Fat Loss And Exercise Intensity

How To Burn More Fat
– Why conventional cardio at low-moderate intensity is not as efficient for fat burn as interval training

It is the level of intensity during exercise that influences your post-exercise metabolism. When you work out at a steady pace at high intensity, it takes longer to reach a state where you transfer as much energy to the working muscles as needed, than when you work at a steady low-moderate intensity.

Until you reach this state, you create a deficit that you have to “repay” when recovering after exercise. The body pays this deficit with a significant excess oxygen consumption in the period immediately following exercise (compared to oxygen consumption at the same level of activity but not following exercise). This recovery oxygen consumption is considerably larger and goes on for a longer time following workouts of higher intensity.

That’s because with high intensity the physiological processes of recovery are a lot more comprehensive, relatively.   It takes a lot more too recover, basically.  This translates into a relatively higher post-workout metabolism – which is great news if you are looking to lose body fat! 

Interval training comes into the picture because you cannot sustain high intensity for very long if you have to do it continuously. However, if you do intervals, you body recovers partly in the easy intervals. This way, you can increase the total amount of work at high intensity through interval training and thus increase the pay-off of your workout time.

The body has this unique ability to adapt to the physical demands it is exposed to. When you do long sessions at low to medium intensities, you are teaching your body to get more efficient for endurance. Even though you consume energy while exercising for endurance, you do not get the help of boosting your resting metabolism that you get when training at high intensities or doing resistance training…that’s why steady state cardio training is not as efficient for fat loss as interval training and resistance training.

Try it out for yourself!

Maybe you have been doing those long cardio sessions for a long time and you experience that:

  •  you have reached some kind of plateau
  • you get overuse injuries
  • you don’t get the fat loss results as fast as you are looking for

If so, why not start today by trying out some of my interval training sessions and you let me know if you don’t feel a big difference in 6 weeks. Of course I also invite you to let me know if you do feel a difference or if you have any questions about fat loss and exercise intensity.
Trampo-Lean - Interval Training On The Garden TrampolineIf you have access to a trampoline you can also go here to get a 3-step progression interval training program with fun full body exercises to do on the outdoor trampoline.

 

 

If you want a more scientific article about fat loss and exercise intensity I refer to Jenny May’s blogpost on Health Thru Fitness  

 

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