You begin burning calories faster than you normally would toward the beginning of your workout, and continue to burn them through the end of your workout. However, you burn the greatest amount of calories during the most intense period of your workout, your main interval of exercise.
Workout Components
When you exercise, your workout should be comprised of three main elements: a warmup, the main workout and a cool-down period. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, you need a warmup at the beginning of your workout to help prepare your body for exercise by raising your heart rate and body temperature, which helps in reducing injuries. At the end of your workout, a cool-down may help you recover by slowly lowering your body temperature, reducing stiffness and soreness -- particularly if you include stretching.
Calorie-Burning
Both a warmup and a cool-down are lower-intensity parts of your workout, with the warmup focusing on preparing your body and the cool-down gradually cooling your muscles. Neither of these parts of your workout will burn the most calories. You begin burning calories at a faster-than-normal rate during your warmup and burn the highest amount of calories during your main -- and most intense -- part of the workout. As you cool-down and go back to your normal activities, the amount of calories you burn decreases.
Increasing Calories Burned: Muscle Mass
If you want to burn a higher amount of calories throughout the day, getting more results from your workout, you can add strength training to your workout regimen. According to the Mayo Clinic, muscle burns more calories than fat does. As you replace your body fat with muscle, your body will burn more calories to maintain it, even when you are at rest. Strength training does not have to be restricted to weightlifting, but can also include bodyweight exercise regimens, like yoga.
Increasing Calories Burned: Interval Training
You can also burn more calories by adding interval training to your workout routine. Interval training intersperses bursts of intense exercise with periods of light exercise. During the periods of intense activity, you burn higher amounts of calories and improve your endurance, allowing you to exercise longer at a higher intensity. You can interval train with almost any form of exercise, including walking, running and swimming. For example, try alternating one-minute intervals of fast running with one-minute periods of quick walking.
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