Training and how it effects weightloss
July 10, 2009
I gotta say, I am sick and tired of seeing personal trainers, who are supposed to have been qualified in understanding the body and how to lose weight effectively, taking morbidly obese clients and making them run on the treadmill, and do boxing, and do all of this cardio work and include no weight training what so ever.
Lets get down to some real specifics here.
When you do a cardio workout, your body responds according to your heart rate. There is what is known as an 'optimal fat burning zone' and I am sure that all of you who have been to see a personal trainer, been in a gym or even just heard about it understand its basic concept. If you exercise in this heart rate zone, which is typically 60% - 80% of your maximum heart rate, your body is able to mobilize fat into the blood stream and be used as energy.
For those of you who didn't know that now you do. And for those of you who want to know your maximum heart rate, the formula that is used is
220-your age (X 60%) -(X80%)
What does your maximum heart rate figure give you? This gives you the maximum heart rate that your heart can beat in 1 minute. Then the 60%-80% are the increments needed to put your body into a fat burning zone.
You see, as I explain in my web site, there are different types of energy systems that your body uses to work. These energy systems that come into play are based on the type of exercise or function that you perform.
Now, although it is 100% correct that you will lose weight during your medium cardio workout for the duration of time that you workout, once you are finished, you are finished. Your heart rate goes back to normal and you stop burning 'extra' calories.
OH! Burn extra calories while I am not working out you say? how do I do this?
Weight training!
The fastest way to lose weight is to incorporate weight training into your schedule. WHY?
Extended. Period. Oxygen. Consumption, or quite simply known as your EPOC.
Now although there is an EPOC for both Cardio (aerobic) and Weight training (anerobic), the spike back to normal from your cardio is so much quicker than it is from your weight training. Studies have shown, (although they were not controlled to the fullest extent, ie: calories that the subjects ate were not recorded or structured) that a workout of the same basic intensity of a weight training session and a cardio session, resulted in the cardio session burning off more calories during the excersise, but the weight training session burnt off more calories post exercsise.
Another study has shown that interval training of a certain intensity seem to burn more subcutaneous fat than did an ordinanry aerobic training session.
So what is this all telling you?
As a PT myself, I have learned that if you want to lose weight and look good, the best way to do this is by training your weight session first, then moving over to the cardio machines and busting out 30 minutes of fat burning cardio. This is so much more effective for so many reasons. The weight training increases muscle strength, increases mobility in the joints, increases your stamina when trained in a specific way, it increases your metabolism which in turn allows you to burn your calories quicker, you release endorphins which actually give you a calmer better feeling and the list goes on.
Why would you do it this way? Well, I will put another blog in later about the energy systems and the effects of weight training on those, but in short, when you train with weights, you are using the energy system in your body that relies on reserve energy in the muscles, or glycogen. When you do your weights session you expel this glycogen and it must be replaced. As your body is replacing this lost energy back into the muscles, you target your fat stores by doing the medium cardio workout. That way you get the EPOC from your weight training, and that little bit extra from your cardio.
Does that mean you have to spend house in the gym?
NO. I do my training and I am never EVER in the gym for longer than an hour. I will do 30 minutes of hard weights training, which usually incorporates about 6 different exercises of 2 sets of 12 each. When my body adjusts to that I just change the series, it might be something different. Then I hit the cardio for 30 minutes at medium to high intensity. And well if you want to know my results, 9kg in 9 weeks. Basically 1kg per week.
Weight loss is not easy, but it is achievable.
If you got any questions, email me
fightbackthefat@hotmail.com
hope you enjoyed this weeks blog
Bret
Lets get down to some real specifics here.
When you do a cardio workout, your body responds according to your heart rate. There is what is known as an 'optimal fat burning zone' and I am sure that all of you who have been to see a personal trainer, been in a gym or even just heard about it understand its basic concept. If you exercise in this heart rate zone, which is typically 60% - 80% of your maximum heart rate, your body is able to mobilize fat into the blood stream and be used as energy.
For those of you who didn't know that now you do. And for those of you who want to know your maximum heart rate, the formula that is used is
220-your age (X 60%) -(X80%)
What does your maximum heart rate figure give you? This gives you the maximum heart rate that your heart can beat in 1 minute. Then the 60%-80% are the increments needed to put your body into a fat burning zone.
You see, as I explain in my web site, there are different types of energy systems that your body uses to work. These energy systems that come into play are based on the type of exercise or function that you perform.
Now, although it is 100% correct that you will lose weight during your medium cardio workout for the duration of time that you workout, once you are finished, you are finished. Your heart rate goes back to normal and you stop burning 'extra' calories.
OH! Burn extra calories while I am not working out you say? how do I do this?
Weight training!
The fastest way to lose weight is to incorporate weight training into your schedule. WHY?
Extended. Period. Oxygen. Consumption, or quite simply known as your EPOC.
Now although there is an EPOC for both Cardio (aerobic) and Weight training (anerobic), the spike back to normal from your cardio is so much quicker than it is from your weight training. Studies have shown, (although they were not controlled to the fullest extent, ie: calories that the subjects ate were not recorded or structured) that a workout of the same basic intensity of a weight training session and a cardio session, resulted in the cardio session burning off more calories during the excersise, but the weight training session burnt off more calories post exercsise.
Another study has shown that interval training of a certain intensity seem to burn more subcutaneous fat than did an ordinanry aerobic training session.
So what is this all telling you?
As a PT myself, I have learned that if you want to lose weight and look good, the best way to do this is by training your weight session first, then moving over to the cardio machines and busting out 30 minutes of fat burning cardio. This is so much more effective for so many reasons. The weight training increases muscle strength, increases mobility in the joints, increases your stamina when trained in a specific way, it increases your metabolism which in turn allows you to burn your calories quicker, you release endorphins which actually give you a calmer better feeling and the list goes on.
Why would you do it this way? Well, I will put another blog in later about the energy systems and the effects of weight training on those, but in short, when you train with weights, you are using the energy system in your body that relies on reserve energy in the muscles, or glycogen. When you do your weights session you expel this glycogen and it must be replaced. As your body is replacing this lost energy back into the muscles, you target your fat stores by doing the medium cardio workout. That way you get the EPOC from your weight training, and that little bit extra from your cardio.
Does that mean you have to spend house in the gym?
NO. I do my training and I am never EVER in the gym for longer than an hour. I will do 30 minutes of hard weights training, which usually incorporates about 6 different exercises of 2 sets of 12 each. When my body adjusts to that I just change the series, it might be something different. Then I hit the cardio for 30 minutes at medium to high intensity. And well if you want to know my results, 9kg in 9 weeks. Basically 1kg per week.
Weight loss is not easy, but it is achievable.
If you got any questions, email me
fightbackthefat@hotmail.com
hope you enjoyed this weeks blog
Bret
Posted by Bret Kennedy. Posted In : training
