.

Here are four great workouts that will take your calorie burn to the next level — and help you burn calories faster during your sleep.

Tabata Training

The first must-do workout if you’re hoping to burn fat quickly is Tabata training. This form of training takes interval training to the next level as rather than having work interval that is shorter than your rest intervals as is traditionally seen, you now have rest intervals that are shorter than your work intervals.

For Tabata training, you’ll want to choose an exercise that utilizes as many muscle fibers at once as possible. Then you’ll perform that exercise for 20 seconds, resting 10 seconds once you’re done.

After the rest period is over, it’s another 20 seconds of intense work once again. Repeat this process 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. Once you’re done, that concludes the workout.

Now, this may not sound that intense — and it’s only four minutes long(!), but make no mistake about it, if you do it right, it will be the most intense four minutes of your life.

Interval Cardio Training

Next up on the list of workouts that will jump start your metabolic rate and help you burn calories all day long is interval training. This form of training can be done using more traditional cardio forms of exercise — running, cycling, or rowing for instance.

You’ll want to perform intervals of 15-60 seconds depending on your goals and preferences and then rest for 1-3 times as long as the work interval was.

Repeat this five to ten times, starting with a warm-up and cool down to create the workout session.

This form of workout is great for those who aren’t quite at the fitness level to move to Tabata training yet but who do want to take things up a level from standard steady state cardio training.

Weight Lifting

Any strength training workout, if it allows you to build lean muscle mass will serve to increase your resting metabolic rate. This is because as you build more lean muscle mass, your metabolic rate increases.

In addition to that though, if you perform your weight lifting session using shorter rest periods, you’ll also create a post workout calorie burn that will allow you to burn calories faster for the 48 hours following the session.

Translation? Superior progress.

Keep your rest periods between sets to around 30-60 seconds. This doesn’t mean you should use very light weight, however. Still, ensure that the weight you are lifting is fully challenging you as that is what will enable you to see maximum results.

Bodyweight Circuit Training

Finally, don’t overlook circuit training using just your bodyweight. Do a series of burpees, doing one minute on, one minute off, for ten minutes straight. It’ll be an intense workout that will definitely raise your metabolic rate.

Or, try pairing together a number of exercises including jump squats, burpees, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, and walking lunges.

Whatever you choose to do, note that you do not need a gym to get an effective workout session in.

So keep these four workouts in mind. Use one or more in your workout program and get ready to see your fat loss progress skyrocket.

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