The early 1970's were a pretty awesome time to be growing up. Television brought us shows like All In The Family, M*A*S*H, and The Rookies. It also gave us the Atari video game Pong, the controversial abortion decision in Roe vs. Wade, and the end of the Vietnam War. Also at that time, we witnessed the start of the jogging craze and the invention of the modern-day running shoe. Coincidentally (?), two years later came a surge in physical therapists specializing in orthopedic surgeries.
For the past 40 years, Americans in all shapes and sizes have been lacing up their tennies several times a week to go out for a long, agonizingly slow run in hopes of losing body fat. But does this really work? Are people losing fat from 60 minutes of jogging 3-4 times a week?
Let's look at some research. I'm going to begin by apologizing to my present and previous clients who are reading this post. They have probably heard me cite these studies ad infinitum and ad nauseum. This first is one of my favorites because it brings home the truth about long, slow running. Pay attention marathoners. In 2009 a team studied the changes in body composition of elite marathon runners in the Sahara Desert. Measurements were taken before and after this week-long event where athletes ran 6 marathons in 7 days. At the end of the race, it was found that the average amount of weight loss was 6.1%. So if you began the week weighing 165 pounds, the scale read 155 at the end of the week. Sounds like a great fat-loss program so far, right? But of this 10-pound loss, only 1.1%, or 1.8 pounds, was body fat. The rest was primarily muscle loss! Remember our previous discussion on metabolism and the role muscle tissue plays in burning fat.
Here's another: In a 12-month study published in 2007, subjects did 6 hours of aerobic training weekly for a year (1 hour, 6 times a week). The average weight loss 12 months later was 3.5 pounds. That's less than 1/3 of a pound a month. And one final study also published in 2007 showed that adding 50 minutes of aerobic exercise 5 days a week while following a diet had "no additional effect on body composition."
So if your goal is fat loss, don't you think it's time to stop the ineffective torture of aerobic exercise? Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, uses our oxidative phosphorylative energy system. This system kicks in after about 1.5-2 minutes of continuous exercise. The downside is that as our exercise time increases, our intensity has to decrease. And intensity appears to be the key to maximizing fat loss.
A study conducted in 2005 compared the effects of 3.5 minutes of aerobic activity (ie: jogging) to (3) 15-second sprints. When calculating the number of Calories burned using aerobic and anaerobic (the energy systems used for short bursts of high intensity exercise lasting up to about 20 seconds) measures, the aerobic group burned a total of 39 calories during 210 seconds of exercise. The sprinters burned 65 calories--an increase of 67% more calories in less than 25% of the total time exercised!
Hopefully this produces a "duh" moment for those of you wishing to speed up fat loss. Your action plan for today is easy. Simply evaluate what you're presently doing for your "conditioning" exercise. The term "cardio" brings back too many visualizations of Richard Simmons sweatin' to the oldies. If you're out shuffling your feet on the pavement, or worse yet, going (literally) nowhere on the elliptical machine, try some interval training. Start slowly and gradually build up. You'll see those fat pounds and inches start to melt away.
On Saturday, we'll take a look at how stretching and flexibility can enhance fat loss. Have a great rest of the week.
Move Better. Eat Better. Live Better!
Don
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