When it comes to shifting a few kilos and burning fat, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that calories in versus calories out is key. In other words, you need to burn off more calories through exercise than you consume through eating and drinking.

Exercises geared towards explosive strength increase your resting metabolic rate by 18 per cent the day after the workout, according to study published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. Which means you keep burning fat from your belly long after the last rep. Get ready to tighten your belt with a dynamic strength exercise to lose weight on top of your newfound muscle gains. 

Here we have enlisted some of the best workouts for losing weight for men.

Running

Confidently running through city streets like you’re Rocky is one of the greatest feelings in the world. And while steady-pace jogging doesn’t burn as many calories as the same amount of HIIT, running for weight loss has the added bonus of building a brilliant basis for fitness.

“Something like a 5km run or jog can be a great way to increase your energy expenditure,” says Upton. “But if a body transformation is your goal it should be used sparingly because too much and it may cause joint issues and muscle breakdown over time.”

Deadlift

“Deadlifts are great for targeting the whole body and maximising the amount of calories burned,” Upton explains. “The legs are working hard, the back and abs needed to stabilise, your arms are working holding the bar.”

Most people struggle with keeping their chest up and end up doing deadlifts with a rounded back. For beginners, the trap bar deadlift variation can be good because it is much easier to maintain the correct positions and avoid that rounding of the back.

Estimated calories burned: 266 calories per 30 minute session (for an 89kg man, depending on barbell weight load)

How: Stand behind a grounded barbell. Bend your knees slightly to grab it, keeping your shins, back and hips straight. Without bending your back, push your hips forwards to lift the bar. From upright, push your hips back to lower the bar, bending your knees only slightly.

Why: It’s a sure-fire way to stoke your body into a fat-burning furnace. Just make sure you start the move with the weight to manage 10 reps before gradually levelling up to the full heart-pumping calorie-vaporising zone of your one rep max.

Barbell Bench Press

How: Lie back on a flat bench holding a barbell in the rack above you with a shoulder-width, overhand grip. Lift the bar off the rack and position it above your chest with arms fully extended. From the starting position, breathe in and lower the bar slowly until it skims the middle of your chest. Push the bar back to the starting position explosively as you breathe out. That’s one rep.

Why: This move sends your testosterone levels into blubber-burning overdrive by engaging your arms, chest and shoulders simultaneously. And the more you push, the more calories you burn with this move, according research published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, making this move a great exercise to lose weight.

Squats

Apologies to the leg-day shirkers out there, but when it comes to burning fat there’s nothing quite like the squat.

“The squat involves almost every muscle in the body,” says Upton. “It works for big muscle groups and has a large range of motion through all the joints, meaning it taxes the cardiovascular system heavily. There’s no real place to rest, either, meaning the body is always working even when you’re stood with the bar there is still demand on the body.”

Squat slowly, thinking about decelerating (not dropping) until you have reached the bottom position. This is the point you cannot lower your hips any further without your heels lifting off the floor and/or your lower back rounding – don’t go beyond this, or you’ll hurt your back.

Estimated calories burned: 200 calories per 15 minute set

Barbell Lunge

How: Choose an appropriate weight and place the barbell across your back. Step forward with your right foot and sink into a lunge, so both legs are bent with your back knee as close to the floor as possible. Drive yourself back up and repeat on the other side.

Why: One of the key elements of purging your fat stores is taking your body to the limit and 12-15 lunges on each leg will push your quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings to the absolute edge. It’ll hurt, but your super-charged metabolism will thank you later.

Bent Over Rows

How: Holding a dumbbell in each hand bend your knees slightly and hinge at the hip so your upper body is almost parallel to the floor. Keep your core tight and your back straight as you row the weights up to your chest. Lower and repeat.

Why: Ever seen an obese rower (who’s not about to capsize)? Thought not. That’s because rowing actions activates muscles throughout the body – from your back’s Latissimus dorsi to your biceps brachii, spreading your fat-burning power across the board. Any kind of compound lift, working multiple muscle groups at the same time, will be a better exercsie to lose weight than isolation moves like bicep curls.

Pull-Ups

For upper body workouts, nothing beats a proper pull-up. You may think it’s mainly an arms and back exercise, but with proper form, almost every muscle is roped in, upping your calorie burn exponentially.

“Most people look like a scared cat when doing pull-ups, with rounded back and legs flailing and kicking around,” says Upton. “To do a proper pull-up requires a full range of motion and a slight retraction of the shoulder blades at the bottom with the arms straight. Not an easy task, but if you can master these, you will change your physique for the better in record time.”

Imagine a string attached to your sternum pulling your chest up towards the ceiling. Between this and your legs hanging straight down, your back should have an arch. This lets you fully shorten the lats. It also avoids the chest collapsing forward and the shoulders internally rotating.

HIIT

High-intensity interval training is a brutal scorcher switching between short bursts of extremely high-intensity activity, such as sprinting, with low-intensity periods of recovery, like walking.

“HIIT is a great bang-for-your-buck method of cardio training,” says Upton. “It’s fast and time-efficient and can expend a significant amount of energy. Thirty minutes of HIIT will have a higher energy expenditure than 30 minutes of gentle jogging.

“There are many benefits to this type of cardio including increasing your work capacity, increasing the lactate threshold, raising your metabolic rate and improving insulin sensitivity.”

Estimated calories burned: 9-13 per minute