When you only have one hour to fit in the muscle-pumping, sweat-inducing, good-for-you workout that’s going to transform your body, you’ve got to get your heart in the game. At Bari, we use our iQniter system to tell us how hard your heart is working, which in turn tells us how many calories you’ve burned. Intensity and calorie burn are like Bari and sweat — you just can’t have one without the other.

Science shows that working out at a high-intensity level (between 75 to 85 percent) for the majority of your workout is a huge contributor to fat loss. That means you’re shedding visceral fat (bye bye, tummy!), getting rid of excess weight around your muscles (let those lean triceps shine!), and even strengthening your heart-brain connection — dramatically decreasing your risk for dementia.

So calories, pesky little suckers that they are, deserve some attention. At Bari, we have a results-driven workout that gives you every opportunity to burn, sculpt and slim down; so here are a few mental tricks to burn even more calories to see those awesome results even faster:

Start your workout off strong. Head into class with an intensity level commensurate with the results you want to see. Leave your workload, your family, your stressed out mind at the door and step into your Personal Badass Zone (PBZ).

PBZ Requirements:

• Amp up your energy from square one — start off with high energy and use it as a springboard to keep your body motivated. Start off with a mental “LET’S DO THIS” attitude so every movement you make is fueled by power and strength.
• As soon as your trainer closes the door, whatever is outside of the room does not matter. Focus on your class intention by dropping into your body, and letting go of whatever is outside of that door that you can’t fix. Set your mental boundaries from the start.
• Thank yourself for getting to class. The hardest part is over, give yourself a mental high five for already accomplishing a big feat.

Filling your first moments with physical energy and mental gusto means you can learn new movement quickly, absorb corrections immediately, and drive your energy when you need it the most. This is the most vital part of elevating your class performance. Set the standard from the start and watch your heart rate climb.

Look to where you want to go. When you are moving your body, whether you’re running on a track, kicking your face in dance cardio, or in the middle of a killer set of oblique crunches, your eyes tell your body how to move. And in regards to better calorie burn, how you’re moving makes all the difference. When you look in the direction of where your body should be moving, you’re giving it permission to follow through. That follow through is what makes you twist deeper, lunge wider, and move with better agility. If your eyes are looking down, or away, or too close to your body, you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to work out your muscles at full capacity. No playing small: Get your eyes focused to get your body to work.

Build your intensity level through the end of class. If you’re starting your class out strong, there is nowhere to go but up. It’s so easy to lose the last few minutes of class because you know the end is near, but the way to combat that is to use each section to build on the last. If you mentally prepare yourself to amp up your intensity level as class goes on, you’ll start engaging muscles that you might have forgotten about (i.e. those small, stabilizing muscles that aid in balance while your larger muscles groups are fatigued); you’ll begin correcting your form more consistently (and as that happens, proper form becomes easier to maintain); and you’ll trick yourself into having more energy (which means, the last set of crunches will be just as powerful as the first). Build on each exercise and you give your heart the opportunity to show off its strength.

Get out of your prop routine. We tend to stick to the tried and true, but getting out of the same old prop routine is going to get your synapses firing and your heart pumping harder. If you normally go for the 3 pound weights, try the 5 pounders for one set. If you don’t usually double up your resistance bands, experiment with how differently double bands engage your core and force you to focus on your form. Once you’re warmed up, it’s always better to start with the heavier or more difficult use of props and build down, so again, start off strong here. Commit to trying something new with your prop routine and know that when you start adding in more resistance and weight, even just for a couple of sets, your muscles are adapting and your heart is rising to the challenge.

Change up your schedule. Everyone gets bored. That’s why for Bari Trainers, it is so important to keep our classes fresh, inspired, and full of variety. But even though you can be sure that any class you take is going to be different from the last one - sometimes just changing up the time you work out can boost your heart rate. Your body is doing something new, your mind can’t get complacent and your heart snaps to attention. Change up your current routine by trying a new trainer, a different time, a double header or taking a master class. All these routine shifts will keep your head and heart in the game so you can burn, baby, burn.