7 Proven Moves For Torching Calories

Here they are: the biggest calorie-melting moves you can do! Expert-chosen and lab-tested, these champion burners and firmers will knock off the kilos, jolt your routine, and revamp your body in record time. How does that sound?

These moves will change your weight-loss game. They are the real deal, the body-weight exercises that will not only blow the roof off your typical workout’s calorie burn, but also build the lean muscle your metabolism needs to stay revved during the other 23 hours of the day.

This list was 25 years in the making.That’s how long physiologist Michele Olson, a Shape advisory board member and a professor at Auburn University at Montgomery in the US, has been studying exercises in the lab.

Using a device called a metabolic cart – each tester is fitted with a respirator-like mask attached by a tube to the hightech cart – Michele is able to quantify in calories the effort it takes to perform any exercise. “I use a computer program that lets me see exactly how much oxygen is being used,” she explains. “For every one litre of oxygen consumed by your muscles, five calories are burned.”

The computer converts that info into METs (metabolic equivalents of tasks), the units that are used in the calorieburn formulas of apps, trackers and treadmills to calculate your calorie totals based on your specific body weight.

Simply put, a MET is the measure of how much energy is required to complete a physical activity. Think of it like this: If one MET is equal to sitting on the bus, then 10 are equal to sprinting for the bus.

Burn, baby, burn!

Michele also monitors muscle activity during each movement with electrodes she places on various body parts. “The voltage produced by the muscles is sent to a separate computer that tracks each contraction,” she says. In fact, that’s how we know these exercises are serious sculptors as well.