Through my years as a Personal Trainer I have noticed there are five major fat loss movements which are guaranteed to boost your metabolism and burn more fat that any other movements out there.

Let me firstly clarify, these five movements are not five different exercises. There are many exercises that fit under each movement. Once you understand the movement patterns, you will easily be able to design a great fat loss workout.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the five must do’s:

1- Quad/Hip dominant pattern

Exercises such as squats, deadlifts and kettlebell swings fall under this movement pattern. All of these exercises will recruit over 600 muscles making them fantastic fat burning exercises. These exercises tend to be the most physically demanding of the workout, which is what makes most people avoid them. Don’t be most people. In both the gym and in life, the harder you work, the better the result you will get.

2- Pull pattern

Exercises such as pull ups, chin ups, bent over rows and seated rows fall in this pattern. The pull pattern focuses on movements that work the big muscles in your back like your lats, traps and rhomboids. You will also find that your biceps and forearms will get a great workout from this pulling motion. Personally I added an inch on to my biceps in 7 weeks performing these exercises without doing one bicep curl. This increase was mainly due to the heavy pulling exercises I used within each workout.

3- The single leg pattern

This could be exercises such as lunges, step ups, split squats and pistols, basically any exercise that involves one leg working at a time. Single leg exercises are not only fantastic for burning fat, they are amazing for correcting any imbalances of the lower body, ultimately preventing injury.

4- Push pattern

We utilise exercises such as push ups, shoulder press, dips or bench press in the push pattern section. Again there are a ton of variations amongst all of this pattern, for example the bench press could be incline, decline, close grip, wide grip, dumbbell or barbell. The key is to work at getting strong with one exercise and once you begin to adapt then change the exercise (not the movement pattern)

5- Core

I am not talking about crunches here. Exercises such as planks, mountain climbers, swiss ball jack-knifes, ab wheel rollouts, palloff presses and wood chops are great options. These exercises work to brace and stabilise your core muscles, strengthening your deep abdominal muscles. These exercises focus not only on your abs but on your arms, legs and your torso making them highly functional movements.

So there you have it, the five must do fat loss movements. Just to recap, there are literally hundreds of exercises you can do that will fit into the must do 5. If you find yourself in the gym doing bicep curls and crunches then I am telling you, you will not be making good use of your time and you will definitely not be getting the results you’re looking for.