HIIT or Steady State Cardio?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

[quote]CrushKillDestroy wrote:

[quote]jskrabac wrote:

[quote]teewhy wrote:
ps - you want to drop fat… DIET is where it is at. Calories in (food) / Calories out (metabolism, HIIT or steady state, etc) is the formula for weight loss, BUT diet is the key to the equation.[/quote]

I don’t get it. So if I consume 3,000 cal today, and only burn 1,500 I get cal in/cal out = 2…so what? What does this number mean and what does it have to do with weightloss? There is no “equation” to weight loss. Our metabolism evolves monthly, weekly, daily, hourly and varies with activity level.

Yesterday, I ate 10 twinkies for 1500 cal, and I burned 1000. By your logic, I’m going to cut fat…yay!

In more recent news, scientists have discovered that the earh is, in fact, not flat. [/quote]

I don’t follow what you’re saying. He’s absolutely correct. Your metabolism can evolve or change, but if you’re doing exercise and have a caloric deficit, you’ll lose weight. The number 2 doesn’t mean anything, except you took in double the calories you burned. It’s not the davinci code.[/quote]

If you have a caloric deficit you will lose weight temporarily, but the OP was NOT talking about weight loss…he was talking about FAT LOSS. If I’m eating french fries and twinkies all day and burning more calories than I’m taking in, I will not be losing fat. Enough of a bad caloric deficit like this and your body will fall into starvation mode, and become more efficient by burning fewer calories with your daily activity, making it an uphill vicious cycle of maintaining a caloric deficit each subsequent day since your energy levels drop and you start to lose muscle mass.

It’s not the davinci code, but it’s also not as simple as cals in minus cals out. The body is a complex machine and a caloric surplus today doesn’t always manifest itself as weight gain tomorrow…so many other factors like how quickly certain foods are digested need to be considered.

He is partially correct. If you look at someone who is in fact losing fat, then, yes, there will be a caloric deficit; however, the converse is not necessarily true. I.e. caloric deficit does not guarantee fat loss as I was pointing out with my example.

Throwing theory out the window, on a more practical note…it’s impossible to figure out cals out. Sure we could plug our numbers into some formula for resting metabolic rate, but we are individually different…different diets, eating habits, activity levels, body composition, genetics, etc. I had a friend who was about 100 lbs overweight who decided to consume 900 cal/day for about a month. Caloric deficit…absolutely! Did he lose weight? Short term. Yes. Long term. No. He got himself weak as hell and was falling asleep all the time. As soon as he went back to his previous maintenance level of calories, he gained all the weight back…cuz guess what…his body became more efficient at running on less gas. Bad strategy. He needed to educate himself more on proper eating.

22

Sorry I overcomplicated my response (w/ a simple answer). I was making the point that whether you’re doing HIIT or steady state, the point is that you’re doing something to burn more calories; which I thought I supplemented (no pun intended) with the point about DIET being the key (peri-workout nutrition, fish oil, protein, water, blah blah blah).

I personally prefer HIIT b/c I feel it’s more conducive to maintaining muscle (look at the build of a sprinter vs. a marathon runner. Neither of which are fat, b/t/w, but I’d prefer the sprinter build myself.).

There are always a few jacked guys in the gym who do neither or very little of the cardio work a-la hamster-wheels or track work, and simply have their diet on lockdown, have a lifting regimen that fosters fat loss (shorter rest periods, circuits, tabatas, etc), etc. *Note I didn’t make the “genetic freak” cop-out comment. I’m not saying this is the answer, and never use the exception to define the rule, and there’s potential that some of their health markers still might not be that great.

BOTTOM LINE - Do what works for YOU.

23

The effects of steady state and HIIT are very different when it comes to the physiological adaptations. Performing HIIT is a very glycolytic heavy pathway requiring quick energy turnover, but steady state can use more fat for the energy; slower breakdown but just as much if not more energy from it.

The more training you do in steady state the more efficient your body becomes at using fat, and the more time you spend training HIIT the better your body becomes at using glucose. choosing one or the other is really for people who may have injuries preventing them from doing one and thus must rely solely on the other: e.g. a person with knee problems won’t be able to do as much HIIT as the force placed on their knees would be too much and would have to rely more on steady state on an elliptical (unless they are rowers/enjoy erging for their cardio as opposed to running). The best bet for fat loss solely would be steady state, but combining the two would elicit the best response by your body.

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would a mix of both be best.you do hiit (less then usually) and continue with steady cardio for some time, or just do 2-3 weekly HIIT and steady cardio 2-3 days in between

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The best is a combination for sure. Even well trained distance runners throw intervals into their training program because it helps raise their lactate threshold. But in terms of this thread for fat/weight loss it is still better to do both, although what other have stated before about nutrition being THE most important factor is true.