How to train to get rid of skinny fat? How to design a skinny fat workout plan? Should I focus on cardio or weight training?
People having skinny fat bodies usually ask these types of questions. They remain confused about how to approach their training. Here’s the ultimate guide for designing a workout plan and transforming yourself from skinny fat to fit and ripped.
I can guarantee you that you will definitely transform yourself if you approach your training in this way. So let’s dive deep into it.
What Is A Skinny Fat Body?
Do you really have a skinny fat physique? Let’s see at how a skinny fat body looks like.
The one who looks thin but has a high body fat percentage, a round belly with love handles, a lumpy chest, thin but lose arms, comes under the skinny fat category.
They may look fit and decent with the clothes on but not when they are shirtless. Here is a picture of a skinny-fat individual.
Why do some people look like this?
There can be several reasons why people end up looking skinny and fat.
- Sedentary lifestyle,
- Unhealthy eating habits,
- Poorly designed workout plan,
- Doing too much cardio, etc.
Apart from this, your genetic makeup can also be the reason for your skinny fat body.
But don’t worry, with a proper workout and nutrition plan, you can transform yourself from skinny fat to fit.
However, in this article, we’ll talk about the skinny fat workout plan only.
How Should A Skinny Fat Workout Plan Look Like?
To get a low fat-to-muscle ratio, you have to build a decent amount of muscle mass. Hence, a science-based workout plan is very crucial for skinny fat transformation.
Here are the things you need to consider while preparing the workout plan for yourself.
#1 Focus on Resistance Training
Weight training or resistance training is the best way to build muscles. However, you won’t be able to build muscles just by lifting weights blindly. You have to train smartly.
Here are the crucial things about weight training that you have to consider, especially if you are a beginner.
1. Do a warm-up before the workout. This is something that most people don’t take seriously but a proper warmup routine is crucial in reducing the risk of injuries. This also boosts your workout performance.
2. Master your form first. Most beginners do the mistake of lifting heavy weights without learning the correct form. This makes you more prone to injuries. Hence, it is very crucial to master the form first.
3. Focus on progressive overloading: This means, a gradual increase in the resistance you are providing to your muscles. If you keep providing the same resistance over and over, your muscles won’t grow. You have to give them a reason to grow by gradually increasing the resistance.
4. Mind-muscle connection: Your physical presence is not enough, you also have to be mentally present in the gym. The mind-muscle connection simply means the conscious contraction of muscles while performing a lift.
Related posts:
- How To Do Warmup Before A Workout
- Progressive Overload Training Principle 101
- 5 Way To Improve Mind-Muscle Connection
#2 Stop Following The Pump in the Gym
The most common mistake that skinny fat people do is focusing on the muscular pump during the workout.
No doubt that pumping in the muscles and popping out veins looks cool in the gym. But that pump is not permanent. It’s just a matter of some hours.
To get that pump they keep doing high rep training. Unfortunately, this won’t give you the desired muscle-building results as that pump is temporary.
What should you do then?
Instead of doing high reps and following the pump, do most of your sets in a rep range of 5-12.
This helps in increasing muscle hypertrophy which ultimately leads to maximum muscle growth.
#3 Focus on Getting Stronger
Muscular strength and hypertrophy go hand in hand. If you are not getting stronger in the gym then this means you are not sending your muscles any signal to grow.
To get stronger, you have to effectively use the principle of progressive overloading in your skinny fat workout plan.
What is Progressive Overloading?
It’s a muscle-building technique in which you gradually increase the stress applied to your muscles during training.
If you are not getting stronger and gaining muscle mass then it doesn’t matter how hard you are training and how healthy your diet is. And that’s where the principle of progressive overloading comes into play.
The continuous increase of stress on the musculoskeletal system is very important to increase muscle size, strength, and endurance. You can do this in different ways:
- Increase the weight you are lifting.
- Increase the overall volume.
- Add more sets or do extra exercise.
- Increase training frequency.
Read more: Progressive Overload Training Principle 101
#4 Don’t overdo Cardio
No doubt cardio is good for your cardiovascular ability and endurance but anything beyond limits can affect you negatively.
However, to lose fat, some skinny fat people do a lot of cardio. They think the more cardio they do, the more fat they lose. Well, it is not that simple. Our bodies don’t work like that.
Doing too much cardio can compromise your weight training session which often hampers the muscle-building process.
In addition, putting a lot of effort into cardio will make you compromise on your weight training. Due to this, you may lose some muscle mass too.
Hence, 3 to 4 cardio sessions per week of about 30 minutes each are enough to include in a skinny fat workout plan.
Read more: Cardio vs Weights: Which Is Better To Lose Weight?
#5 Focus on Compound Movements
Compound movements or compound exercises are exercises in which multiple muscles and joints work together. They are different from isolation exercises like a bicep curl, leg curl, etc. where only a single muscle group works at a time.
Bench press, squats, deadlifts, and overhead press are the common examples of compound lifts that you must add to your skinny fat workout plan.
Why..?
Compound exercises are very crucial to build a complete foundation for your body. They work on your core and stabilizer muscles too.
Several studies show that compound exercises give better muscle-building results than isolation exercises. In addition, compound lifts recruit multiple muscle groups simultaneously, hence it burns more calories in less time.
So, it would be better for a good workout plan to give more preference to compound lifts over isolation exercises.
A Sample Skinny Fat Workout Plan
Here is a sample workout plan teaching all the above points I mentioned. You can follow the same or design a similar one for yourself by taking this as a reference.
First of all, the workout split. There are commonly 4 types of workout routines:
- push/pull/legs,
- upper/lower,
- bro split,
- split training.
You can choose any one of them. I personally recommend the split training to my clients as it increases the overall training volume and you can hit each muscle 2x a week.
| Mon | Chest and Triceps |
| Tues | Back and Biceps |
| Wed | Legs and Shoulders |
| Thur | Chest and Triceps |
| Fri | Back and Biceps |
| Sat | Legs and Shoulders |
| Sun | Rest |
Do abs and cardio 3x a week (pick alternate days).
Here’s a chest and triceps workout plan focusing on building strength and hypertrophy as you need.
Chest
- Flat bench press: 4 sets, 6-8 reps (2-3 min rest)
- Incline dumbbell press: 3 sets, 8-12 reps (1-2 min rest)
- Dumbbell Flyes: 3 sets, 8-12 reps (1-2 min rest)
- Cable crossovers: 3 sets, 12-15 reps (1 min rest)
Triceps
- Skull crushers: 4 sets, 6-8 reps (2 min rest)
- Triceps pushdown: 3 sets, 8-12 reps ( 1.5 min rest)
- Kickbacks: 3 sets, 10-15 reps (1 min rest)
After this, do a 15 minutes cardio session or train abs. This complete workout won’t take more than an hour to finish.
Similarly, you can design a workout routine for other body parts too.
Just make sure to include compound exercises, 6-12 rep range for most of the sets, 1-3 min rest (heavier the exercise more the rest), and inculcate the principle of progressive overloading.
Is Workout Enough To Get Rid Of Skinny Fat?
No… Nutrition is as important as the workout.
For a successful transformation from skinny fat to fit, your nutrition must be up to the mark. You have to follow a skinny fat diet plan also as workout and nutrition go hand in hand.
Here are some instructions that you should consider while designing a skinny fat diet plan.
Take a caloric deficit diet: A huge calorie deficit won’t let you build muscles and you end up being more skinny than before. Hence, a small calorie deficit is very crucial for a successful skinny fat to ripped transformation.
For most people, 150-500 calories below the maintenance calories are good enough for the transformation. However, you can make changes as per the results.
Take enough protein: Protein is the building block of muscle. A low protein diet will slow down your muscle-building rate. But how much protein do you actually need to build muscles?
According to a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Sports Medicine, “0.8-1.2 gm protein per pound of body weight is sufficient to build muscle“. Consuming more than that would be a waste of protein or can be harmful to you.
Skinny Fat Workout – SUMMARY
So this was the article explaining the key things you should know before starting the workout and a sample skinny fat workout plan. Remember, any workout routine would give you the desired results if it includes the fundamentals. Here’s the takeaway:
- Train to build strength and hypertrophy in the gym.
- Do proper warm-up before the workout and master your form first.
- Add the major compound exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench press, and overhead press) to your workout routine.
- Do most of your sets in the 6-12 rep range with 1-3 min rest in between the sets.
- Limit your cardio as too much cardio won’t let you build muscle.
- 3-4 sessions of not more than 30 min are enough.
In the end, just stick to the process, be consistent, and you’ll definitely achieve desired results. Thanks for reading I hope you found it valuable and got your queries resolved.
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