Metabolic Conditioning: What It Is, Instructions, Pros & Cons 2024

Physical activity is and always will be an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Using a popular exercise style like metabolic conditioning may help you achieve goals like losing weight, building muscle, and increasing your endurance. 

You may have heard of P90X or CrossFit workouts, which incorporate metabolic conditioning to produce optimal results. When you’re working out, your body uses three different energy pathways to receive and use its fuel. 

When you engage in metabolic conditioning exercises, or MetCon for short, you use all three of the energy pathways, depending on how intense you work out, how many reps you use, and how long your exercise session is. 

Training your body to use these pathways with moderate to high-intensity physical activity may help your body burn more fuel and increase your metabolism. Let’s look closer at what metabolic conditioning is, its pros and cons, and its types of exercises. 

This hard-core way of exercising trains the body’s energy pathways to increase the amount of energy it stores and releases. Performing this moderate to high-energy type of exercise can improve your aerobic and anaerobic systems, boost metabolism and heart health,^[1] build your muscles and endurance, and aid in weight loss.^[2]

Metabolic conditioning engages you in:

• Exercises that are at a moderate or high intensity, with maximum effort.
• Various styles of exercises include upper body, lower body, or both.
• Mixing moderate or high-intensity cardiovascular exercises with strength training
• Rest is variable depending on recovery, the style of routine chosen, or a fixed number of rest time between rounds of exercise.

A typical MetCon exercise routine is around 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity that promotes muscle building and fat burning. 

Benefits Of Metabolic Conditioning

You may start to see and feel several benefits of metabolic conditioning fairly quickly when it’s a regular part of your routine. This type of training is meant to help you lose weight, accelerate muscle building, and increase endurance. 

Weight Loss 

MetCon exercises use moderate-to-high-intensity workouts that raise your heart rate, burn calories more efficiently, and increase your metabolism. Your metabolism turns the food and drinks that you consume into fuel for you to think, move, and eat again. 

Metabolism is dependent on adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. This chemical is made from the food you eat and helps muscles to contract.

Depending on your oxygen level, available fuel, and choice of physical activity, your body will either make and use more or less ATP. Using different energy pathways, your body turns macronutrients or carbohydrates, fats, and some proteins into ATP.

Using MetCon may increase your body’s metabolism, which can help you burn more calories even when you have finished your workout. 

Research shows^[3] that three sessions a week of moderate and high-intensity workouts can significantly reduce body fat and waist circumference. 

Gain Muscle 

Regularly adding strength training and cardio exercises into your day, like the ones MetCon uses, may strengthen, tone, and increase your muscle mass. When you work out, you stimulate the release of hormones that encourage muscle growth. 

Improve Endurance 

The intensity levels of metabolic conditioning promote your body’s aerobic and anaerobic energy systems to work, making them more efficient. These systems elevate your heart rate, breaths per minute, and oxygen levels, which strengthen your heart, lungs, and blood circulation so you can work harder and longer before you have to rest. 

Whole-Body Workout 

Many of the MetCon exercises are both upper and lower-body actions, which can promote a good muscle balance throughout your body. This can help you to be capable of a broader range of physical activity compared to only doing upper or lower-body workouts. 

Time-Saving

Metabolic conditioning sessions typically last around 20 minutes, sometimes less if this kind of exercise is new to you. Because of its intensity, it can burn more calories in less time and produce results faster. This means you get to spend less time working out while still reaping the benefits of weight reduction, muscle building, and optimizing your endurance.

There are types of MetCon exercises that can be done from the comfort of your own home, saving you even more time from commuting to a gym.

Best Metabolic Conditioning Workouts

The best metabolic conditioning workouts use full-body moderate to high-intensity actions instead of just the upper or lower body. When planning your workout, your current level of fitness will play a factor in what kind of exercises you or your trainer choose. Your health goals and what you hope to accomplish will also help determine the best metabolic conditioning workouts for you as an individual. 

Let’s look at two popular workout routines that are easy to use with MetCon. 

AMRAPs

AMRAPs stand for as many reps/rounds as possible. In this type of exercise style, you have a set amount of time to complete as many reps of a workout move or as many rounds of a series of exercises as you can. You rest when you need to, so this is an individualized workout. 

EMOMs

EMOMs is an abbreviation for every minute on the minute. 

When the minute starts, you perform a predetermined number of reps for one or more exercises to complete before the minute is up. However many seconds in that minute remains is rest time. 

Then you start that process over again at the start of the next minute until your workout session is over. 

EMOM-style workouts can be used with another popular form of exercise called HIIT, where the exercise is high-intensity and done in intervals. 

Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

The amount of time you spend on an exercise plus the level of intensity matters more than which exercise you choose, but the ones that promote a higher heart rate may produce results faster. 

Some people need equipment for their metabolic conditioning exercises, while others use their own body weight. These exercises can be customized for each individual. These are some common MetCon workouts that are said to produce results:

• Walking uphill, which is great for beginners.
• Running.
• Circuit training.
• HIIT — the most time-efficient.
• Metabolic Resistance Training.
• CrossFit — may be difficult for beginners.
• Cardio conditioning.

MetCon Circuit Exercise Example

Choose to do all or some of these in AMRAP or EMOM style for 10 to 25 minutes, with customized rest periods, however, it suits your needs.

• Push-Ups — 10 reps.
• Leg-Lifts — 20 reps.
• Jump squats — 15 reps. 
• Walking Lunges — 20 steps.
• Burpees — 10 reps.
• Kettlebell swings —15 reps.

Tips For Starting Metabolic Conditioning Training

Starting a new type of exercise can be challenging and intimidating, so we’ve put together a list of tips to help you begin your metabolic conditioning training. 

Start Somewhere 

If you exercise low-intensity or are entirely new to working out, you’ll be starting from scratch in building up muscle and endurance to do a full workout routine. Start your first week of metabolic conditioning with one or two five-minute daily routines. Then, increase your workout time in five-minute increments over the following weeks until you reach a powerful and intense workout for your current goals. 

Factor In Nutrition

Food is fuel, and the type of fuel you use matters. Several types of food can slow down your metabolism and may be counterproductive to your health goals, like:

• Sugar — Try substituting sugar with honey since its high fructose content can fuel your workout. 
• Fruit juice — Swap this for real fruit for the hunger-reducing fiber.
• Processed vegetable oils like canola oil — Switching to extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil can provide nutrient-dense healthy fats.
• Artificial sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame — Switch to stevia or monk fruit sweeteners since studies show^[4] drinking just one diet soda a day with artificial sweeteners can significantly increase the chances of weight gain. 

Invest In Training

Hiring a trainer can help you to increase your confidence and physical education, as well as help you avoid injuries when starting a new exercise routine. Trainers can give you instructions for safe and effective metabolic conditioning workouts. 

They can help you determine what your work-to-rest ratio should be, your initial body measurements for monitoring changes, and what kind of exercises you need to do in order to accomplish your fitness goals. 

If you’re on a budget, you can find reputable trainers on YouTube that provide free advice, education, and they walk viewers through entire sessions of metabolic conditioning exercises, which would cost you nothing but time. However, if you do spend money on a trainer, there is that intangible incentive to get the most for your money: this means staying on track.

Senior Exercises 

If you’re over 50 years of age and looking to start metabolic strength training, rest assured that there are plenty of weight loss exercises for seniors for you to try.

Your routine may look a little different compared to exercises you might have chosen when you were younger. While you might choose mostly moderate-intensity workouts over high-intensity, you will still receive benefits that can improve your overall health. 

Potential Downsides

There are a few downsides you need to think about before beginning any exercise routine. Let’s go over a few.

Potential Injury 

If you start a new-to-you type of exercise, you need to prepare, especially for a workout that includes moderate and high-intensity movements. 

If you put forth too much excessive physical effort, you can end up with a non-impact overexertion injury^[5] that can cause:

• Chronic pain.
• Debilitating pain.
• Swelling.
• Stiffness.
• Numbness.
• Loss of mobility in joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons.

You need to be able to do this sensibly to avoid injury. Besides finding a trainer to provide you with safety instructions for the workout moves you wish to perform, these may also help prevent overexertion injury:

• Learn and use proper body mechanics for your workout.
• Stretch and relax tense muscles before, during, and after exercise.
• Report any abnormal symptoms to your healthcare provider to try and catch an injury before it becomes permanent and more complicated.

Potential Money Investment

While it’s possible to do MetCon routines at home, depending on the level of intensity you choose, you may require exercise equipment or a gym membership. 

If you choose to hire a trainer for one or more sessions, you’re also looking at that cost, too. The good thing is you can shop around to find a price to fit your budget. Remember to check for customer reviews on the trainer before your investment. 

MetCon May Not Be Right For You

While physical activity is typically safe for everyone, there may be exceptions. For example, certain medical conditions may cause physical limitations or restrictions, and this may prevent you from doing MetCon routines. However, speaking with your healthcare provider may clarify if this is the right kind of exercise for you before you begin.

The Bottom Line

Metabolic conditioning uses moderate to high-intensity workout sessions to improve aerobic and anaerobic systems and increase the function of energy pathways. This can deliver faster results of increasing endurance, weight loss, and muscle gain in less time than other exercises. 

Some of the best metabolic conditioning workouts are vigorous ones that incorporate full-body movements that increase your heart rate. So when starting metabolic conditioning, make sure you learn proper body mechanics and instructions for these intense workout moves to avoid an overexertion injury while taking your health and body to the next level. 

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