What is the Afterburn effect

Did you know that you can continue to burn calories even after sports training? This is known as the ” Afterburn effect ” and refers to the recovery period of our body during which it continues to burn fat even though you are no longer exercising. There are no concrete studies on the effectiveness of this natural body process, but many people say they have lost weight faster by making a few simple changes to their sports routine. In this article we will tell you what the Afterburn effect is so that you can discover it and, if you want, put our advice into practice.

Afterburn effect

Calories that are burned after doing sports are known as the ” afterburn effect”. This process can take 12 to 24 hours after training and will depend on the intensity with which you have exercised and the cardiovascular exercises you have carried out. Therefore, this effect makes our metabolism accelerate naturally and increase your caloric expenditure in the hours after going to the gym.

But how does the Afterburn effect work? You have to bear in mind that, every time we exercise, we cause our body to require more oxygen to generate more energy: the more intense the training, the more oxygen we will need to be able to do it. When you finish training, you will feel how little by little your breathing seems to normalize but it is not: the respiration of the cells continues to accelerate, as when we were doing sports.

After a sports day, our muscles regenerate and the system are regulated to return to normal; This process requires a large amount of energy and, therefore, more calories than usual will be burned in order to return to normal levels of the body. This is what is known as the Afterburn effect.

Duration of Afterburn effect

After all that we have told you, you can understand that the more intense the exercise we practice, the longer it will take for our body to return to its normal levels and, therefore, the longer the Afterburn effect will last. What is clear is that the peak moment, that is, the moment when our body burns the most calories when regenerating, is during the first hour after exercising; then the effect diminishes until it disappears.

At most, this effect is maintained for 24 hours after exercise, so fitness professionals will always recommend interspersing exercise with periods of rest that are vital to regenerate tissues and during which you continue to burn calories.

Afterburn workout routine

Every time you do some kind of sport, it is clear that afterwards the Afterburn effect will exist to a greater or lesser extent because our body has to regenerate and return to normal. But to make the most of this natural process in the body, we can carry out a series of practices that will maximize this effect and, therefore, burn more calories with the same exercise.

Take note of the advice we give you from:

• Intercalate different intensities. It is better to intersperse different levels of intensity during the same workout than to stay in it all the time. Why? Because by changing the rhythm we make our body not get used to oxygen and, therefore, work more. For this reason, it is recommended that instead of running 20 minutes at a brisk pace, you should intersperse 10 minutes of fast walking with 5 minutes of sprinting, then slow down again and so on progressively.
• Cardiovascular and toning. To take full advantage of the Afterburn effect, it is also recommended that you intersperse your training with aerobic and strength exercises; So, instead of doing the cardio only at the beginning of the workout and then doing weights, go interspersing and you will get your metabolism accelerated.
• Sessions of 45 minutes minimum. Every time you go to train you must be at least 45 minutes to burn calories. Instead of doing 30 minutes of exercise a day, we recommend that you rest for a day and that on the training day you do the whole hour of sports; This will make your body take longer to recover and, therefore, burn more calories.

If you prefer classes aimed at going to the machine room, a good idea is to opt for CrossFit that combines high intensity aerobic exercise with strength exercises. Another sport that has become fashionable is the Insanity training that is indicated for people who are already trained and who want to work their whole body to the fullest for 45 minutes.