Word. It used to be a few years ago that the excersize prescription for fat loss (or weight loss in those days) was long hours of low intensity cardio which like any excersize burns calories but in particular burns a high ‘proportion’ of calories from fat as opposed to carbs. Then at some point HIIT (high intensity interval training) came along based on the pricipal that even though short-duration, high-intensity cardio burns a higher ‘proportion’ of carb calories than fat calories during the excersize, it ramps up the metabolism for hours afterwords so that your body is using an elevated amount of calories even if your just sitting (after doing HIIT of course). My question is do you get the same amplified metabolism/fat-burning environment after high intensity weight training? I’m pretty sure weight training uses mostly carb calories (glycogen) and not a lot of fat calories…chalk one up for the similarities to HIIT. And it’s also higher intensity than slow aerobics…again like HIIT. The reason for this is today was supposed to be my HIIT day which I do by sprinting/jogging on a track near my house, but it’s raining so I’m wondering if I can just do another resistance workout and get the same fat burning effect. Any thoughts?
Yes. But you’ll have to be creative. I understand the science of fatburing in that it all corrolates to your heart rate. For ex: when sprinting, your heart is working at a near max. rate, thus burning glycogen because no O2 is present(anaerobic). When buring fat, your HR is elavated, but only slightly, so that your body is breaking down energy w/O2(aerobic)=fat burning. So, with that said, you could probably snort some coke and jump in place for about 22 hours. That would be a good fat burner. Seriously though, just find a stationary bike or treadmill for the day and adapt.
You are correct although by doing more weight training you run the risk of overtraining. According to Lyle McDonald a study came out a month or two ago suggesting taht the increase in calorie burn after a weight training session was quite significant. They had folks do 12 total sets (4 sets of 10 of squat, bench and power clean) and measured metabolic rate over the next 48 hours. Total caloric burn over maintenance was like 700 cal over the 2 days. That’s on top of whatever was burned during the training.
+700 RMR?! Where do you guys find these reports? And I guess this is how Meltdown works… doesn’t make it any easier though.
Metabolism is significantly elevated after weight training and high intensity cardio work. These forms of training burn a lot of calories during the session and after the session. This is not the case for low intensity, long duration cardio. Long duration, low intensity cardio burns some calories during exercise and very little afterwards. Overall, low intensity is not a smart way to go.
If all goes well, I'll have an article finished on this topic very soon. I'm collaborating with a professor in UCLA for this article and we've got most of it down and just need to put it all together.
If you want more information on this topic and on the topic of maximizing your cardio sessions, you can search for a thread entitled, "What are you really burning during exercise" under my old handle, Jason N.
J: Will this be for a peer reviewed Journal, one of the mags, or for submission to T.C.?
Either way…keep us updated!
When it is done, it is headed to TC’s office. We really hope to shed some important light on this complex topic and bury the notion of the low intensity long duration “fat-burning” zone.
Jason- I work-out 3 times a week(Mon,Wed,Fri). I know doing HIT cardio upon getting up before breakfast is the best fat-burning option. But, if that is not possible, I was wondering what you would reccomend as the next best. Should I do it following my work-outs(Mon,Wed,Fri), or mid-day on 3 off days(Tue,Thu,Sat)? Thanks.
VCreed - I think the greatest benefit would be to do it on your off days sometime. This will give your metabolism a boost on the off-days and make 6 out of 7 days, “active days”. With that being said, I think that doing your HIIT after your workouts is also a good option. You just lose out on some of the metabolic boost it gives you on the off days, but you will still burn a ton of calories. I think that separate workouts are best for HIIT and right after weight workouts is the best time for lower intensity cardio (and yes, I think there are some reasons to do lower intensity cardio).
You can still do a HIIT session at home. You could do some basic calisthenics such as mountain climbers or burpees. Jump rope would do the trick also.
Kelly, do you got the title of that study or info on how I can find it myself?
No I don’t have the study it was just something Lyle McDonald made reference to in another forum. I would imagine you might be able to find it if you run a search on pubmed.
This was what Lyle Mcdonald wrote:
They estiamted the total caloric expenditure over the next 2 days to be about 773 calories over normal (breakdown was 404 cal on the first day and 369 on the second). This actually underestimates the total because they didn't include the 14 hours immediately after the workout.
When you consider that the workout istelf burned at most 300 calories (usually esimates of calorie burn during weights is 7-9 cal/min and I'm using 31 minutes as the workout time). The post-workout burn was more than double that.
So that single 31 minute workout led to an overall 1000 cal increase in calorie burn. (end of quote)
You can find the post at misc.fitness.weights by searching for "Weight training and metabolic rate" (use groups.google.com). If you search for "Schuenke MD, Mikat RP, McBride JM." at pubmed you'll find the study.
I hope that was helpful. :)
Interesting…at my advanced age, I’ve decided to revisit my long-ago 400M workouts at a local track. The 200 M intervals were a bitch at first but now feel OK and subjectively they allow me to feel better during my weight workouts and have burned about 5 lbs. off after a dozen of these w/o s. Weirdly though I’m battling a left hammy pull that pulls about every 3rd session. Anyway, the sprints are great.