Lyle McDonald Speaks

Wanted to make readers aware of a couple of cool new sites that they might want to check out (both were added to the blogroll on the right side of the page).

The first is Will Heffernan’s Blog.  I met Will at the Dan John throwing seminar here in Salt Lake City last year with a bunch of other internet folks.  Will is a world class strength coach over in Ireland and has recently started blogging, mainly spelling out exactly what he is doing with his athletes.  Sometimes he’s even coherent.   So if you’d rather see what a coach in the trenches is actually doing with their athletes then read poorly disguised ad copy, click here.

The second is Benn’s Weighlifting Page.  This was posted on a forum/site called the Power and Bulk where a  lot of big, strong, knowledgeable guys post about everything related to strength.  In any case, Benn has put up a page showing a number of different lifters performing the Olympic lifts (and doing them well).  While that isn’t very exciting in and of itself, the nice thing is that most of them are in very slow motion.  It really shows what’s going on in the lifts and anybody interested in OL’ing would benefit by clicking here.

See ya’ next week

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com 

So, in the process of finishing up the last series of blog posts, one of the comments was actually a question.

I’d note that, in general, I don’t intend to answer even seemingly on-topic questions in the comment section of blog posts.

Either send them to me via email for the Q&A or post them on the forum.

In any case, the question asked was

Q: Question that I’ve been asking around and can’t find a good, solid answer: I recently did a metabolic test at my gym to determine my anaerobic threshold and my VO2 max. The trainer who conducted the test told me, as they tell everyone who takes the test, that my AT would be 10 bpm lower on a bike or in a cycle class than it was on the treadmill when I took the test. Why might that be true??

A: I should probably define at least one term so that the above question and my answer will even make sense.

Anaerobic threshold, which is often equated or called lactate threshold, OBLA, ventilatory threshold and probably others (note: technically these all describe slightly different things but they are conceptually similar enough that the distinction isn’t relevant) is a term that has been floating around for a good 40 years and is usually taken to indicate the period where an exerciser shifts from primarily aerobic to anerobic metabolism.

Now, for a variety of reasons I don’t want to get into, this turns out to be a poor description of what’s going on, there is no abrupt switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism and scientists have been very busy not only studying the topic, but arguing with each other about what in the hell is actually going on. The same can be said for the other concepts I listed above such as lactate threshold; originally conceptualized at the point where lactate starts accumulating massively and causing fatigue….well, it’s more complicated than that.

But all of this is physiological pedantry that even I get bored with. And that takes a lot.

Ultimately, the mechanism or nomenclature of what’s going on isn’t what I think is important; the practical implications are what are valuable here.

And practically speaking, all of the above concepts (AT, LT, OBLA, VT) essentially represent the following: the highest exercise intensity that can be sustained for extended periods of time without rapid fatigue.

So consider someone who has a (pick one) AT, LT, OBLA, VT while running 10mph. Conceptually they should be able to run 10mph for quite some time (various cutoffs such as an hour are often thrown around, at least in cycling). It might be a hell of an effort but it can be done. Below that speed and the duration that can be sustained goes up and up. But above that (say 11 mph), fatigue will set in fairly quickly. Hopefully that makes sense.

AT, etc. are tested in a variety of ways but all ultimately attempt to determine the maximum intensity that can be sustained for extended periods without fatigue. As above, what you call this or think it represents is a lot less important in my mind than what it practically represents.

So, back to the question: the trainer in question claimed that AT on a bike will be lower than while running, following what I presume to be a running test.

Frankly, I’m not 100% sure that this is true but, searching through my resources, I can’t find anything either way on the topic.

Different types of training will show different lactate levels at the same percentage of VO2 max (my own sport, speed skating, shows the highest lactate levels at any given percentage of VO2) and that would tend to imply differences between activities. That is, there is generally a decent relationship between percentage of VO2 max. and heart rate and if there are then differences in lactate accumulation at a given percentage VO2, you’d expect that to end up showing a difference in heart rate at that level.

A better question might be why this is the case.

Part of it is simply specificity, folks tend to test better in the activities that they typically do. So if you have an athlete who runs all the time, and you test their AT on a bike, they will show a much lower value than if you tested them on running.

Beyond that, the only physiological reason I can think of why running might show a higher heart rate at AT, etc. would be that more muscle mass is active, several pieces of research certainly suport this. For example, comparisons of rowing (using a large muscle mass, including both upper and lower body) to cycling or speed skating show a higher maximal lactate steady state (MLSS, another concept akin to AT, LT, etc. above) for rowing. Probably due to the greater amount of muscle mass being utilized.

In cycling, only the legs are moving (unless you’re doing something very strange on the bike), in running the upper body is active and this might shift the relationship between HR and LT. Will it be exactly 10 beats? I honestly can’t say.

Anybody reading this got ideas or evidence beyond that.

Either leave it in the comments or email me and I’ll run it as a guest blog.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

Ok, I had really intended to let this series be done on Friday and move onto something else but there was a rather good comment in the comments section on Friday that I think is worth addressing explicitly.

At the end of Friday’s piece I asked the question that, given that most high-level athletes only fit in two high-intensity sessions per week, why are so many training ‘experts’ recommend that the general public do intervals more often than that.

In response, a poster named Roland asked the following

“Most of them tell people to do the intervals after the weights, so what kind of energy to they have left to do any hard intervals? Not much. But, if they said to do 30 minutes of cardio, how slow would they pedal? Pretty damn slow.I’m torn between thinking that they (the trainers) are outright wrong, and thinking that they know you’re right, and just choose to allow the trainee to believe that this is the best way because it drives them to work harder.

I don’t think the average fat loss client works out all that hard with the weights, anyway. They are often newbies to weights and simply don’t know what they are capable of, so they go low. They do steady state cardio at a pretty low intensity, too. Intervals might be the only thing they do with any intensity. They KNOW intervals should be “brutal,” but since they only last 20-30 seconds each, they do them.”

Ok, let’s look at this since it is a good point. First off, I’d note that, in the April 18th blog, I actually mentioned ‘making people work hard for a damn change’ as one reason that intervals might be generating superior results in the real world. No doubt, getting the average trainee who thinks they are working hard but really aren’t to go actually put out some intensity for a change is a good thing.

Tangentially: a lot of why a many systems of diet or training ‘work’ is becuase, at the end of the day, most non-idiotic approaches to diet or training will ‘work’.  A lot of it is convincing the reader/trainee/dieter that the system is valid because, if they believe in them, they will follow them.  And as long as the program isnt truly ridiculous, it will then ‘work’.  So, assuredly, if someone has been convinced that intervals are ’superior’ by silly rhetoric and bad science and that causes them to actually work their balls off for a change, that will be of some benefit.  At least until they blow up from too much high-intensity training for too long on too few calories. Then they’ll end up on my forum asking how to ‘fix a broken metabolism’ or seeking out ‘adrenal fatigue’ supplements but I digres…..

However, if you’re actually talking about a total newbie who is pansying around in the weight room, I’m not sure about the realities of them going and truly pushing hard on intervals. They may think they are but, the reality will likely be far different (in the same way they think they are working hard in the weight room and really aren’t). I just don’t see the average newbie willing to push themselves that hard.

Which is, of course, a point I made in the first article I put on the main site about the whole issue. As con #5 of intervals, I specifically listed

“Intervals hurt, especially intervals in the 60-90 second range where muscular acid levels are very high. If you’re not willing to push yourself, you won’t get much out of interval training.”

I simply find it hard to believe that a beginner who isn’t working hard in the weight room is going to magically start working hard on intervals just because they are short. Again, I’m sure they think they are but the intensity required to make intervals productive or worthwhile is very high.  And the required intensity actually goes UP as the duration of the interval goes DOWN.

I guess, after nearly 20 years of observing trainees in commercial gyms, I find it unlikely that:

a. A beginner is going to generate that level of intensity without a trainer or researcher standing there screaming at them to push

b. Someone who has trashed themselves in the weight room is going to have the energy to put much into intervals unless they drastically cut their weight volume back (and note that the interval guys are usually pushing intervals AFTER fatiguing metabolic weight training). And this was sort of the point I made in part 2 of the article on the main site along with last week’s blog posts: when trying to incorporate interval training into a training program, something else has to be cut back, reduced or even removed.

But that’s not what I see being recommended or advocated. People are being told to work harder, more often, WHILE cutting calories and carbs. Whether they are or not is probably debatable; for every person I see blasting themselves daily with intervals on top of too much weight training and just trashing themselves, there are probably 10 more who are just going through the motions and wondering why they haven’t become a FAT BURNING FURNACE (TM).

The whole point of intervals is the intensity used (duration of course plays a role but intensity is the more major factor). If you can’t go hard (either b/c you’re a newbie and don’t know how, or your tired from previous training), I would argue that it will have LESS benefit than a half-hour (or whatever) of proper steady state. Ten to fifteen minutes of half-effort intervals won’t burn many calories during the bout, you sure won’t get any HUGE EPOC benefit (not that it exists in the first place) so all you’ve done is convinced yourself that you’ve done more than you have.

I just don’t think you can have it both ways. You can’t argue in one breath that intervals are superior because of the intensity and then argue that noobs or tired trainees are going to get a benefit doing it more often (or after an excessive weight workout) if they aren’t actually able to go hard in the first place.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

Over the past month of blogging, I’ve been talking about the current fascination with interval training (for either fat loss or performance) with the main focus being on what I see as a myopic ‘intervals are always superior’ mentality (usually based on poor arguments).

A secondary focus has been on what I’m seeing people do in practice as they have been convinced (wrongly) that intervals are the only way to train.

At the same time, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not anti-interval. They are a useful tool and have their pros (and cons). It’s the uncritical belief that they are either the only or the best way to train (and the arguments used to support such) that I have a big problem with. Or the idea that they are the only type of training that can or should be done.

As a quick introduction, this article would be a good place to start for an analysis of what the pros and cons of steady state and interval training are.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I am a wordy bastard, which is why I’ve been going on about this for a month. I also had a lot to get off my chest because the terrible advice and spurious arguments being made by the pro-interval camp piss me off.

But since some of you may be tuning in for the first time and/or you simply didn’t or don’t want to read the endless verbiage in the blog, I thought I’d do a quick summary (with links to each individual post) and then simply point everyone to an article I just added to the main site which basically puts all of the information together.

After a brief introduction to the topic, the first thing I looked at was a recent paper in diabetics which looked at improvements in fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity for steady state versus interval training. Short summary: the steady state cardio showed a beneficial adaptation in both fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity that the interval training program did not.

The next piece I wrote had to do with the commonly stated argument that you can run a marathon and still be fat but 400m runners are always lean, ergo interval training is superior for fat loss. There are several problems with this argument not the least of which that 400m runners do most of their work at low intensities and the high intensity sprint work they do is nothing like the type of interval training that is being advocated for fat loss in the first place.

In a continuation of that idea, I pointed out that the people making this argument are essentially comparing recreational runners to high-performance sprinters, which makes no sense. Elite marathoners are almost always lean. It’s just a ridiculous argument all around and comparing recreational joggers to elite athletes is intellectually dishonest in the first place.

Another argument that the superiority of interval training rests on is that it generates an exceptionally large post-workout calorie burn. In an excessively long (even for me) research review, I put this idea to rest. While the relative burn following high-intensity training may be larger, the total absolute contribution is still miniscule (partly because the total calorie burn of the average interval sessions is pretty small, even a larger PERCENTAGE burn doesn’t amount to much). In one study, following intervals, a whopping 35 some odd extra calories were burned. Yippee.

There is also the simple fact that, almost no matter how you cut it, the total calorie burn during a longer steady state bout will be in excess of whatever occurs from interval training. To put this in perspective, I compared interval workouts to steady state workouts from my own training (calorie values based on numbers taken from my Powermeter equipped bike, a Bodybugg and my new Polar watch that estimates calorie burn). This is in addition to the fact that, for the same or lesser calorie burn, intervals are MUCH harder and interval training can’t be done daily. And since most trainees train more than a handful of time per week, this is a problem.

Now, while most of the arguments that intervals are typically based on appear to be bogus, there is the simple fact that, for many people, they seem to be more effective for fat loss (at least under certain circumstances). I examined this apparent disconnect between the research and the real-world in the next two blog pieces.

In Part 1, I examined the now infamous Tremblay interval study and offered the potential of muscle gain (only relevant for beginners who aren’t lifting) and increased fat oxidation as potential mechanisms for increased fat loss. I’d point out again that that study only showed a fairly small total fat loss in the first place, certainly nothing to write home about.

In Part 2, I examined the potential of the hormonal response, blunted appetite (probably the real reason intervals show up as superior in studies with no diet control), and the simple fact that believing in intervals may get people training hard for a damn change. The simple fact is that, given that most people train like wimps, if you get them to work harder for a change, good things usually happen.

Next up, I examined yet another commonly held belief about steady state exercise, that efficiency improves drastically, reducing calorie burn. Simply, this is dead wrong, changes in efficiency take years of grinding effort (Lance Armstrong improved his efficiency by 1 percent per year and it took him 3-6 hours per day on the bike to do it) and only exert small effects on calorie burn anyhow. Of course there is the simple fact that, even if folks are getting more efficient during steady state, the workload can simply be increased during exercise to counteract this.

In the next post, I examined another recent paper looking at the adaptations to short-term interval training. That paper made it clear that, at least in untrained individuals, fairly low volumes of high intensity training can induce adaptations similar to much longer duration steady state programs. While intriguing to be sure, there is the simple fact taht this training was being done in isolation, there is also the question of whether beginners can even sustain the intensities or durations of interval training, along with the question of what happens after the first 2-6 weeks and whether or not the adaptations keep occurring (I’d note here that studies in trained endurance athletes show that interval training stops having much of an effect after about three weeks).

Finally wrapping things up, I started getting to the point this past Monday where I made the point that all of the interval training studies or what have you have always been done in isolation. No hardcore fat loss or low-carb diet, no weight training, just intervals. I raised the question of why people are uncritically assuming that interval training three days per week can simply be added to the rest of training (or diet) without looking at the program as a whole. Because this is really at the core of the problems I’m seeing. People are taking isolated aspects of training and throwing them together without consideration of the whole effect.

I continued with that theme on Wednesday in where I continued getting to the point and examined the three ‘prongs’ of current fat loss methodology that I currently see being abused. Those are very low-carb diets, interval training and metabolic weight training. Folks seem intent on not only taking the research on each individual component out of context but throwing it together in the training blender and hoping it sticks. And that’s before trainees, brainwashed by the silly idea that only intervals are effective decide to train more than three times per week. Folks are trying to do intervals 3-5 times per week with full body weight training several times per week while eating zero carbohydrates. And they are getting destroyed.

And finally that brings me to today where I can wrap up this series and move on to other things. As it turns out, I had already addressed this issue in some detail in a newsletter article a while back that I put up on the main page today. It basically summarizes what I think about how to best incorporate both interval and steady state training into a proper program for different athletes and folks of different training status (e.g. beginners, intermediates, athletes, bodybuilders, etc).

This is also a topic that I look at in some detail in the new Stubborn Fat Solution book because. Two of the protocols use intevals for very specific reasons so I had to address how to integrate them with other aspects of training so that dieters wouldn’t nuke themselves.

So that’s it, about a month of constant commentary. I’m sure I pissed some people off. Especially those for whom selling intervals to the masses is their bottom line. Something tells me I won’t get invited to the inner circle parties anymore. Hopefully I made some folks think about the advice they’re giving or taking or how they are training on a day-in, day-out basis.

But just in case, nobody has paid attention to a word of this, or simply missed the point, I’d sum up most of this by asking the following question:

If the typical high level athlete typically only performs, on average, two very high-intensity days of training per week, what makes the general trainee (seeking fat loss or whatever) think that they can or should do more?

More importantly, what makes the gurus, with all of their supposed years in the trenches training people, think it’s a good idea or something that that they should recommend in the first place?

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

Before continuing I want to point everyone to a link that Chris Highcock of the Conditioning Research blog sent me regarding the issue of interval vs. long duration training for endurance athletes. It’s from the excellent Master’s Athlete Physiology and Performance page and has a great deal of absolutely excellent training information. You’ll note that the main thrust of that page is identical to what I’ve written in previous blog posts: the idea that high-intensity interval training can make up all or even the majority of training for athletes is utterly misguided.

***

On Monday, I started to put together some of the information I’m blogging about by making a point about the types of problems I’m seeing in practice with the pro-interval myopia. Simply: given that a majority of trainees train more frequently than 3X/week, once they have been convinced that intervals are the only way to train, problems start. They end up trying to do intervals at every session, in addition to a heavy weight training load for the legs and they blow up.

But thats’ not the only problem I’m seeing and, today, I want to take another side-trip to look at the three distinct parts of what is currently being given to trainees in terms of how they should be training.

In a recent commercial fat loss product I listened to (yes, I have to read everything, even the stuff I know will be garbage) pretty much every interviewee’s answers can be summed up as

• Intervals are best for fat loss
• Metabolic weight training is the best for fat loss
• Low-carb diets are best for fat loss

With the standard spurious arguments given for each.

What’s going on here, why are these three things coming up again and again and what’s the problem with what’s being recommended?

Simply, the problem I see is that people are taking a number of isolated data points (e.g. individual studies looking at only one thing) and assuming that, if they put all of those concepts together, thing will work even better. This is even assuming that the study results in question are actually saying what people say they are saying. Let me look at that quickly first.

For example, the superiority of intervals is usually based on the supposed afterburn/EPOC, an idea that I have summarily explained is irrelevant. And even looking at the (non-diet controlled) studies comparing intervals to steady state, the results are hardly anything to write home about. Half a kilogram more fat over 20 weeks, a pound over 12 weeks, whatever. Yeah, you’ll be ripped by 2032 at that rate. Do intervals have advantages over steady state in some ways? Yes. But steady state has its own set of advantages (not the least of which that it can be done daily which interval can’t, or rather shouldn’t). Both are simply tools with their own sets of pros and cons.

The one study suggesting a massive caloric expenditure from metabolic weight training has never been replicated and, while metabolic weight training may have other advantages (such as glycogen depletion, etc.) it also has limitations (not the least of which is that it’s an inferior way to maintain muscle mass on a diet). To say that metabolic weight training is de-facto superior is simplistically dumb and completely incorrect. All types of weight training are simply tools with their own sets of pros and cons and should be used accordingly.

I don’t want to get into detail on the lowcarb thing just yet, that could be another entire series of blog posts, especially with the low-carb retards coming out of the woodworks after the publication of Gary Taube’s book “Good calories, Bad Calories” (I’ll do a detailed review when I get a chance). Sufficed to say that while low-carb diets may have their advantages, they aren’t magic. At least one study have suggested exactly zero advantage over lowered carbohydrate but non-ketogenic diet when calories are controlled. Low-carbdiets are simply one tool with its own sets of pros and cons.

The studies that low-carb advocates always like to cite are invariably not calorie controlled. And while the subjects may report that they are eating the same amount, this is unlikely to be the case. If low-carb diets have an advantage, it’s that most people spontaneously eat less. The only metabolic advantage is that, people on lowcarb diets are eating less calories.

But for the sake of argument, let’s just assume that all three of the statements above are actually true, at least when studied in isolation. Let’s assume that intervals are superior to steady state, that metabolic weight training is best for fat loss and low-carb diets are superior for fat loss. At least by themselves.

What happens when you throw them all together?

In this case, some bad things. Because while glycogen depletion can improve fat loss (a point I made over 10 years ago in my first book and used for a specific goal in the Ultimate Diet 2.0, even if everybody is only now jumping on that bandwagon), the simple fact is that high-intensity training can NOT be sustained in the long-term without dietary carbohydrate. Eventually glycogen gets depleted, performance falls off and folks overtrain.

Yet now we have people trying to remove all carbohydrates from their diet, while doing glycogen depleting metabolic weight training while trying to add glycogen depleting interval work three or more times per day. Because we have a bunch of gurus who took several isolated data points (of potentially limited validity in the first place), threw them in the training program blender and vomited out some real stupidity.

And that’s where the problem is coming in. It’s a training load that almost nobody could survive with adequate dietary carbohdyrates (recall, as I’ve mentioned previously and the link at the front of this blog post clearly shows, most athletes don’t do intervals more than twice per week yet the average trainee thinks that doing them every day is a good idea) and folks are trying to maintain that for weeks on end without any carbs.

Which isn’t to say that elements of each of the above data points can’t be used, just that they need to be applied and properly.

Does metabolic weight training have its role? Absolutely. I used depletion work at the start of the UD2 cycle to deplete glycogen and improve fat oxidation and offered it as a possible way of generating a certain hormonal response in the Stubborn Fat Solution for Protocols 3 and 4.

Obviously intervals have their place for both fat loss and performance and they are used as part of two of the four protocols in the Stubborn Fat Solution and can be used during other diets for various reasons. The main point, and the thing that it’s time for people to realize is that interval training:

a. Can’t be done every damn day

b. Can’t be done forever without a break

And, of course low-carbohydrate diets have their place (my first book was a 300 page treatise on the technical aspects of low-carbohydrate diets so clearly I feel that they have their place). Again, the first 4 days of the UD2 cycle is low-carbs (prior to a three day very high-carb refeed), and one of the four protocols in the Stubborn Fat Solution is based around the fact that chronic low-carbohydrate diets can help mobilize stubborn body fat.

But that doesn’t mean that low-carb diets are magically de facto superior for fat loss or anything else. Especially if people want or need to perform a good bit of high-intensity training. Carbs will be required in that situation, whether they are consumed daily or during some type of cyclical diet is less relevant than the fact that they will be required at some point.

Essentially, if you want to completely remove carbs from your diet, the amount of high-intensity training of any sort will have to be reduced. And if you want to do a lot of high-intensity training, you will need carbs in your diet. Either diet determines the training or training determines the diet. But trying to do both often causes major problems.

Are you getting my point here? Not only have people completely lost their minds with the pro-interval rhetoric (developing training loads that no athlete would consider doing), it ends up being combined with two other variables that end up making the problem worse. The body can only handle so much heavy training, which is why most of the training that most athletes do is low-intensity. Yet we have a situation, and I know I sound like a fucking broken record, where people are trying to sustain training loads that are simply inhuman in the first place. They want to add too many interval sessions to too much heavy weight training AND do it under conditions of both severe carbohydrate and caloric restriction.

Have I thrown out the word ‘retarded’ yet today?

To be concluded (I think) on Friday.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

Ok, this series of blog posts seems destined to never end but I’m slowly getting there. On Friday, I looked at research on the metabolic effects of short-term, high-intensity interval training.

Summing up briefly, it showed quite clearly that, at least in relatively untrained individuals, a short-term (2-6 week) program of high-intensity interval training (workouts typically done three times per week) can generate similar adaptations to longer duration training.

In that post, I finished by asking the following question:

Summing up: There’s no doubt (and I haven’t intended to suggest otherwise) that high intensity interval training can have benefits. It’s time effective and may induce similar performance adaptations to longer duration traditional cardio. With regards endurance athletes, it’s clear that even short periods of low volume interval training can have rather large benefits for performance.

But with most of the benefits seeming to occur with only a handful of sessions per week (2-3 is the norm) and with benefits appearing to end fairly quickly (3-6 weeks), we might ask what a trainee should do when either

a. They need to train more frequently than that

b. They are looking at their training over a period longer than a few weeks. That is, if interval training stops providing benefits after 3-6 weeks, what should a trainee do for the remaining 46-49 weeks out of the year?

There is also the issue of how intervals integrate with training when OTHER TYPES OF TRAINING (e.g. weight training) are being done. That is, what happens if someone is training their legs heavily in the weight room twice/week. How realistic is it to then add high intensity interval training to that workload?

As well, what happens when someone (e.g. an athlete or obsessive exerciser) is trying to train daily? What happens then in terms of how they structure their week? If you take much of the current guru-speak (e.g. intervals are the only beneficial way to train) at face value, you end up developing a training week that no human being can survive.

And that’s where I want to start today since this will let me start to put everything together to close out this particular blog post series.

To my knowledge, pretty much every study done comparing interval training to steady state (in terms of fat loss or metabolic adaptation) has done it in isolation. The subjects were neither dieting nor doing any other form of training.

Such as weight training.

As well, the frequencies were strictly controlled in those studies. In the performance studies, typically endurance athletes replaced a small portion of their total volume (15%) with intervals. Generally 6 sessions over 3 weeks (or 2 per week) were done. In the paper I reviewed Friday, the subjects did three interval sessions per week and nothing else. Again, that’s true of most of these studies. Oh yeah, the subjects weren’t dieting, of course.

Even in the now famous Tabata study, where the subjects were doing the four minute workout four days per week (the fifth day was a partial Tabata protocol with some steady state training), that’s all they were doing. They weren’t lifting, they weren’t doing any other kind of training, just going through hell on the bike.

So why are all the gurus assuming, uncritically, that interval training can simply be ‘tacked-on’ to a heavy weight training workout without problems? Or added to a calorie restricted diet without any problems? Why are trainees assuming the same thing?

Because, in addition to the current focus on interval training as apparently the ONLY way to train or lose fat, there has been a renewed interest in full body workouts (often of the metabolic type of training with high reps and short rests). I’ll come back to that and the diet issue in more detail on Wednesday, I want to stay focused here.

So we have people who are trying to hit legs in the weight room three times per week. Sometimes its heavy, sometimes it’s metabolic stuff, sometimes it’s a combination of the two. And then add intervals to that training load. Now, if they are smart and/or lucky, they end up ONLY training three times per week. At least that way their legs are only getting hammered (and I mean totally hammered) on those three days.

And, you know…whatever. I guess if someone only has three hours to train per week and can’t fit in any more training, they might as well blow themselves out every day and just go hard. Of course, this still doesn’t address what happens when intervals stop working at the 6 week mark (as they very well might) but, again, whatever.

If you have three sessions of an hour per week and that’s all you can train, you might as well make it as time efficient as possible. Do metabolic weight room stuff for 25 minutes, intervals for 20 minutes and that leaves 15 for warmups and cooldowns. As long as the other four days per week are completely off, this might be workable. For a while anyhow.

And you know, if the various ‘HIIT plus metabolic weight training for the win’ gurus would make the above very clear, I wouldn’t have much of a problem with what’s being said. I still think it will eventually burn people out and that periodizing the type of training done will work better but that’s an argument nobody wins so I’m not going to bother with it.

I would also note that nobody can say if the adaptation benefits to HIIT continues past 6 weeks in beginners. It’s clear that it more or less stops after three weeks in trained folks (even in the much talked about Tabata study, the major benefits happened by week 3 with only small further benefits at week 6).

But recall my question from above, what happens when athletes (or dieters), want to train more than three days per week. Because they usually do. Can they simply do more and more and more intervals (or complexes or whatever)? The answer, as you might guess, is no.

And that’s where I’m seeing real problems. I’m seeing people, having been convinced by spurious logic (bordering on outright bullshit) that ONLY intervals are productive training or useful for fat loss, that magically steady state can MAKE YOU FATTER, trying to do nothing but interval training.

Added to three full body workouts per week.

While restricting both calories and carbs.

This is retarded. This is beyond retarded.

Tangent time that is sure to piss some people off: Wanna know what I think about ‘adrenal fatigue’? I think that in 99% of cases, it’s simply overtraining being brought on by people following the idiotic training advice being currently given. If these people would simply stop training in such a retarded fashion, the current fad of ‘adrenal fatigue’ would simply go away in most cases. But that’s another blog for another day.

Anyhow, recall from above that high level endurance athletes typically only add interval training twice per week, replacing some of their weekly volume. And they aren’t usually weight training. The rest of their volume, about 85% of it is low intensity aerobic work.

Keep in mind from a previous blog post that 400 meter runners (who aren’t doing true ‘interval’ training anyhow) only train maximally twice per week. The rest is extensive tempo (essentially low intensity work).

Most elite powerlifters only train legs hard twice per week (and many train heavily once per week and lighter the other), the ones who train more frequently use much lower intensities (and often take drugs to support the training). And, yes, Olympic lifters usually squat daily, but a lot of it is low intensity and they take years to build up to that level (and of course, use a lot of drugs to support that level of training).

This is fairly common, most high performance athletes don’t even try to do more than two high intensity workouts per week for the legs (I’m focusing on the legs here since most interval modes use the lower body and this is the muscle group that is most commonly overtrained).

These are highly trained athletes who are usually eating plenty to support their training.

Even contest dieting bodybuilders, who are usually trotted out as the ones to emulate for fat loss typically move to a split routine with primarily low intensity cardio for maximal fat loss. Yes, some are now incorporating interval sessions such as my stubborn fat protocols but, the majority of their training is low intensity. And that’s with a reduction in leg training frequency (one of my primary guinea pigs for the Stubborn Fat Protocol 2.0 cut his leg training back to only once per week to avoid overtraining his legs due to the intensity of the SFP2.0). And the legs often still fall apart after an endless contest diet.

Yet somehow the general public has gotten the idea that they can train legs heavy in the weight room 2-3 times/week (because full body workouts are in vogue) AND add intervals multiple times per week to that load (because ONLY interval training is productive apparently). While restricting calories and carbs. And this is being promoted in various media (books, e-books, blogs, etc) as the thing to do.

Did I mention that this was fucking retarded?

Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-intervals. Clearly they are time efficient and productive in many ways. But they are also a high intensity training session for the legs and have to be counted as such. And they have to be considered within the context of the complete program including any other types of training (whether for aesthetics or performance) and diet.

And this is what is not being done for the most part. People are simply taking isolated data points about diet or training and assuming that they can be stuck together to provide maximal results. And this is getting them into trouble.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

Although I’ve been mainly focusing on fat loss throughout this series on the debate over steady state versus interval training, I want to take another short side-trip and address another area where interval training has been fairly heavily researched: endurance performance. The fastest way I can think to address this is to look at a recent review paper on the topic and do a quick research review.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

***

Gibala MJ, McGee SL. Metabolic adaptations to short-term high-intensity interval training: a little pain for a lot of gain? Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2008 Apr;36(2):58-63.

High-intensity interval training (HIT) is a potent time-efficient strategy to induce numerous metabolic adaptations usually associated with traditional endurance training. As little as six sessions of HIT over 2 wk or a total of only approximately 15 min of very intense exercise (approximately 600 kJ), can increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and endurance performance and alter metabolic control during aerobic-based exercise.

My comments: It’s long been felt or argued that the only way to reach the pinnacle of endurance performance is through years of grinding effort, usually involving absolute piles of low-intensity training. To a great degree, outside of the occasional period when programs based around intensification have become popular, this has been the basic approach to endurance training.

‘Miles build champions’ is a commonly held adage and after my comments about the slow changes in efficiency (over YEARS of continuous training) on Wednesday, there is probably some merit to this idea.

However, efficiency is only one of several components of performance, the other two major ones being VO2 max and lactate threshold. To a great degree, similar ideas have been held regarding the time course of changes in those components with years being expected to maximize them. But is this true?

Research going back to the 1970’s (by Hickson) had questioned that idea, at least as it pertained to things such as VO2 max. In that study, subjects performed high intensity intervals (6X5 minutes at VO2 max with a 2′ break) three days per week on a bike alternated with 40 minutes running as fast as possible on the other three. In that study, VO2 max increased linearly week to week with one subject approaching an elite (for then) VO2 max score. So clearly there is some indication that at least some aspects of endurance training can improve quite quickly.

In fact, a number of recent studies, typically using cyclists have found that substituting about 15% of the total weekly volume with high intensity intervals can improve performance significantly, by up to 5%, in a matter of weeks (interestingly the maximal effect seems to occur at the three week mark with no further benefits occurring if intervals are continued beyond that point). Clearly this points to something very beneficial going on with interval training and certain aspects of performance. It was this topic that today’s research review examined in some detail.

Their initial comments are essentially identical to mine above pointing out that, while it’s usually been thought that only long-duration endurance training could improve aerobic energy metabolism, more recent work has shown similar adaptations can be induced with a much lower volume of interval training. Interestingly, the adaptations may actually happen faster with the intervals.

The researchers rely primarily on work from their own lab where they utilize a standard interval protocol consisting of a 30 second Wingate test (30 seconds all out against a braked cycle ergometer) repeated 4-6 times with a 4 minute rest period. This workout is performed three times per week for anywhere from 2-6 weeks (the earlier work I mentioned used intervals of varying lengths twice per week for three weeks, or six total sessions). I’d note that most of the work on this lab was performed on essentially untrained college aged men and women NOT highly trained endurance athletes.

I’d note that this type of training protocol looks exactly nothing like the types of interval training being currently propagated for fat loss. Rather, the fat loss type programs are usually based on longer intervals (60-90 seconds) with relatively short rest periods (60-90 seconds); this makes it difficult to apply the research results.

The results from their work are somewhat interesting, in one, a mere two weeks of the above protocol improved exercise tolerance (the ability to sustain a given workload) by nearly double. However, there was no increase in VO2 max suggesting that the adaptations were peripheral (e.g. occurring primarily in the muscle) and not central (e.g. occurring in the body’s ability to transport oxygen via the bloodstream). The researchers note that other studies using HIIT have found an increase in VO2 max but invariably used a larger volume of training.

Looking at the cause of the adaptations, the researchers found increases in aerobically producing energy enzymes that were significant with only the short interval group. In a related study, they compared the above interval protocol to a group that performed standard steady state cardio for 90-120 minutes for the same 6 sessions. Identical results were seen in both groups but the interval group exercised only 2.5 total hours compared to 10.5 hours in the steady state group.

Additional adaptations in the interval group also include changes in carbohydrate metabolism including increased glycogen storage, reduced glycogen utilization and lactate production during exercise along with increased glucose uptake into skeletal muscle. Markers of fat oxidation were unchanged, at least over the 2 week studies (in this vein I’d refer readers back to a previous research review which found that only steady state cardio increased fat oxidation rates and interval training did not).

In contrast, the review mentions another interval training paper (which used a much higher volume of training) that did show an increase in fat oxidation over only 2 weeks. The subjects in that study performed a massive 10 sets of 4 minute intervals at 90% of VO2 max, significantly more volume than the small amount used in the studies described above (and far far more than any of the popular interval programs for fat loss).

Although the paper went into some detail on the signalling mechanisms by which interval training may work, I don’t think a detailed discussion will be that valuable so I’m going to skip over it.

Jumping to the practical implications of their work, the researchers comment that the main complaint about exercise programs is a lack of time and, as such, exercise innovations that allow for similar benefits in less time are clearly of interest from a health point of view. Interval training may play a role here (and I’d note that time efficiency was on of the ‘pros’ I listed in this article) and at least one study suggested greater long-term adherence to exercise programs requiring less time investment.

At the same time, the researchers mention explicitly that it’s unclear how longer term interval programs will work compared to more traditional training programs and there may be different times courses of adaptations for each kind of training (e.g. perhaps interval training causes more rapid initial gains which then plateau sooner).

As well, the type of interval program they use in their lab requires not only specialized equipment but, to quote them “…an extremely high level of subject motivation.” As others have pointed out, the intensities used in many interval training studies are essentially unachievable by beginners which raises many more questions such as:

Can a beginner even achieve the intensities and durations used in these studies to get the benefits?

 

Would a modified interval training program, using less intense or lower duration intervals achieve the same benefits in the first place?

You get the idea.

Summing up: There’s no doubt (and I haven’t intended to suggest otherwise) that high intensity interval training can have benefits. It’s time effective and may induce similar performance adaptations to longer duration traditional cardio. With regards endurance athletes, it’s clear that even short periods of low volume interval training can have rather large benefits for performance.

But with most of the benefits seeming to occur with only a handful of sessions per week (2-3 is the norm) and with benefits appearing to end fairly quickly (3-6 weeks), we might ask what a trainee should do when either

a. They need to train more frequently than that

b. They are looking at their training over a period longer than a few weeks. That is, if interval training stops providing benefits after 3-6 weeks, what should a trainee do for the remaining 46-49 weeks out of the year?

There is also the issue of how intervals integrate with training when OTHER TYPES OF TRAINING (e.g. weight training) are being done. That is, what happens if someone is training their legs heavily in the weight room twice/week. How realistic is it to then add high intensity interval training to that workload?

As well, what happens when someone (e.g. an athlete or obsessive exerciser) is trying to train daily? What happens then in terms of how they structure their week? If you take much of the current guru-speak (e.g. intervals are the only beneficial way to train) at face value, you end up developing a training week that no human being can survive.

These are the topics I’ll come back to in the remainder of this blog series.

Check out that alliteration, folks.

You can consider this post a sort of side-trip about the whole issue of intervals versus steady state cardio that I’ve been blogging about for the past couple of weeks. I’ve mentioned exercise efficiency briefly in a couple of posts but want to make some more detailed comments before continuing on with this blg series.

One of the common arguments against steady state cardio is something akin to ‘Steady state is useless because you become more efficient at it and burn less calories doing it.’

I’ve already addressed part of why this argument is stupid but want to go into a bit more detail.

The simple fact is that you get more efficient at anything you do regularly. This is true of weight training and interval training. And what do you do when that happens? You increase the workload (e.g. add weight to the bar, try to go faster in your sport, use a higher intensity for your intervals). Duh.

Yet somehow that same logic seemingly can’t be applied to steady state cardio, at least not according to gurus with an interval program to sell.

Somehow, even though you get better at it (assuming that this does significantly impact on calorie burn, which I’ll address next), you can’t ever work harder.

That is to say say I start walking at 3.5mph on a treadmill. Say that six weeks later I’ve become more efficient and am burning less calories. Are the anti-steady state people seriously suggesting that I can’t simply raise the workload to say 3.8 mph (or 3.5 mph on a 1.5% incline) to burn more calories (to offset any increase in efficiency)?

Yes, that does seem to be what they’re saying. So while it goes without saying that they would suggest adding weight to the bar when things get lighter, or increasing the intensity of intervals when they get harder, this somehow can’t be applied to steady state cardio. Can you understand why I have such a bug up my ass about this topic and the stupid arguments involved? It’s because they make absolutely zero fucking sense.

But I digress.

A bigger question is whether any of the above actually makes a shit’s worth of difference for the average trainee. That is, does efficiency really improve so drastically as to radically reduce caloric expenditure during steady state (some people seem to have this implied idea that you’ll be burning like half as many calories due to improved efficiency, or whatever)?

The short answer is no.

The long answer follows:

First I should probably define efficiency in the sense it’s being used here. The key thing to realize in looking at this is that most of the energy that you expend on any activity is lost as heat, only some percentage of it actually goes to producing actual work.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that, for cycling, this number ranges from about 20% (only 1/5th of the amount of energy you burn actually goes to power production) to 25% (1/4 of the total amount of energy burned goes to work production). Essentially efficiency is a measure of how much external work you get for a certain input of energy.

Of course, from a performance point of view, higher efficiencies are better, the more mechanical output I get for a certain amount of energy input, the faster I will go (on the bike, running, etc).

Now, the next question to look at is how much caloric expenditure (e.g. to cover a certain distance) varies for that range of efficiencies. Let’s say I ride my bike and generate a total power output of 420 kj (I’m picking this odd value to make the math simpler). To convert this to calories, I divide by 4.2 so that’s 100 calories. But only that only represents some percentage of the total I burned because only 20-25% of what I burned calorically went into the actual power output that my Power meter measured.

So to calculate it back out, I can divide by 0.2 for 20% efficiency or 0.25 for 25% efficiency. I’m going to use the extremes to save a bunch of calculations and look at what the maximum realistic change might actually be.

100 calories /0.2 = 500 calories burned

100 calories /0.25 = 400 calories burned

No doubt, I burn fewer calories if I’m more efficient, about 20% less comparing the lowest efficiency to the highest efficiency. So for every 1% increase in efficiency, I burn 4% fewer calories at the same workload.

But here’s the next question, how much training does it take for me to go from a 20% efficiency to a 25% efficiency? Or even to increase my efficiency by 1%?

The short answer is: essentially forever.

The longer answer is: ok, not exactly forever but it’s a time frame that is utterly irrelevant to the general population.

To make my point, I’m going to pull a data point from a study of arguably the most dominant cyclist to yet live: Lance Armstrong.

Tracked over approximately 7 years of training, Lance improved his efficiency by a whopping 8%. Or roughly 1% PER YEAR. And, to quote the paper directly:

“It is hypothesized that the improved muscular efficiency probably reflects changes in muscle myosin type stimulated from years of training intensely for 3-6 h on most days.”

Read that closely, three to six hours of cycling per day damn near EVERY DAY to get a 1% efficiency increase PER YEAR.

And yet, somehow, folks think that walking on the treadmill a few times per week is going to ramp up their efficiency such that they are burning massively less calories during their workouts after a few weeks.

Sorry folks, it doesn’t work that way. There’s a reason that endurance athletes train damn near daily for years on end to reach their ultimate genetic limit of performance. After VO2 max peaks and lactate threshold peaks, the only way to get better is with efficiency improvements. And it takes years of grinding effort to improve this by even a small amount.

But you say, what’s happening when, after a few weeks, it’s suddenly easier to do my workouts?

That’s not efficiency, that’s called improving fitness.

And, as above, when that happens you have to increase the workload.

When 100 lbs on the bar is too light, you go to 110 lbs.

When 200 watts during intervals is too easy, you go to 220 watts.

And when 3.5 mph on the treadmill becomes easier, you raise the speed, incline or both.

Yet every pro-interval guru who would tell you do the first and second, seem to feel that it’s impossible to do the third.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

P.S. For folks coming in late, let me make it clear again that I am not trying to make an argument for steady state or against interval training (as both have their roles to play), I’m simply trying to point out some of the more idiotic arguments being made by the pro-interval camp to try and discredit steady state cardio as a useful modality.

Going to take a break from the interval versus steaady state series and answer a question that came in vie email.

I’ll get back to the main series on Wednesday.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com

****

Q: Hey Lyle,
If you would allow me a brief intro . . . my name is Leland Hammonds and I am a 29 year old Kinesiology professor here in San Antonio, Texas. I also own my own personal training business. For the last three years, I have spent approx three hours a day, six days a week studying nutrition and exercise research as they relate to fat loss. It consumes my every waking thought. Although I do absolutely no marketing - I am booked solid Mon-Fri early mornings and late evenings (basically every second I am not at the college) with fat-loss clients. I believe this has more to do with my client selection/admission process and absolutely constant nagging about nutrition (I normally do not allow a client to continue training with me if they don’t get their nutrition right within the first few weeks of training). All my clients are referrals and almost all of them want fat loss.

That being said, although I read research incessantly, I was very apprehensive about using the internet and hearing what the “fitness experts” are saying and advocating. While I still believe a strong filter should be in place, I am so glad I changed my mind. Your articles, interviews, and books and been such a help to me, I felt obligated to thank you via email (I have also enjoyed Alan Aragon, Alwyn Cosgrove, and a few others but your work has really inspired me - end of dorky praise). I have a few questions for you (sorry I am not using the forum - but basically they piss me off and I am always dumber for reading the crap in them), I know you are busy so I will just ask one (for now).

First, I have read tons of your articles on the internet (I think I even found something you may have doodled on a napkin and threw away and somehow it made it to a website!) and I have only found that you mentioned multiplying a woman’s bodyweight for 14 and a man’s by 15 to calculate maintenance calories. Because your a true nerd like me, I don’t believe that what you would actually do with a client (figured you mentioned it for simplicity and not to blow your readers minds) and was wondering if you would share what equation, formula, or what have you that you to set maintenance calories, taking age, weights, height, and current activity level into consideration.

A. Actually that’s exactly what I do and I’m going to explain not only where those values come from but why I do it this way.

Assuming average activity (1 hour of exercise + normal daily activity), 14-16 cal/lb is usually a decent enough starting point for maintenance. I ignore all of the other variables since they don’t usually add much except complexity to the equations. Yes, they do affect things to be sure but, unless you’re looking at real extremes of age, body fat, height, etc. I don’t find that they add much overall. You can prove this to yourself by comparing values spat out by the more complex equations compared to the quick estimates for a variety of different numbers.

The variance usually isn’t much more than a couple hundred calories either way and you have to adjust for the real world anyhow so I just use the quick estimates and go. I have better things to do with my day than work math.

I’d note that if you had a client that was at the extreme end (e.g. 80 year old woman), it might be worth workign some of the more complicated equations to get a more accurate starting point. But for the clientele most will end up working with (in a certain range of age, bodyfatness, etc), the below will be close enough to start.

Anyhow, I base the 14-16 cal/lb on the following values which takes into account the four major variables that determine daily energy expenditure.

Resting metabolic rate: 10-11 cal/lb. Women use 10, men use 11. If you work something like the Harris-Benedict equation (which includes age, weight, etc.) for most realistic ranges, it’s always within shooting distance of this value. So I use the quick estimate. For example, I plugged my numbers (37 year old male, 5′7″, 155 lbs) into one of the online calculators and it spit out 1630 calories for RMR. 155*11 = 1705 calories.

Thermic effect of activity: This is always a crapshoot since it can range from a mere 10-20% over basal (if you sit all day) to 100% of basal if you’re involved in heavy activity. Assuming relatively average daily activity and training levels, a 30-50% multiplier is usually sufficient here. So 10-11 cal/lb becomes in the realm of 13-15 cal/lb. This assumes and includes an hour of exercise per day or so.

Thermic effect of food: Although it can vary slightly (especially if you look at extremes of diet), TEF usually amounts to about 10% of the total food intake. So add another 10% to the above. So 13-15 cal/lb becomes 14-16 cal/lb or so.

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis: Of course there’s the additional component of NEAT which can vary massively between individuals. This can’t be readily estimated so I leave it out. It also only appears to be particularly relevant during conditions of overfeeding so I’m not sure it matters much for dieting applications in the first place.

Note: if you want a more detailed look at each of the above variables, I did a rather long article about metabolic rate and its components here.

In general, women or those with a ’slower’ metabolic rate should use the lower value (14 cal/lb) and men or those with a ‘faster’ metabolic rate should use the higher value (16 cal/lb) as a STARTING POINT ESTIMATION for maintenance calories. By the way, slower and faster above are sort of subjective decisions, usually based on previous dieting and relatively tendency to gain or lose weight. It simply represents inherent variability in the components of total energy expenditure.

Ok, I put those last three words in caps to make a point, no matter what equation you use to ESTIMATE maintenance calories, that’s all it is: an ESTIMATION. Basal metabolic rate can vary somewhat even for people with identical stats, differences in activity add up, TEF can vary a bit and NEAT is the big wildcard. People tend to use the equations as holy writ when all they are are estimations.

Now, from that estimated maintenance value, say someone wants to lose fat. A reasonable reduction for a moderate deficit diet might be 20% below mainentenance which is 3 cal/lb (e.g. 15 cal/lb * 0.2 = 3 cal/lb). So ~14-6 cal/lb becomes ~11-13 cal/lb. Bodybuilders have long used 10-12 cal/lb as a starting point for fat loss; turns out they weren’t all idiots afterall.

For mass gains, you’d add to this estimated maintenance of course but your question wasn’t about muscle gain so I won’t talk much more about that.

Clearly if you used a different deficit or surplus, you’d get slightly different values.

Now, here’s the key thing that most miss: the above ESTIMATES have to be modified based on real-world body composition changes. Because it doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things what some ESTIMATE EQUATION says should be happening if that’s not what’s happening.

So then you have to decide what you consider a reasonable rate of either fat loss. On average a male may be able to achieve 1-1.5 lbs true fat loss per week on a moderate deficit diet although this will be somewhat lower if he’s very lean and somewhat higher if he’s very fat. That’s assuming no muscle or performance loss mind you.

Females, by dint of their smaller size usually have to accept lower rates of fat loss without truly heroic efforts. Two pounds per month true fat loss may be all that’s realistically achievable. Sucks, huh?

So any estimates of caloric intake have to then be adjusted based on whether or not that true fat loss is being seen. Losing less than that, you may need to reduce calories slightly. Losing more or losing performance, calories may need to come up.

I’d note that this is a topic I address in more detail in both the Rapid Fat Loss Handbook and the Guide to Flexible Dieting, in both I give the scheme I use to adjust calories while dieting based on what’s actually happening in the real world.

I’d note that it’s not quite this simple, water retention can mask true fat loss and fat loss isn’t always linear (there are often stalls and drops that occur, a topic I’m currently looking into in some detail right now). A female who is only losing 2 pounds per month, but who retains 5 lbs of water during her cycle may think that the diet is not working when she’s actually on the perfect caloric intake.

But if someone is extremely inactive, I’ve seen them needing 8 cal/lb to lose fat effectively even if they exercise daily. This is more common than you think. Sitting at a computer all days burns crap all calories, even standing up every few minutes significantly increases this (we’ve been using the Bodybugg to track it). Add an hour of exercise per day at moderate intensities and you don’t get much. Calories have to come down (or activity has to be consciously increased in either volume or intensity) for effective fat loss.

People who are insanely active may have to go much higher calorically to avoid excessive deficits and/or performance drops. This is the exception of course and probably not a major part of your clientele. Folks who are doing 4+ hours/day of training don’t usually hire personal trainers for fat loss.

But these tend to be the exception more than the rule so 14-16 cal/lb for maintenance and 10-12 cal/lb for fat loss work as simple and effective starting points. Since they have to be adjsuted based on real-world changes anyhow, I don’t find that using more complicated equations adds very much unless you’re just trying to impress your clients with your math abilities.

Put a bit more simply: since any estimate you’re going to use will have to be modified by real world changes, and since the more complicated equations invariably give results that are at least within close shooting distance of the quick estimates, I simply choose to use the quick estimates (which I’m going to have to adjust anyway) and spend my time doing more valuable things.

Hope that helps

Lyle

In Wednesday’s blog, I started to examine some other physiological explanations (outside of EPOC) to potentially explain the seeming disconnect between the total irrelevancy of EPOC and both the research and real-world fat loss results from interval training. I’m going to continue and conclude that discussion today by looking at some other mechanisms by which interval training may be affecting fat loss in both research and the real world.

The Hormonal Response

The hormonal response to any kind of high-intensity training is significantly different than in response to low-intensity training. While low intensity training typcially only releases noradrenaline (from the nerve terminals) with only small amounts of adrenaline (from the adrenal medulla), high-intensity exercise releases both adrenaline/noradrenaline in large amounts.

For various reasons, all of which are discussed in some detail in The Stubborn Fat Solution, that hormonal response can be beneficial to fat loss. Quite in fact, in that book, I use intervals for specifically that reason in two of the stubborn fat protocols.

In addition to potentially impacting on fat mobilization (lipolysis), this hormonal response can have one other major effect that is probably a major cause of the results in many of the studies being cited by the pro-interval group. That’s that high intensity exercise often blunts hunger.

Blunted hunger/appetite

If there is a single glaring flaw in nearly all of the research that is being used either in support of intervals or to tear down steady state cardio, it’s that diet is uncontrolled. This is important for two reasons, one physiological and one practical.

The practical one should be pretty damn obvious: anybody who is trying to lose fat without paying attention to their diet has it ass-backwards (for context, one of the most rabid pro-interval gurus has ‘Correct Nutrition’ as the #1 bit of importance in his Fat-loss Heirarchy). He’s assuming that diet is fixed, and then using research that is not controlling diet at all.

The other issue is a physiological one, having to do with how exercise can impact on appetite. Now, this could be an entire blog post (or series in its own right) as there are myriad physiological and psychological ways that training can impact on appetite (sometimes exercise decreases hunger, sometimes it increases it).

However, at least one data point shows rather clearly that high intensity activity tends to blunt hunger more than low-intensity activity.

Quite in fact, in one of the studies currently being used to claim that ‘Steady state cardio makes you fatter’ (the steady state group had a 0.5 kg fat gain in visceral fat compared to a 0.5 kg fat loss in the interval group), the researchers explicitly state:

“However, our estimates of energy expenditure and intake lack sufficient precision to comfortably conclude that energy balance was unaffected in the HIIE condition. Thus, it is feasible that the change in FM that occurred in HIIE may have been influenced by unreported changes in diet. Indeed, HIIE- induced suppressed diet intake may be one of a number of possible factors underlying the fat loss effect of HIIE.11 For example, HIIE may have suppressed appetite or decreased attraction for energy-dense foods.24,25.”

Meaning that the interval group may have lost fat because the exercise may have made them eat less.

While a huge benefit if someone isn’t controlling calories has no real relevance if they are. I’d also note that the total fat loss in that specific study wasn’t much, a whopping 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) over 15 weeks. The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook can take that much fat off of a person in ONE WEEK.

Tangential question with a tone that moves beyond snarky and to outright accusation: how come the pro-interval gurus who trot out these studies don’t ever mention these specifics when they claim that intervals are superior to steady state cardio? That the intervals may have simple worked because subjects ate less, or that the actual real-world fat loss amounted to jack shit in the first place?

Simply making people work harder for a damn change

Ok, this one isn’t addressed in the research but it’s still important to results.

Let’s face facts, most people train like pussies. I don’t care how hard they claim to work, I’ve spent damn near 20 years in commecial gyms and the simple fact is that most don’t.

Go look at the average person on the treadmill, odds are they aren’t even breaking a sweat or doing anything beyond watching tv and talking on their cell phone. And while my comparison on Saturday was intervals to a moderate aerobic sessions (where I can easily burn 10 cal/min), the average person may be burning closer to 5 cal/min during ‘fat-burning’ cardio. Or 150 calories over a 30 minute pissant steady state session. Under those conditions, a 20 minute interval session (which may burn 200+ calories) actually does win out from a simple energy balance perspective, in addition to any other benefits discussed above.

If there’s one thing that the whole interval training fad has done, it’s to get people to actually work somewhat out of their comfort zone. But to a great degree, this has less to do with steady state cardio as a modality and more about how it’s used. Fine, people usually do steady state cardio at irrelevant intensities. No argument here. But that has nothing to do with steady state and more to do with the fact that people are

• Being given shitty advice (fat burning zone, bro)
• Lazy

So, yes, if telling them that intervals is going to MELT THE FAT OFF OF THEM actually gets them to work hard, that’s a benefit. I’d also note in this context that this can backfire. People who are too wimpy to suffer aren’t going to do intervals effectively and will probably end up getting LESS out of an interval workout (that they half-ass) than a properly done steady state cardio session (which they’ll also half-ass).

And of course none of this really gets back to the question I posed on Saturday regarding how often I can or should do intervals compared to how often I can or should do steady state. That’s the next blog post.

Lyle

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com