These are the best sports for burning fat

You can read about the best way to burn fat in our article where we give 7 tips to lower your body fat percentage. That article also makes clear that exercise is a good way to burn fat. You're active, and your body needs energy, so you burn fat. But some sports burn more fat than others. We can already hear you thinking: which sport is best for lowering your body fat percentage? In this article, we tell you which sports burn the most fat.

RUNNING

Running is an excellent sport for burning fat. That's because running gets your body burning fat. If you run for about half an hour, your body keeps burning fat for up to 12 hours. That means you simply carry on with your day while your body burns fat. You can also vary your running schedule to burn even more fat. For example, you can add intervals to your schedule. When you run harder, your body automatically burns more fat. Keep varying your schedule enough, too. That way you keep challenging your body.

SWIMMING

Swimming is the ideal sport for burning fat, especially if you're a beginner. This is partly because you're weightless in the water. Are you overweight, for example? Then you'll hardly notice it when you're in the water. As well as training your fitness, swimming also builds your muscle strength. That's because you use all the muscles in your body when you swim. Keep in mind, though, that a beginner burns fewer calories than an experienced swimmer. This has to do with how consistent your strokes are. But once you've practised a bit and have got the hang of the stroke, you can burn up to 800 calories per hour. So it's an effective sport for burning fat.

STRENGTH TRAINING

People often say that strength training, in the gym for example, doesn't work well if you want to burn fat. That's not entirely true. Strength training is actually good if you want to bring your body fat percentage down. Strength training raises your resting metabolism. As the name suggests, your resting metabolism is your metabolism when your body is at rest. It makes up about 60% of your daily energy use. A large part of this goes to your muscles. The bigger your muscles are, the more energy they need. If you have more muscle, you need more energy, and your body gets that from your fat reserves. On top of that, you're using energy during your strength training, and for up to 48 hours after training you have an afterburn effect. Both need energy from your daily calorie intake, but also from your fat reserves. This results in burning fat. So strength training is definitely a good sport for burning fat.

BOXING / COMBAT SPORTS

Combat sports, such as boxing, are a perfect way to burn calories, and so fat. That's because boxing combines fitness and strength training. Combat sports like boxing are a good example of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). This is a form of training with several short interval sessions, performed at an extremely high intensity. In a boxing workout you do several short sessions where you put in a lot of strength and effort at high intensity. You also use all the muscles in your body when boxing, and you're constantly moving. It's a very good way to burn a lot of fat in a short time.

CYCLING

Last, cycling is a perfect sport for burning fat. As well as being out in the fresh air, you're working your whole body. When cycling, you have to keep your balance and pedal to move forward. If you keep up a speed of 15 kilometres per hour, for example, you burn around 250 calories in an hour of cycling. If you choose to increase your speed by five kilometres per hour, you can burn up to 500 calories per hour. And that's without even taking headwind or other weather conditions into account. So it's an ideal sport for burning a lot of fat.

Of course, there are many more sports that burn fat and calories. The most important thing is to choose a sport you enjoy, so you can keep it up for a longer time. Keep eating well before and after exercise, too. Your body needs energy to train hard. Make sure you eat healthily, for example with the sports meals from SportMeals. They give you all the nutrients you need for a good workout.