Your metabolism us the total amount of energy required by your body on a daily basis. If you increase your metabolism and eat less food than your need, any energy short-fall with have to be met by your body fat stores resulting in weight loss. There are a number of different workouts that you can perform to increase your metabolism.
Strength Training
Working out with weights builds muscles and the more muscle you have on your body, the greater your metabolism will be. A small increase in muscle mass can result in a significant increase in daily energy expenditure. Work out with weights two to three times a week to increase your muscle mass and therefore your metabolism.
Interval Training
Alternating periods of high intensity exercise, e.g. sprinting, with periods of rest will boost your metabolic rate far more than steady state cardio. Interval training causes the buildup of lactic acid in your muscles which has to be flushed out after exercise. The process of removing lactic acid from your system elevates your metabolism for hours after your workout has finished. Start off with one minute of high intensity exercise alternated with two minutes of recovery and increase the work duration or decrease the recovery as your fitness improves.
Anaerobic Threshold (AnT) Training
AnT training is an aerobic training method where you exercise at your highest sustainable heart rate for 15 to 30 minutes. This is a challenging workout but one that will increase your metabolism for hours after exercise. AnT training should be performed at 85 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate and can be thought of as race-pace training. To perform AnT training, run, cycle, swim or row as fast as you can-if you went any faster you would have to slow down and stop. Exercising at this level of intensity will produce a lot of lactic acid which is responsible for elevating your metabolism in the post-workout period.
Circuit Training
Circuit training is a form of interval training where you perform strength training, aerobic and bodyweight exercise back to back. Because of the high intensity and short rest periods associated with circuit training, your metabolism will be elevated even after you have finished your workout. To change your regular gym based workout into a metabolism-boosting circuit, perform your workout vertically and for repeated laps as opposed to in the traditional set/rest format.
Hill Running
Repeatedly running or cycling up a steep hill will elevate your metabolism. You can use short, steep hills or longer more gradual hills to the same effect. Work as hard as you can going up the hill and then jog/freewheel back to the bottom by way of recovery before repeating.
Tabata Interval Training
Devised by a Japanese sports scientist, Tabata interval training is a very short but effective workout for boosting your metabolism. Tabata interval training requires that you perform an all out effort for 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of recovery. Repeat this sequence for 8 to 10 sets. You can use a wide variety of exercises for Tabata interval training such as sprinting, rowing, calisthenics, weight lifting exercises or cycling. Although this workout only lasts 4 to 5 minutes, it will significantly raise your metabolic rate during the hours after your training. (for more on Tabata read this article http://www.ultra-fitmagazine.co.uk/?p=612 )
